August 10, 2021

Newton, IA – Des Moines, IA

We woke early, even though our day wasn’t planned to be tremendously long, just to try and avoid the still forecasted sticky heat of the day. Jane very kindly cooked us a quick breakfast, eggs and bacon in my case, and saw us off on the road.

The first few miles were the steep rolling hills we’d come to expect of central Iowa… which is to say, not tremendously enjoyable morning riding. I think we were especially down on it after the heat and effort of the previous day, and the fact that even at 7 AM it was already like 80 degrees and so humid you could see a thick haze hanging over everything between hills.

Soon enough though, we turned left onto a really, really, really nice bike path. That review is very possibly a bit emphatic just due to the contrast between it and the rest of our central Iowa experience. Instead of steep rolling hills with no shoulder on a highway without shade, it was a secluded, flat rail-to-trail path that provided ample tree cover for shade. It was a tall glass of ice water in the middle of the desert, as far as we were concerned.

This lovely path took us most of the way into Des Moines, and soon enough we merged onto some city streets and bombed down a giant hill past the Iowa State Capitol building towards our hosts for the evening. Not even on Warmshowers, Cheri and Marty were the contact we were provided by our surprise bike shop friend in Grinnell a few days prior. They graciously invited us into their home and even allowed us to stay an extra day in order to take a rest day in Des Moines.

Marty is a sorta-kinda-retired former Trek and Schwinn bicycle shop owner who does a lot of really inspiring bicycle-related outreach and volunteering (including working more or less full-time at the local bicycle collective). Cheri works at a local college coordinating community outreach and service programs, as well as teaching at the same school. They were both impressive people and extremely warm hosts, and we spent the evening chatting away about politics and life in general over absolutely delicious Iowa fare – pork chops and sweet corn.

August 11, 2021

Rest Day in Des Moines

Alyssa professed a supreme desire to relax as unobserved as possible, without having to get on the bike at all if possible. I was happy to oblige not just out of the kindness of my heart, but also because I had some errands I needed to run. The pencil for my iPad had broken after about 3 days on the road and the nearest (and only?) Apple Store I could find was here in Des Moines, so I made it my mission for the day to trek on a few buses out to the suburbs to go retrieve that piece.

I stopped on the way out in the morning to visit the Des Moines Art Center, which was very nearby our hosts’ home. Completely free, I waltzed in without knowing anything about the kind of collection that it holds, which is truly impressive for a museum of any size – but especially so for a fairly small one in a city the size of Des Moines. Immediately when I walked in I was greeted with Francis Bacon’s study of another artist that escapes me’s painting of the Pope – a painting I’d written a paper on, once upon a time in art school! I was pretty floored by the whole museum in general, really. Absolutely worth the quick visit.

I accomplished my mission and got the replacement parts for my stupid iPad pencil, and when I transferred buses downtown I hopped off and paid a visit to the Des Moines Bicycle Collective where Marty works and volunteers. He gave me the tour and introduced me to the folks there. It’s a tremendously cool spot full of friendly people who are really jazzed about bicycle advocacy and they seem to do a lot of great work. I felt so inspired by the energy there I made sure to grab a sticker for my front pannier on the way out.

While downtown, I popped into a pan-Asian grocery store to pick up a few ingredients to make dinner for Marty and Cheri in order to return the favor from last night. When I got home, Alyssa helped me stem beans (and entertain our guests) while I prepared the rest of the meal. I made pad kra pao for the four of us, a stir fry with ground meat seasoned well with soy sauce, fish sauce, and Thai basil. It’s one of my favorite Thai dishes (and one that comes together with relatively commonly found ingredients here in the US).

Over dinner we had another nice chat with the both of them about a wide range of pretty heavy-hitting topics, political and social. Alyssa made time before and after dinner to interview Cheri for her project, and soon after our lovely shared meal, we were off to bed in preparation for another early morning.

August 12, 2021

Des Moines, IA to wild camp near Guthrie Center, IA

We woke in the morning to a supremely delicious breakfast at the hands of Marty – breakfast burritos with chorizo and loaded with veggies. Cheri even made me a decaf latte on their Nespresso machine to send us on our way. They saw us down from their condo to the street and we took a quick picture together before we were on our way. If it’s not obvious, like so many folks on this trip, Marty and Cheri were almost unthinkably kind and gracious hosts, and I’m super thankful to have met them.

