Day 33 -- Griswold, IA

We woke up early to get a head start on the traffic out of Omaha. Although we spent a majority of the first 20 miles on highways and large 3 lane roads, cars and trucks were sparse (although we did get to roll past some backed up traffic after morning rush hit). We quickly entered the suburbs of the city where we took a small bridge over a river and into the state of Iowa. Naturally, we stopped for a 20-minute photo shoot at the border. Since we didn’t have many accessories for the photos, a lot of us took corn off the stalk only to be screamed at by the crew chief for being irresponsible and stealing property. The next pace line then rolled in, and the only guy from Iowa on our trip jumped off his bike, ran down to the corn, and ripped two huge stalks out of the ground to proudly display them in front of the state sign in a pose as the crew chief nodded in dismay. He then responded, “Its ok, I’m from Iowa!”

The next 30 miles went by quickly and were mostly rolling hills and cornfields. It was interesting to see some fields were leveled into plateaus like rice fields in Southeast Asia. 15 miles outside of lodging, the skies darkened quickly and a wall of rain hit us. After about 5 minutes, it felt like swimming in a pool. Our shoes were filled to the brim with water, our jerseys drenched and glued to our bodies, our glasses fogged up and drenched from the water being projected by the wheel of the cyclist ahead, but most importantly, a smile was plastered on our faces at the hilarity of the situation. It wasn’t as funny after 10 minutes when we got pulled over by our crew chief who was worried about thunder. Although we did spend time in the warm vans, the return to the bikes once the situation was deemed safe was painful. The rain was now cold, the roads muddy, and the conversation down to dull moans and complaints. We pulled up to lodging very slowly only to have to wait outside for vans to bring us across the 2-mile dirt road that brought us to the quaint retreat. We are a couple of miles outside of Griswold, IA.

After washing my bike and a cold shower (of course), I walked around the area and took some pictures of the ducks and hens around the small farm. There is not another house or person as far as the eye could see. In the evening, we went to a sponsored dinner at a stone quarry turned lake where we swam and played volleyball for hours. We had another team meeting and I nominated my friend Joe Borghoff as cyclist of the week.

It’s nice to be out in the wild. It’s quiet and the night sky is beautiful. I’m going to miss days like this.