9-10-2012 (Monday) Dyersville to Lowden, Iowa

Bicycled 53 miles today

Neat old farm truck that is sitting outside by the driveway planted with flowers!

  We left Dyersville at 7:10AM this morning with beautiful blue skies and a little chill in the air. You can definitely feel fall coming. We bicycled along and enjoyed the views of more corn and soybean fields and farms. Once again as we would get up on top a hill we could see for miles. We had about 40 miles of hills today and another 15+ miles of flat but we couldn't make very good headway due to having 20 mph head winds. It's frustrating how a headwind can crush the spirit of a biker when your barrelling down one hill trying to pick up speed to carry you up the next hill and you find yourself shifting down to try to maintain your speed while still goung downhill.

 

 We arrived in Lowden and will be staying at the Lincoln Hotel (we stayed here last year on our way to Bar Harbor). Tomorrow we will bicycle about 31 miles to Muscatine, Iowa where we plan on doing laundry and maybe doing some sight seeing in that area. The Lincoln Hotel does not have internet so I am at the library using their computer. The connection is very slow here so I will have to download my pictures tomorrow night. As we were leaving Dyersville this morning we passed several kids standing out waiting for the bus. Of course they all stared at our bike and timidly waved. Certainly made me miss our grandchildren. We know that the 5 grandchildren we have in school had their first week of school already and hopefully have settled in and will enjoy the school year. Around 3:30 after getting cleaned up we walked over to the local pub "Scneid's" for a few beers and their all you can eat Monday night chicken wing special. So how many wings can a hungry biker eat? I don't know - John lost count after 15.  The bartenders name was Kip and we visited with him for quite a while and before it was all said and done he brought out both of us a  t-shirt from Scneid’s to take with us.  What a nice guy!

This evening while laying in bed too dog tired to do anything but lay there we were talking back and forth asking ourselves why in the world we beat ourselves up the way we do on the hills and into the head winds. We both contemplated that thought for a while and then we looked at each other and said "gosh, I can't wait to do it again tomorrow". Life is good!