PowerCycle

04/28 So if anyone hears anything about a string of pepper-sprayed dogs along Hwy L44 in Iowa I don’t know anything about it. It was a record day of getting chased by the 4-legged demons. One of them ran right out in front of me and I had to slow down so I wouldn’t run it over. I also saw a rabbit looking like it wanted in on the action. I opted not to pepper spray it though.

Great day for riding today. It was a bit cool (high 50′s) with a decent side wind. No rain but it’s forecast for the next 2 days. Joy. Most of the day was spent riding along the “Loess Hills”. I read up a little on this and this geographic feature is only found along the Missouri River in Iowa, Missouri and in China. On one side I had these huge, tree-covered hills formed by rock that had been ground down to powder by glaciers and then blown by the wind to form hills when they retreated. On the other side for as far as you could see, huge tracts of perfectly flat corn fields (no corn yet though).

I did see something that bugged me a lot. Pig farming seems pretty big around here and there were quite a few places where you could see dozens of the cute little guys right next to the road in large, fenced pens. I actually caused two different pig stampedes which was kind of funny to watch (and listen to). Anyway, I noticed while riding by the biggest set of pens that there were a lot of dead pigs laying on the ground right in the same area where the live pigs were. The dead ones looked like they’d been there for a few days too. I could understand seeing maybe one but half a dozen? That just didn’t seem right to me.

Hit the bank up this morning to get my stolen credit card letter notarized and faxed to my bank in Florida. They actually charged me $5 for the first faxed page and $1 for each page after that. I had to pay $8 to have 4 sheets of paper faxed! At least its over with. The problem now is that I rode past where I thought I was going to stop for the day so I’ll have to slow down a bit or I’ll beat my new card to Salix, IA.

Now that I’m in Council Bluffs I get to bust out a new Adventure Cycling map. This is a very exciting time for us long distance bicyclists.

GPX Track

04/27 Today turned out to be a royal pain in the a**. After a short but cold (42 F) ride into a strong headwind out of the north I arrived in Hamburg. At least it didn’t rain until I got here.

The plan was to stay here tonight because riding into the wind and on 5 miles of wet gravel road was a bit tiring and it’s too early for me to be putting the stress of muddy riding on my foot. After handing my credit card over to the lady that runs the motel I started planning in my head everything I needed to get done today. My thoughts were interrupted by her telling me that my card was declined. I had her try one more time but no go. I used another one and figured I’d call the bank and see what the problem was once I checked into the room. This card is also my check/ATM card so I was a little worried. Sometimes they freak out a little when they start seeing charges from weird places but this shouldn’t have set anything off. Its not like charges haven’t been coming in since I left in February.

They have wifi here so I logged in to check my account online before I called the bank. Lo and behold there are 3 charges from blizzard.com totaling $70. Now I haven’t played WOW for many years so I called them and waited on hold for 45 minutes to talk to someone in their billing department (no speaker phone in the room either). Finally they picked up and told me that, yes someone else was using your card. They said they’d look into it so I hung up and called the bank. Here’s the PITA part. To submit a VISA claim you have to print, sign and have notarized a form stating that the charges were fraudulent. I also had to write a letter saying that I needed my replacement card sent to an address where I think I’ll be in 3-4 days (Salix, Iowa). Even figuring out where I’m going to be in a few days was a pain. This letter also required a copy of my driver’s license. Once I had all this I needed to fax it to the bank.

OK, so I don’t have a printer, fax, scanner or a notary stuffed in my panniers. So I got to walk in the cold rain to the town bank (who couldn’t help me), the town library (where I printed everything) and then to City Hall to see if they could notarize it. They couldn’t so I have to go back to the bank in the morning since they close at 3pm. I’ve now spent 4 hours dealing with this. Argh.

Last night was a mess. Rain and wind all night. Slept OK but my tent and everything else is a bit muddy. I didn’t even get to eat a warm dinner because it rained all night.

After reading about this swine flu going around I might just have to stay in some remote place until it blows over. Or maybe I’ll end up like Will Smith in I Am Legend. It’ll just be me and my bike (and the magic mushrooms from yesterday).

GPX Track

04/26 We’re not in Kansas anymore! Sorry, had to do it. Nebraska has some crazy weather. Tacked on some good miles thanks to a 35 mph tailwind from the South. Broke my top speed record–43 mph. No rain all day but it hit hard once I got to camp. I’m not making this up, less than 5 minutes after I set my tent up the rain started. The winds gusts, according to NOAA , were as high as 60 mph (which I knew thanks to my new weather radio). There was also some pea-sized hail (which I knew because when I stuck my head outside to see if I was going to get washed into the Missouri River it hit me in the face several times).

My tent has a little puddle of water on the windward side because the rain was coming down so hard it splashed up over the raised floor of the tent. There were even a few times where I had to hold the tent poles up because the wind was so strong. There’s only been one other time that I’ve been camping where it’s rained so hard and that was in the Smoky Mountains. I did end up emailing moosejaw.com this morning which is where I bought my tent. The fly seems to be leaking along the top seam. It only does this when its been raining a while but it’s a little annoying. Its under a year old so maybe they can send me a free replacement.

