Rocheport, MO to Council Bluffs, IA

And so ends the first week on tour. So much has happened, and yet when I look at the full map, I've hardly made a dent. Picking up from Rocheport, I headed to the city of New Franklin in hopes of finding a place to get some breakfast. When asking where I could find such a place, the lady behind the register at the Casey's general store told the only place is four miles down the road in Boonville. Dreaming of eggs and sausage, I powered through the last portion of the Katy trail only to find the diner closed, just like every other one that I had wanted to go to thus far... After another 9 miles of empty rolling hills, I ripped open a bag of almonds and called it a breakfast. Lots of old farm houses dotted the way, and I passed some pretty cool cemeteries with stones dating back to the mid 1800's. I got to Marshall by lunchtime, which is where I found the McDonalds to type the last blog post.

Plenty of farm dogs came up to say hi

I had hoped to type out the blog real quick and be on my way, but an older gentleman who saw me ride up made every possible effort to delay me. It first started with stories of how he found some old guns in a cave in Arrow Rock, and how he had a book on amazon that I should buy. For the next hour he would come over to my booth and talk about guns and Jesus, how I the sun will burn out in eight years which is why I should start talking to the "guy up there". 

He even kept one in his trunk...

I finally finished up and managed to escape undetected, and rode a total of 88 miles to Higginsville, where I set up camp at a city park, where a couple kids on bikes came over and talked to me for a little while. They could hardly believe I was planning to bike to the ocean (they didn't know where Oregon was, so I figured the ocean would suffice), and after seeing that my shoes clip into my pedals, thought I was a professional "bike guy or something".

The next day had all sorts of ups and downs. It started off as one of the nicest days yet, peacefull rollers through a surprisingly wealthy part of Missouri, though the majority of homes were cookie-cutter mansions. After a failed attempt at securing a host from warmshowers, I decided that I could make use of the extra daylight and tried to see how far I could get before dark settled in. On my map, a camping symbol  appeared about 100 miles out, so I set that as the goal. As I approached the 100 mile mark, I missed the last turn and continued for about 4 miles up some gnarly hills before I realized the mistake, forcing me to ride yet another 4 miles of pointless hills. When I got to the campsite, it turned out to be an RV resort, and the cheapest they could get me in for was $30. Since I had just ridden 108 miles and had an almost empty stomach, the smell of food and promise of a shower was enough to make me fork over the money. Upon getting to the camp site (which was so far out that a guy in a golf cart had me follow to ensure I stay on route), I realized that it was crawling with ants. Normally, fine whatever. But not after a 100+ mile day, not with all of my worldy possessions and food with me, and damnit not for $30. I biked back to the front desk and asked for my money back, that I'd rather sleep in a park in the rain than have me gear crawling with ants- to which they responded with sticking me next to a couple giant RVs. At that point I just wanted sleep, so I agreed and shortly thereafter passed out.

This guy knew which bag I keep the food in

If you've never heard of warmshowers.com before, it's one of the best things to happen to cycle tourists. In a nutshell, people are registered and it'll show on a map where they live, and you can call and ask if they'd be available to host you for a night- implying if nothing else, a warm shower, but more often than not a bed and a hot meal. I called a family the night at the RV park, got the voicemail and left a message. Not 2 minutes later I got a call back, the woman regretfully informing me of her unavailability that weekend, but that she had called a friend and set me up with them! Knowing that I had a bed and shower waiting for me in Council Bluffs was enough to push me to do some crazy mileage.

I'll spare you the details, but these are what the towns looked like for the next two days.

Home of...?

My first day in Kansas, and I had headwinds. Constant. Stupid. Horrible. Headwinds. Only making it 85 miles by 8pm, I found a tiny village to set up camp, but upon realizing that I had no food and only a few gulps of water was left with a choice. Either stay in a really creepy town running on empty, or race against the sun to get to a larger town with gas stations 10 miles down the road. I decided to go for it. I reached Falls City, Nebraska just as the sun had set, with enough time to buy a sandwich, find a park designated for camping and promptly went to sleep.

I woke up this morning freezing my arse off. Opened the tent and there was frost eveywhere

Can't see it too well, but my bike was covered in frost

3 layers of clothes, full fingered gloves, wool socks and shoe covers and it was still cold as hell. Knowing that I had another 100+ mile day, I tried to just keep going and stopped as little as possible. My legs didn't like this...

Everything was going just fine until I hit the area right before coming into Iowa. At first glance I thought I had made a wrong turn. The road I was supposed to turn onto was not there (or should I say was there, but named differently) and then immediately turned to gravel. This proceeded up a large hill which would have been a decent climb by itself, but the rocks made the bike slip constantly, and I had to make every effort just to stay upright. The next road I needed to turn on, Hwy 2, was being repaved.

The lane closed off was covered in oil,a and the other was full with semi traffic. Sitting down for a while and considering my options, I ended up walking my bike nearly half a mile to the bridge into Iowa in order to make it out alive. Luckily, the rest of the ride was suuuuuuper flat, and there was little to no wind, letting me push it out until I reached the city knowing that Steven and Mary (my hosts) would have a warm meal waiting for me. I got in just before 7 and Steven was on his bike, waiting to ride in with me! Finally, the first leg of the trip was over. 

Next stop, tornado alley!