We intended for a relatively long day after our rest, and made our way out of Des Moines on one of the more impressively interconnected bicycle path systems I’ve encountered in a city. Considering Des Moines is a fairly hilly city, it was especially welcome. We were on smooth, low grade riding all the way out of town and beyond, all the way out into farmland and smaller towns to the west. We stopped for a quick snack at a drive-in diner with such a charming look about it there was no question it was worth the break. I had a delicious burger and fries and we more or less pivoted there off the path and onto Highway 44.

Highway 44 would eventually take us most of the rest of the way across Iowa, but I knew immediately that Highway 44 was not my favorite. Alyssa eventually sort of warmed up to it, but as soon as we left Panora, the town that held our lunch break, it turned into a steeply hilly, relatively busily trafficked road with no rideable shoulder at all – just very loose pea gravel. Struggling uphill in the blazing sun at 6 or 7 miles per hour in the actual lane of traffic as cars pass at 65 put both of us in a funk by the time we reached Guthrie Center, the last town before our intended campsite for the night.

We rolled into Guthrie Center pissed off and sweaty, and spun our wheels at the Casey’s for a few minutes before deciding to regroup at the Subway where there was ostensibly WiFi and air conditioning. These things were true, and we planned out our next few days and discussed route options besides 44 if we just couldn’t take any more of it tomorrow. That covered, we rode on a handful of miles further west, and ducked into a forest preserve for the night. We followed a path about a half mile into the woods and found a concrete pad with a picnic table and power hookups – it was more or less a real campsite after all.

We arrived early enough to explore a bit and hang out. There was an abandoned cabin nearby Alyssa had to coax me into checking out (look I’m a little afraid of tall grass all right ticks love me). Our surroundings covered, we retired to our campsite and played music, ate dinner, and relaxed for the evening. I got a little drawing done on my iPad as the sun went down, and we settled in for a nice night’s sleep.

August 13, 2021

Wild camp near Guthrie Center, IA to Underwood, IA

After camping with no water around and no shower after a day we sort of had to work for, we were ready… to put some serious miles in, actually. We agreed to try and make it as close to the Iowa/Nebraska border as possible, if not end our day in Omaha, some 90-odd miles away, if we could. So we got up more or less at dawn, packed up, and rolled back out the gravel service road to Highway 44.

Highway 44, thankfully, evolved a shoulder west of Guthrie Center and therefore was a much more comfortable ride as far as traffic was concerned. It was still pretty damn hilly but I’ll take it. In the first cool morning in a week, we absolutely crushed the miles before noon. I should say, Alyssa crushed the miles and I sort of rode in her wake – the hills were making my knee angry and I felt particularly slow that morning, so she rode on with gusto some handful of miles ahead of me for the entire day.

We’d stocked up on water the night before, because it was sort of the first stretch of this trip that had a lack of services that required planning around. Between Guthrie Center and Harlan, about 50 miles apart on Highway 44, there were no gas stations or grocery stores for easy replenishment. We could always knock on a nice farmer’s door, but we planned ahead anyway. As a result, we didn’t need/weren’t really able to stop anywhere for the first 45 miles, and absolutely demolished them in the morning before it got too hot. We met up in Harlan and I had a quick lunch of a couple slices of Casey’s pizza and some candy, because I’m a grown-ass man who needs as many calories as possible for cheap I promise.

Soon after Harlan, we turned left onto Highway 191. I’d looked at the elevation map ahead of time and knew that if I could make it to 191 I’d be golden. Highway 44 was a series of steep hills, climbing overall in elevation as they proceeded. Highway 191, on the other hand, was a graded road in a valley, and a very slight downhill allllll the way into Council Bluffs at the border with Nebraska. Sure enough, once we made that left turn onto 191, we were flying. With a slight tailwind behind me, (and Alyssa some indeterminate distance ahead of me due to my slowness in the morning) I was absolutely cruising along between 20 and 22 mph for basically the entire length of the road. Compared to the hills of the morning, it felt like I was riding a pedal assist e-bike or something.