A couple days ago I noticed that one of the retention brackets that mounts the pannier onto the frame was missing a screw which means that instead of 3 brackets I only have 2. The plastic piece that the screw tightens into was there so I’ve been trying to find a hardware store that might have the right-sized screw. Finally found a place today but I had to buy 10 when I only needed one. Oh well. Its funny up here too, whenever I buy groceries they ask, “Would you like that in a sack?” My answer has always been, “What?” I must stick out like a sore thumb. They also sold chocolate pecan clusters and bulk Gummie Bears. It was actually a pretty cool store– Orscheln in Falls City.

Staying at a campsite near the entrance to the Steamboat Junction trail in Brownsville. There’s no way I’m riding on it though. It was much softer than the Katy Trail and I’m not going through another Achilles problem again so I’m taking an alternative (mostly paved) route through Hamburg. Yes, I’ll be back in Missouri again. Only for a short time tomorrow and then I’ll be in Iowa. All these new states I’ve never been to before. Very exciting.

Met a few really nice people today. Just before leaving Falls City a guy named Patrick pulled over to where I was checking my map and we chatted for a bit. He’s another cyclist from around here. In Nemaha I was getting low on water but the only store was closed. Saw a guy (Rick?) on a lawnmower riding down the road so I asked him if he knew where I could get some. He turned the mower around and let me fill them up in his office that he’d just left. And my hero of the trip so far is John. When I pulled into the campsite he was there with his wife and kids fishing in the Missouri. He was also hunting for mushrooms that I guess are really expensive. Anyway, we talked for a bit and then they left when it started pouring out. Well, 5 minutes later the rain is coming down in a deluge and John pulls up in his car, gets out and standing by my tent asks if I’d like to stay at their place. How cool. I told him I’d be fine and thanked him profusely.

GPX Track

04/25 Where to begin… the weather is a good place I suppose. It sure looked like it was going to be raining all day but not a drop. No sun today but I’ll take dry as a welcome substitute. The wind was a killer though. Right in my face all day and it wasn’t a warm, pleasant breeze either. I can hear the thunder now and it’s getting closer so it’ll be raining soon.

The biggest thing that happened was my first dog bite. Luckily it latched onto my pannier instead of my leg. It actually bit the small, waterproof bag that attaches to the rear of the left pannier and held on for a second. There’s no way a 50 lb dog is bringing down 320 lbs of me/bike/gear so it let go after being dragged for a couple feet. After pedaling away from it for 50 feet I stopped to check for damage and was glad it’s teeth didn’t go through (yay Ortlieb). The bag has all my tools in it so it wouldn’t have been the end of the world since I could just keep them in a baggie. It was one of those fast and quiet ones so I didn’t know it was after me until I heard it right behind me.

It happened on rural road (Hwy 7) about a mile and a half before the Doniphan County line. The owner of the dog saw it run out across the road after me and tried to yell at it to come back but he didn’t even bother to get up off his tractor to get his stupid dog back. Once his dog was back on his property and I was checking for damage at the side of the road you’d think he’d come over to see if I was OK right? Wrong. He drove his tractor over to a barn so I wouldn’t be able to see him. It might have been because I busted out my camera to record this historic event and he’s camera shy. He’s just luckily there was no damage and that I didn’t see a cop after that. I swore to myself that from now on if any dog runs at me its getting a dose of pepper spray.

Dog #2 ran at me less than a mile up the road and boy did it do a 180 when I blasted it with Halt!. This one ran at me before I could even get out my dog taser. The pepper spray is very accessible though. Kansas is shaping to be a worse dog state than Georgia.

There were no stores from the time I left and probably won’t be for another 11 miles tomorrow. Had enough to snack on and because I wasn’t sweating very much I had more than enough water for the 35 mile trip here.

My home for the night is the city park in White Cloud (pop. 239). It’s my first time staying in a city park and I like it. There’s an open shelter right next to me with picnic tables, a bathroom with running water and nice soft grass to sleep on. They even have wireless here (OK, one of the houses close by does). There’s also an electrical outlet I used to charge up the camera battery. There are no open stores in the town but I have lot’s of food. I kind of feel guilty staying here for free and not even being able to buy stuff from a store to support to town’s economy a bit.

The town is small but it has a couple interesting things in it. One is a memorial commemorating the piggy bank. According to the sign they created it to honor a 10 year old boy who saved up his money to help raise funds for a leper colony. The other thing here is a lookout that let’s you see 4 different states: Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri. The problem with lookouts is that there are on top of hills so I’ll just settle for riding through them all.

I don’t want to jinx it but my foot is almost fully healed. No pain at all. So now everything from my waist down has been injured at some point. All I need now is a wrist/elbow/shoulder/neck problem.

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