July 26, 2002- Oelwein to Anamosa

76.3 Miles- 1749 Feet of Climb

Conditions- Light winds- decent temps, although a bit hotter than previous.  High of 89.   The hills became steeper and longer.  Just a harbinger of tomorrow!

As always, our great thanks go to Rich Ketcham at Geobike for allowing us to use this helpful information.

Towns visited

Oelwein (start town)

Stanley, Aurora, Winthrop, Quasqueton, Troy Mills, Central City, Anamosa-  (overnight town- home of Grant Wood)

We start out at 6:26 AM this morning after the best tent sleep that I have had all week.  Before we start with the running commentary, I want to give you an idea of what "eating our way across Iowa" costs.  Here's my daily food expenses on the road, not counting Supper or entertainment expenses at night-

Our first town is Stanley and we see a brand new, recently developed tractor with tracks, rather than wheels.  We know we have lots of miles so are mentally like the commercial.  "Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Go, Go" all the time.  We rapidly move on toward Aurora and see a gentleman riding an exercycle, drinking a beer and using a bubble machine on everybody.  We should have obtained a large fan and blew wind in his face for headwinds, don'tcha think?

We have more towns at the beginning of the ride than at the end this time.  We have some great road surfaces this morning.  Rollerbladers were having a field day and passed us at over 25 MPH while drafting tandems.  But that all changes.  Ka BUMP, Ka BUMP, Ka BUMP, Ka BUMP, Ka BUMP, the rhythm of the road cracks and the dangerous ones reminds me of a trip across Louisiana on the I-10!  We start seeing things by the road that have left the bicycles from the vibration.  Here's a water bottle, a bicycle pump, a bandana, a banana, stuffed items of clothing, just about everything except biking shorts.  We don't stop to pick them up.  It's way too dangerous.  These cracks in the road before Winthrop are very dangerous, too.  If they are traveling the same way as our direction of travel, and they have any width at all, they can grab our tires when they fall in.  The bike stops very suddenly and we continue.  We stay at an extreme rate of carefulness so that it does not happen.  

Now we're in Winthrop and I start looking a block away from the route.  Any time we see a food store or a Casey's on the route, we know it's going to be a zoo inside, but if we look hard, a block off the route, it's a great discovery.  I buy some suntan lotion, SPF 45, meaning "dark room".  A train comes through town and cuts it in half for a few minutes.  Oh my, here's a county sheriff who has a long shirt, long pants, and a bulletproof vest on helping us find things, reinforcing my belief that the vast majority of peace officers are here to serve, a contrast from the Sergeant that we ran into yesterday.  I ask him if he needs the vest.  He tells me it's regulation.  Bummer!  He had his dog with him.  The officer tells me that this dog is taught to find drugs and protect the officer and others from bad guys.  Awesome.  Now do you think we could train the dog to find band instruments left in lockers when the kids don't practice. Listen to this- Here's a band in Winthrop that is refreshingly wonderful.  The singer has at least one hundred folks singing with him in some audience participation.  This isn't the same old way to loud drummer and garage guitars.  These guys are good.  Listen to and watch the Swing Crew!  Aren't they awesome?

Eastern Iowa is giving us some hills and trees.  Sure, there are some cornfields, but they do not dominate the landscape like they did farther West.  They are now in the fields, surrounded by trees and ridges.  Before, they were the landscape.  This is my favorite part, even though the hills become memorable for the cyclists.

As we cross the beautiful Wapsipinicon River, we know that we are entering the town of Central City.  You may have noticed that Tara is no longer riding with us and being part of your DRP crew.  She found a fellow Hawg with a tandem who offers in her words, "intelligent conversation" and has been riding with him for the last three days, so in town we get whatever female companionship we can since our wives are at home.

Now we're going up on top of a big ridge above Stone City.  Anamosa is the home to Grant Wood, the famous gothic American artist from Iowa.  We certainly can see where he got the inspiration.  The landscape is beautiful around here.  Here's Dana.  She's wearing a shirt made by her Mother that says, "Today is my 17th birthday but, I wish I was over the hill!"

Wow!, this is great, it's the first day we haven't been killed by the last 10 miles.  Now, we're flying down hills into town and how about that, Anamosa has the information center at the entrance of town.  Anamosa, thank you, thank you, thank you.  Our campsite is right here.  You don't know how glad you make us.  All the other towns have felt that cyclists that have just completed 80 miles need to go the the farthest, lowest part of town only to find out that their campsite is on the highest, nearest to the entrance point.  You're on our good side, Anamosa.  We're lovin it!  To make matters even better, there's a bunch of young ladies in the community who are delivering food and snacks from any store we would like.  It was so nice not to have to find it ourselves!

Email me at plummer_dave@prodigy.net

Links to Today's Towns

The Anamosa Ragbrai Site