We met up for linner at a restaurant in Neola called Buck Snort, and had some pretty delicious burger and BBQ between us. We made a quick pitstop at the local store for some snacks and dish soap (much, much needed dish soap – I’ll explain that one later) and then went back on our way. By this point, I had decided to hamstring us for the day a little bit by getting a cheap motel in Underwood, about 20-25 miles out of Omaha. I was concerned about overworking my slightly complaining knee, and was ready to get off the bike for the day after about 72 miles.

We settled into the weirdly charmingly seedy motel and walked across the street for a quick addition to the meal from earlier in the afternoon (and a self-congratulatory beer or two) at the nearest bar. There, we met Joe, who bought us a round while he waited for his takeout dinner for him and his wife. Joe is a charming conversationalist who does freight logistics for the trucking industry, and we had a nice chat about our trip, about travel in the weird era we currently occupy, and his family. He did also tell us that our motel has long stay tenants who are convicted sex criminals, so that was cool too I guess.

Back at the motel, I set to work cleaning my entire pannier and all its contents with the dish soap acquired earlier. Somehow, the entire pint of olive oil in my bag had had its cap come off, and it had dumped out inside my pannier at some point. The pannier contained our stove and all our cookware and utensils, so I spent almost an hour and a half degreasing and half-repairing all our cooking tools. Thankfully the stove and all its accessories were no worse for it, but what a pain in the ass.

Clean, fed, and our gear reassembled, we spent the night relaxing in our crummy motel. It felt well deserved after such a strong day of riding, and we relished in watching portions of the new classic cinema of Wild Wild West featuring Will Smith.

August 14, 2021

Underwood, IA to Omaha, NE

We intended to wake up our now-normal ‘pretty early’ and get into Omaha for some exploring, but we both overslept because we either slept straight through our alarms or they didn’t go off – probably the former. We hustled to eat a breakfast of oatmeal with powdered milk, flaxseed, and in my case a shitload of Biscoff cookie butter because I’m a disgusting animal (who needs fuel!). Alyssa was ready before I was, of course, and got on the road nearly half an hour before I checked out of the motel and followed.

It was a short day of riding, just about 25 miles, and we anticipated having some time to spend before our Warmshowers host in Omaha was available to receive us. So after climbing one last big-ass hill, we absolutely ripped down the other side through Council Bluffs, IA at about 40 mph. The downhill through that city to the Missouri River is so steep I feel like I just teleported through Council Bluffs entirely.

We reunited in downtown Omaha, in our third state of the trip. We made a quick stop to check out the Lewis & Clark Trail station and National Park Service offices just off the bike path, and then Alyssa took a few minutes to work out at the fringes of a park while I explored and drew a little bit. Feeling collected, we rode into the Old Market area of Omaha, a cool handful of blocks that simultaneously felt like New Orleans with the wide, broad awnings covering restaurant and cafe patios, and maybe the West Loop back home in Chicago, with its converted warehouses and industrial buildings. It was pretty neat, and we stopped into an Italian ice cream cafe and got some sweets, coffee and tea, and relaxed for a moment.

We’d scoped out some sightseeing to do, and proceeded to the first stop: the Durham Museum in Omaha’s old Union Station. Basically, it’s an expertly restored Art Deco train station that has been converted into a museum mostly about trains, and Omaha, and trains in Omaha. We came in the back way in order to avoid one of Omaha’s many enormous steep hills, and met an extremely lovely member of the Durham’s staff whose name I unfortunately don’t remember. He helped us store our bikes inside a maintenance closet, told us some fun facts about the place and about Omaha, and pointed us on the right way to the entrance. When we arrived we found out that I’d confused it with somewhere else while reading about it and it was not free like we’d thought, so only I paid the price to get into the actual museum while Alyssa hung out in the great hall of the station itself, which was absolutely beautiful.

