"Entry for Friday, 22 August 1997

Holly Wille in Garnavillo, IA.

Iowa countryside near Priarie du Chien.

A truck-load of turkeys awaiting their doom in Postville, IA.

Last Modified on 9/23/97 at 18:13:06

Day's Narrative: I had breakfast as usual, and was on the road by 7:15. It was cool. The temperature was 52 F (11 C), but there was no wind. Later, however, a light tailwind picked up from the north.

School has started in Iowa. The school busses, sometimes called The Yellow Menace, are everywhere early in the morning and late in the afternoon. As a road vehicle, I am required to stop whenever a school bus does. This afternoon I stopped in front of one to wait while a child disembarked. I was the only vehicle around anywhere. The driver waved and smiled broadly.

The highway I rode on all day, US 52, has no paved shoulder. That means I have to ride out in the traffic lane. I don't like that any more than the cars and trucks do. That means people blow their horns at me a lot. I even had a school bus blow at me, as if I were the slow vehicle on the road.

Usually cars blow as they pass. I guess they feel the impression will be more lasting that way. I never respond to these taunts, certainly not with "the finger." Motorists have been known to turn around and come back to try and run down bicyclers who gave them the finger.

It seems to me that when motorists blow their horns it is somewhat like passing gas. I mean, it relieves their frustration and pain a bit to do it, and, as with the passing of gas, I pretend I didn't hear it.

At Postville, IA there was a tractor-trailer full of turkeys awaiting their fate outside a turkey processing plant (see photo).

At Garnavillo, IA I stopped to eat lunch and met Holly Wille (see photo). She got her bachelor's degree in biology two years ago and wants to teach high school in Garnavillo where she grew up. She's working in the convenience store where I stopped until there's an opening. Her husband also grew up there and works for the company Swiss Valley, which markets dairy products in this area. We had a long, interesting conversation.

After lunch, about 30 miles (50 km) from Dubuque, I had a flat on the rear tire, then another, and then another. I finally traced the cause to the failure of the tape around the rim which protects the tube from the ends of the spokes. I appears that the manufacturer of this bicycle used a low quality rim tape, which had simple worn out and let the spoke ends puncture the tube. It is an understatement to say that I was upset. In all, I spent about two hours on this problem, and had the rear tube out six times trying to fix it.

Finally, in desperation, I called Connie on the cell phone in Dubuque, and asked her to find a bicycle shop, buy some rim tape and bring it to me. Meanwhile I continued to try and get the rear tube to hold air. Eventually it looked like I had it, so I started to ride to meet Connie.

We met about 15 miles (25 km) from Dubuque, and she gave me the tape, and resupplied me with tire tubes.

I had to change the rear tube again in downtown Dubuque, and changed the tape at the same time. It appears to be OK now. Tonight I changed the tape in the front tire too, before it gives me problems.

It should be noted that the tire that had the sidewall blowout in Wenatchee, WA on day 2 was also original equipment on this bike. At the time I took off the other original tire and threw it away. I didn't have time to fool with shoddy equipment on this trip.

This is the hilly part of Iowa. From Decorah to Dubuque there were two long grades to climb, and they weren't too bad. Otherwise the country was rolling, not what I would really call "hilly."

Tomorrow we will go to Clinton, IA, about 62 miles (100 km). I expect a strong headwind. The next day we cross the Mississippi and enter Illinois.

[Connie] As I drove along today, my mind wandered along with the truck. Driving through this part of Iowa is an exercise in viewing heartland farming. Agribiz, the practice of farming by huge conglomerates is a big thing here -- it has to be -- no small single farmer could plant, grow and harvest the unbelievable quantity of corn that lines the road sides. As you can see from the picture of the corn field above, every plant is exactly the same size as every other. In a field, the only thing out of a straight line or taller than the rest is a weed. There has been some big-time botanical genetics in force here. Often in a field, there will be a row or score of rows labeled with signs with the letters NK and numbers. I would bet the NK is for Northrop-King, a major seed supplier, and the numbers indicate experimental strains.

Butterflies were popping up in front of me at intervals on the road. Mostly they were an orange and black variety, not big enough to be Monarchs or Viceroys, but pretty.

Baling wire -- the staple of the farm and ranch seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. The old rectangular hay bales held together with baling wire are being replaced with huge hay rolls, covered on the outside by a layer of plastic wrap.This is the first time I've seen plastic coverings on these rolls.

Ray has mentioned chicken farms and their smell. In Kansas and Nebraska, there are huge cattle feed lots, which are pretty stinky. Chickens have a related smell, but much stronger and more sickening and overpowering as you breathe it.

We are in Scandinavian, German country and it is interesting to note the names of towns and roads. Guttenberg, Froelich, Luxemburg. In Dubuque, however, as I got merrily bewildered -- we aren't using the word "lost" anymore -- the names of streets followed the pattern of many towns which use numbers, womens' names, animal names, presidents' names, etc.

Motion sickness -- fortunately I don't have any tendency towards it. The roads in Iowa go up-down, up-down --not in the sense of hills --but in the sense that in any 1,000 foot section, one dips and rises at least 10 times. There must be a huge market around here for vehicle shock absorbers, dramamine and the new little acupressure bracelets that prevent motion sickness.

The above may sound like criticisms of Iowa, and I guess they are little whinings on my part, but the state as we've seen it is beautiful. There are more hills than I would like to be riding up as Ray has today, but they are wonderful for looking at. We are staying at the Day's Inn, which is up a hill, with a beautiful limestone bluff as the backdrop to the parking lot. It has a sign above the parking places next to the bluff saying, "Danger, Falling Rocks."

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© Ray & Connie Poore, 1997