The Mississippi

Yesterday we continued to enjoy a change in scenery as the corn fields gave way to... corn fields with small hills and clumps of trees. We'll take what we can get. Mike had predicted we would see 0 goats, I predicted 2, we saw 2. It's all that machine learning I do at work. Makes me good at predicting things. Or it was luck. One of the two. The terrain grew hillier and the wind picked up as the day wore on. Surprise, surprise, the wind direction was not in our favour. It's almost like we're riding into the prevailing wind direction... I found the combination of up-hill riding and a headwind challenging.

We approached mile 50 towards 5 pm. Since our chosen campground was waiting for us at mile 70 we pushed on and covered the final 20 miles at a good pace. The road to the campground was a 2.5 mile gravel track, which led us between two swamps before depositing us in front of the Mississippi River. It was worth the ride. Even better than the view was the campground host John who came over to welcome us and offer us a couple of cold beers. We changed into casual clothes and joined John and his wife for a drink outside their RV. They told us that the campground had only opened the day prior due to flooding. Sure enough there were high-water marks on various trees and posts. The campground was quiet though boats came past on the river every now and again.

This morning we crossed the Mississippi for the first but not the last time. We are now in Iowa, the corniest state of all. The first order of business was to visit a bike shop in the town of Muscatine for new chains and tires. We last changed our chains in Massachussets, around mile 2500. If you wait too long to change your chain it will stretch and begin to wear out your cassette (your gears) on the back of your bike. Then you have to buy both a new chain and a new cassette. We felt that 2500 miles on a chain was a little too much and had resolved to buy new chains after 2000 miles. We crossed that marker a few days ago but hadn't seen a bike shop until today. The bike shop crew were helpful and got us set up with new gear. A major ride called RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) is happening in Iowa this week and the riders had cleared the bike shop out of some items. A driver at an intersection asked us if we were part of the ride and a support bus for the ride gave us a merry toot of the horn as they passed.

The route now has us heading north for a while and we headed out of Muscatine in that direction. As we headed down a small highway we noticed a closure up ahead. It was RAGBRAI and the 8500 attendant riders. They were streaming down our route, which the sheriff's department had helpfully closed. We continued on the closed road against the flow of bicycles and enjoyed the spectacle. I saw a gentleman with a wine bottle fixed to his helmet and two ladies who had added unicorn horns to theirs. It provided some great entertainment for a few miles until the routes diverged.

Here's hoping for something similarly exciting tomorrow!

Yesterday's miles: 73
Today's miles: 57

Graffiti in the corn

Check out this zucchini!

Headed toward the Blanchard Island campground

Swamps of Illinois

First view of the Mississippi

RAGBRAI - 8500 riders

Iowa