The museum itself was pretty neat, and has a refurbished Union Pacific passenger train you can walk through to see the bar car, dining car, sleeping quarters, and coach. The rest of the museum had a lot of neat information about Omaha’s history and the history of American westward expansion, as well as some fun restored rooms that included an old-fashioned classroom and that sort of thing. It was a fun walk through, and the building and museum itself are absolutely beautiful to look at.

From there, we collected our bikes and worked our way uphill to the Joyce Art Museum. The Joyce was the second art museum of the week that absolutely, positively punched way above its weight class. The Joyce is a pretty big museum, and is completely free of charge (excepting special exhibits). The collection is bonkers, and contains works from some of my absolute favorite painters. They have two Bouguereaus in their permanent collection! The Art Institute of Chicago only has one! I was flabbergasted. It was a very inspiring visit from start to finish – especially the modern wing for Alyssa, which held a bunch of very engaging large-scale pieces including a Kehinde Wiley. Truly an excellent museum and a pair of great places to visit.

After our museum tour, we got the go-ahead from our Omaha host that he wasn’t home yet but he left the door unlocked so we could go make ourselves at home and shower, get laundry started, etc. Not to let this kindness go unused, we made our way west (over some serious hills for a city – I had no idea that Omaha was like as hilly as Seattle! Who knew?) to our host’s house. His neighbor Alex was home doing yard work when we rolled up, and he greeted us and said, “You must be the bike folks, huh?”. We must! He showed us in and pointed us to the facilities in question, and had a nice, short chat with us about Omaha, nice food, and our host.

We showered, popped some laundry in, and were chilling on the couch when our host Chris and his lovely dog Louise arrived home. Chris is a classically-trained tuba player and less-classically-trained front end developer for websites, and Louise is an adorable golden retriever puppy who immediately took to snuggling us on the couch. It was pretty instantly apparent that we had a lot in common with Chris, and we vibed immediately in a nice conversation about our lives, bike touring, what it’s like to navigate all the bizarre and to others maybe unrelatable social situations bike touring puts you in, and more. Chris has done more extensive touring than we have to this point including a ride across the US, so it was really nice to meet someone who fully, absolutely “got it”. After a lengthy intro chat, we let Chris take a shower, flipped the laundry, and headed out to dinner.

We had absolutely delicious vegan food near downtown Omaha that was the type of vegan place where if someone didn’t tell you it was vegan you might not know. Which is to say, it wasn’t just ‘good for a vegan place’, it was just ‘good’. We continued our great conversation there, about growing up, family, and our sometimes strangely similar past experiences. I made everyone wait and keep chatting while I ordered the only dessert at the table, a vegan milkshake.

After dinner, we retired back to his house and relaxed in the living room, talking extensively about music and art while trading songs out of the TV sound system. Chris is into the same weird, old webcomic I’m into, Achewood! Hard to find Achewood fans out in the wild these days, I gotta say. The three of us generally had a lot in common, and it was really fun to meet someone who not only shared some of the same cultural touchstones as us, but who was into the same weird alternate-lifestyle path that we were on.

We’d intended to go to bed a bit early to get ready for a decent day out of Omaha the following day, but both Alyssa and I were enjoying hanging out so much we stayed up as late as we could muster to keep the good vibes train rolling. I can’t really tell as I write this if I’m overselling it or underselling it, but to summarize: it was truly fun, motivating, and comforting to meet someone who jived with everything we were up to in life so cleanly, and it seemed like the opposite was true as well.

August 15, 2021

Omaha, NE to Lincoln, NE

In the morning, we (successfully, this time) got up moderately early, and got our things together. Alyssa made some eggs on tortillas for breakfast, Chris made coffee and helped us get out the door on time. We made sure to commemorate our lovely time with a picture in the front yard together before we hit the road – and Chris helped by making sure to take some pictures of Alyssa and I riding away in the morning. “I know you probably don’t have any pictures of the two of you riding together!”, he said both thoughtfully and very correctly as we rode away.

