Posted by scott in Leg 1
05/01 So the wind didn’t shift around like I thought it would so it was another day of riding right into it. Someone told me that 50 miles into the wind is like 100 miles without it. They weren’t kidding. My legs are a bit sore.
Started off this morning riding alongside the hills but then started cutting over more to the west. The road then became very straight with nothing but the occasional farm separated by miles and miles of corn fields. It makes you wonder how some of the towns I passed through even started out considering there are no rivers or other features/industry that you’d normally need to support and sustain a population.
Tomorrow is supposed to be when I pick up my new ATM card in Salix but I checked online and they are only open from 7:30am – 8:30am on Saturday (and not at all on Sunday). Its still about 30 miles from where I am now so I’m not getting up that early to ride over. Oops. I’ll call them in the morning and see if they can forward it up the road for me. Or maybe leave it under the mat.
Staying at the KOA CG in Onawa tonight. $17 which is pretty reasonable. They let me stay in a spot with water/electric at no extra cost which was nice. The shower felt so good considering I didn’t get one yesterday. I never did find an unlocked bathroom where I stayed last night. There were lots of trees though. Didn’t sleep that well because of the trains constantly blowing their horns. Is there a reason they have to do it 4 times? If someone doesn’t hear a train coming after one blast of the horn and they’ve still chosen to stay on the tracks…well…they can win a Darwin Award. It worked out I guess because it rained until 10am so I just stayed in the tent and slept. The best part about today was picking up one of those big cans of Icehouse and a box of chocolate covered peanuts before I arrived here. Boy that hit the spot right after setting up the tent for the night. 
GPX Track
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Train whistles: tradition, if not regulation, dictates four blasts in the pattern long, long, short, long. The last one is held until the train passes the crossing. From doing stories over the years, I figured out there were two occupations I couldn’t I wasn’t suited for: train engineer and convenience store clerk.
The first because I just knew that every car approaching the crossing was going to keep going and we were going to nail it. The latter because I knew that every customer who walked in after 2 A.M. was going to blow me away.
Yes, wind is a real drag. Here’s just how much of a drag.