Entry for Monday, 14 June 1999

Photo 1. Leaving Norfolk, NE behind in the early morning.

Photo 2. This is corn country now. Soon this will be as "high as an elephant's eye."

Photo 3. Connie with banana for a roadside banana break.

Photo 4. Barb Wegner at the Cafe on Main in Bancroft, NE.

Photo 5. The Cafe on Main in Bancroft, NE.

Photo 6. Hills and more hills.

Photo 7. Entering Iowa.

Photo 8. End-of-the-trail at the Super 8 in Onawa, Iowa.

Last Modified on 6/14/99 at 19:11:33

Day's Narrative: The motel had a hot sit-down complimentary meal of eggs, bacon, hash browns, orange juice, toast & jelly. I was there when they opened at 6:00 AM.

Today was the hilly day. I climbed the first to get out of town (Photo 1). Each hill had a valley just down it with a bridge over the creek, which was followed by a bottom-of-the-gears grind up the hill out of the valley. Except for about a 10 mile flat stretch just before Wisner the whole day was like this. I am reminded of the stretch of highway before Greensboro, NC two years ago while crossing the US--but this wasn't as bad as the North Carolina road. Somehow this type of terrain is almost worse than crossing the Rockies.

There was a lot of traffic on US 275 out of Norfolk, but the traffic wasn't a problem since there was a wide paved shoulder. The first stop was 25 miles down the road in Wisner at a supermarket for a food break. After that I was on SR 51 heading for the Iowa state line. I thought I would leave most of the trucks behind, but they were on SR 51 too -- and there wasn't any paved shoulder. Still, because the traffic was relatively light, I only had to leave the road once when trucks approaching from both directions intersected where I was. It was prudent here to simply ride off onto the shoulder and stop while they passed. Once I was hit in the cheek by a piece of gravel when I met an oncoming truck. It hurt so much I was sure I was bleeding, but I wasn't. This reminded me again of the importance of wearing protective glasses when bicycling.

Connie caught up with me around 11:00 AM for a banana break (Photo 3). We agreed to meet about 6 miles down the road at the town of Bancroft (pop. 494).

We had lunch at the Cafe on Main in Bancroft where we met Barb Wegner. Barb has four children and is married to the manager of Agland, a farm chemical and petroleum business in the area. She just started working at the restaurant a month ago after spending 13 years raising her children and running a day care center. It was a pleasant lunch, and the Cafe has really good ice cream on peach pie -- with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, Barb's specialty.

After lunch I went back to riding and grinding up the hills. Just as I thought I couldn't go on, I came to the Missouri River valley--the last hill. After crossing the river, I took my picture with the Iowa sign and pedaled 7 miles into Onawa, Iowa where I met Connie at the motel at 3:30.

Photo 8 is the end-of-the-trail photograph, however I will put some extra photographs of the trip into "More Photos" web pages following this page. I limit each day to eight photographs because more than eight causes the update speed to be too long. Typically, I take about 20 photos per day.

Connie and I are sorry the trip is over. We hope you have enjoyed it too. Tomorrow we begin driving back to Los Alamos.

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© Ray & Connie Poore, 1998