Alyssa lined up another Warmshowers host in Lincoln, about 65-70 miles away, for the next day, so we saddled up and tried to make good time in the morning as we’ve begun to make habit in order to avoid the hottest parts of the day. Alyssa once again was faster to get prepared and on the road, so she rode on a mile or so ahead of me for most of the day. Getting out of Omaha was generally easier than I expected, based on how hilly the city is – the bike paths that take you out of town are neatly placed along rivers to minimize elevation changes. Soon enough, we were out of Omaha and onto our old friend from Iowa, Highway 6. We took 6 all day, enjoying the huge shoulder it provided us. I was in good spirits all morning having had a nice time in Omaha, and spent the first half of the day listening to Omaha’s favorite indie son, Bright Eyes, in my headphones to commemorate.

We stopped for a quick snack at a gas station and talked to a man who was generally nice and curious about our trip, but made some unfortunate comments about masks and coronavirus and that type of thing. Not many folks outside of the major metro areas we’ve ridden through wear masks inside anywhere, which is a strange and unfortunate politicization I have a hard time getting over so far.

While snacking, Alyssa pointed out that down the road a few miles sat what was apparently the largest candy outlet in Nebraska. This fact of course earned an enthusiastic commitment from me, and we hustled down the road to check it out. It was indeed great, and we got a handful of curated delicacies to try out on the patio outside. Myself, I had a birch beer, watermelon Zots, and a bag of black cherry sours.

After that, we had a relatively uneventful if sunny and hot ride into Lincoln. The network of bike paths that pick up outside the city and take you all the way across it is very convenient – big ‘college town’ energy, there. Lincoln had a similar energy to Omaha, except spread out more and flat. Still cute, still a nice if smaller downtown area. We stopped downtown for a break and another snack at a Middle Eastern restaurant, and took some time to plot out our next few days on the map, transfer files to laptops, and some other housekeeping. Eventually we gathered out belongings and made our way across town to our host for the night, Jonella.

Jonella is a highly educated and multi-talented professional with a background in a wide array of things, but most importantly she is an extremely kind, thoughtful person and host. She greeted us outside and helped us bring our bags up to her apartment, which she shares with her son and his girlfriend. Somehow, amidst preparing dinner, Jonella showed us the shower (which, by the way, was her own master bed/bath, which she refused anything but to let us use) and got our laundry started for us. Dinner prep done, she gave us a ride to Lincoln’s Trader Joe’s so Alyssa could stock up on no-sugar-added dried fruit for the coming dearth of fancy-pants grocery stores between here and Colorado.

During all this, we chatted about growing up, family, the trip, and finding purpose in life. I mean this in the absolute kindest way: Jonella really reminded me of my mom, and at the very least I think would be fast friends with her. They have a similar outlook on what it means to care for those around you and for yourself, and seem to have a similar worldview. The emphatic prayer of affirmation printed out and mounted on the inside of the front door is exactly the energy I guess I’m touching on.

She refused (didn’t need!) any help with dinner prep, and so Alyssa and I watched Jurassic Park 2 with Jonella’s son and his girlfriend. It was nice and relaxing to sit and watch something, and everyone made easy banter while the movie ran in the background. Dinner was pulled chicken burritos with allll the fixings, corn, beans, two kinds of rice, guacamole, everything you would want. They were delicious, and I easily polished off two too big to close – although Jonella taught me the right way to close them!

We relaxed for a while longer and retired to bed fairly early. Alyssa and I were exhausted from a very sunny ride in, and the cumulative mileage catching up with us a bit.

August 16, 2021

Lincoln, NE to Fairbury, NE

We got up around 5:30 and got our ducks in a row for another long-ish day in the saddle. Jonella woke around the same time and helped send us off – both with coffee and granola, but also by helping bring our things down and sending us off with a saying in Hawaiian (I wish so much I could remember what she said! She said it meant something along the lines of “Safe travels and until I see you again” or something similar). Alyssa and I were so thankful to have met Jonella, who ensured we had a relaxing, restful evening via the largesse of her outstanding generosity and kindness.

We hit the road a few minutes before 7, and hopped on a crushed gravel bike path that would take us the first 40 miles of the day all the way down to Beatrice (pronounced Be-AT-trice, not Be-uh-trice, it turns out). Alyssa leading the charge again because I take forever to sort out my headphones when we set off, we quickly realized we were either heading into a headwind, or slightly uphill, or both (it was both). It was almost imperceptible because the trail was wooded on both sides and above so your context was limited, but it was more effort than it seemed it needed to be to move the damn bike. We both worked pretty hard to even make 10-12 mph, and by the time we got to Beatrice we were both kind of over it, and speaking for myself, a little “bonk”-y.

