Day Two - Ida Grove to Pocahontas

Even though we had to put up the tent on a slanted area we woke up to a lovely garden.

It was a cloudy day which was refreshing after the day of sun yesterday. 

This one was 71.2 miles, less hilly but long!!

Towns were happy to have the riders visit. Some towns were so small, probably all knew each other’s names. Very friendly folk. We were always given a warm welcome as we rode into town.  Many people opened their yards for bicyclists to camp at, some gave away free water and there were farm animals to visit. Pickle juice is a big thing out here.  That and pie 😁

The watermelon from Connor was delicious!

Water was in abundance, in addition to the kind you drink! - Slip n Slides, one town made their community pool available, hydrants with sprinklers for everyone to fill their water bottles, kids with hoses showering everyone with a cool spray of water…it was great!

Saw a lot of chicken statues…

So cool…

Saw the guy towing the speaker again!

We finally finished the ride and were so hungry so we started walking towards town. This lady (Emma - great name!) on a cart passed by and asked if we wanted a ride! She does taxi service at these kind of events. So she found out what was nearby, and took us to Subway and, waited for us to get food! (long lines everywhere with all the cyclists in town). We had a great time talking with her 😊

Day One - Sergeant Bluff to Ida Grove

First day packing up the tent and our knapsacks to give to the truck transport by 7am was challenging. Our tent is easy to pop up and close up but it poured last night so everything was, well, soggy!  They transport everyone’s stuff to the next overnight town while we bike ride to it. 

We started riding around 7:30. 53 miles, here we go! 

15,000 riders setting off towards the sunrise was pretty amazing.  We got a lot of fun comments about our bike. My favorite was a man who sang “Daisy Daisy give me your answer do I’m half crazy all for the love of you it won’t be a stylish marriage I can’t afford a carriage but you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two” 😄

Many people were playing music through speakers attached to their bikes, which you’d think would be bothersome but we loved it! Such a variety! Rock, country, rap, hiphop, broadway, bluegrass, disco, metal, techno, Latin and much more! One guy was towing a huge speaker blasting music! The best so far was when climbing another hill - someone was playing Raindrops on Roses from Sound of Music - it made everyone laugh who heard “when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling sad” Lol.  Many were having fun with their outfits - wearing butterfly wings, helmets adorned with plastic wine glasses, viking horns, a dinosaur, mohawks, costumes - Thor, Wonder Woman, the Hulk, and…Gumby! He had to be roasting in that outfit! 

Lots of rolling hills!  Tough going up some of the hills (as most of our rides at home are pretty flat)! But it was fun flying down them!! 

As we passed through towns going from Sergeant Bluff to Ida Grove, each town had either live music or a DJ, food vendors, beer gardens, bike shops and repair facilities, churches or kids groups selling food. We had breakfast burritos in Bronson, homemade chocolate chip cookies in Anthon and delicious BLT’s and homemade ice cream in Battle Creek!

Ice cream machine!

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We got to Ida Grove with enough time for dinner prepared by the members of the church we were camping at, even made it to the showers before they shut down at 8pm!  Off to sleep! Hope to get an earlier start tomorrow as we have 71 miles to ride!

Sergeant Bluff Tent City Saturday

Well here we are. Wish I faired better in the heat! Lol. It’s been in the 90’s but I think it’s supposed to drop to the 80’s starting tomorrow! 😅

We’re in a field behind a high school, got to take showers this morning and the high school kids were selling breakfast - scrambled eggs and potatoes! Yum!

A couple of picks from the bus ride yesterday

A crop duster…

And corn, everywhere!

We got a shuttle into town for the bike expo. 

Greg picked up an air pump as the one we had was malfunctioning!  Got some giveaways and had bison burgers!  It rained on and off but it was refreshing!

Also stopped at the Sergeant Bluff Historical Museum as we saw it was air conditioned but what a cool place!

Got a ride back to camp from a guy towing a flat bed. His son was inviting anyone waiting for the shuttle back to camp to hop on! 

Even some lady just walking by in town! Such nice town folk!

The weather was being temperamental but we really wanted to do the tire dip so we headed out to a boat ramp in Sioux City.  The tradition is to dip the back tire in the water of the place you start in and the front tire at the place you end the ride. 

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Saw 7 bunnies!  And by where we dipped there was a catch & release catfish tournament going on. Huge fish!

Tomorrow we ride!