We popped up the road in Beatrice to the Walmart to stock up on food for the next handful of days, and got lunch while we were there (a single fried chicken thigh at Walmart is a dollar and change. One dollar!). We took some time to try and recover a bit from the morning as we shopped, and given that we had 30-35 more miles to do today on a very hot day, we grabbed a couple Red Bulls to try and facilitate the afternoon happening at all. This is mostly only notable because it’s my first intentionally consumed higher quantity of caffeine in about 6 months, so it HIT.

The riding was honestly pretty hard even after we left the gravel path. We merged onto Highway 136 and intermittently turned directly against or slightly across from a medium headwind. Additionally, it was about 90 or so degrees and extremely sunny – I stopped to reapply sunscreen 3-4 times in this 30 mile stretch and still managed a sunburn in the places that I sweated it off. I burned through all my water before I really realized it, and rode about 5 or so miles on empty, sweating buckets. When I rolled up to a farmhouse at an intersection of the highway and a farm road with a mind to knock on the door to ask for water, I turned to my left and saw the Harbine Side Trek Bar & Grill. I noticed that they had their lights on and thought “thank god, they’re open!”, and I popped across the highway to investigate.

I propped my bike up outside and sidled up to the bar looking what I can only imagine was a little rough around the edges. The bartender, an extremely kindhearted woman named Barb, chatted with me about what I was up to as she filled up my water bottles. Upon hearing what I was doing, she grabbed two Gatorades out of the fridge and pushed them towards me, and said that they were on the house.

At this point, powered by my Red Bull, I was the one leading. So I texted Alyssa to come stop into this place for water, having a feeling she either needed more water or a break or both. Alyssa called me, nearly delirious from the sun and heat, coincidentally at the exact moment that I saw her roll by the intersection nearest to the bar. I directed her towards it and inside into the air conditioning, where the bartender offered her two Gatorades of her own.

The bar itself seemed like a real gem, with snacks, food in house, a patio, and affordable and good beer. At this point having mostly recovered from being in the sun, I had a beer as we talked to Barb about our route, about the local area and her job, and she told us that she grew up in northwestern Kansas along where our route will take us. This was useful information, because she had the inside scoop on the availability of resources between towns out that way, and gave us some specific tips for stocking up to make it between towns, especially in eastern Colorado.

We had some bar snacks, refilled our water bottles, and got ready to settle up, when she told us that ALL of it was on the house. That she was happy to do it to help us along our trip. We tried to pay regardless but she wasn’t having it – sort of the theme of this week, honestly, with our generous Warmshowers experiences as well. She even threw in some souvenir beer koozies to remember the place by, and sent us on our way. Even though sometimes it can be hard to know how to properly react to someone being so kind to you out of the blue, I really am humbled and so thankful for all the times it’s happened already on this trip. People have been exceedingly kind, truly.

Much to our disappointment, it was still hot as hell outside when we left the bar. Only 15 miles or so from our intended destination, we put on music and a podcast respectively and got to work pounding through the remaining distance. Our goal was a campground just outside the city of Fairbury, and about an hour or so later we rolled into town. Fairbury is adorable, and feels like the play set of an American town. Well cared-for houses, a cute downtown, a very lovely park, it’s got the full complement for sure. We found the campground and got to work getting set up after what ended up being one of the harder days so far – wind, long uphill sections, and unrelenting sun made it a difficult day to do about 75 miles.

We settled into the campsite, and, still flying high from my Red Bull, I told Alyssa to go lie down and relax. I set up the tent, prepped and cooked some pasta for dinner, and cleaned up. Caffeine is a drug man, I don’t care what anyone says. We showered and tried our best to relax in the heat as the sun went down. Alyssa retired to the tent to read, and I am currently seated at the picnic table in our campsite in the dark, catching up on writing this blog post.