Goodbye Iowa

Tonight we're right at the Iowa border, so tomorrow morning we will be through another state. Today we were talking about the pros and cons of Iowa. I apologize for all those Iowans out there reading this, but I must admit Iowa was not one of my favorite states. Maybe it's because it wasn't what I was expecting, or maybe it's just because it came at the end of a string of long days, but for whatever reason, Iowa was a difficult state for me.

Iowa was our 3rd state in a row that seemed to be nothing but cornfields. The only difference was that Iowas cornfields are on rolling hills. Which, unfortunately means that our roads were quite rolly. Especially, today. It was also extremely hot and humid the couple days we were here as well. We've also been struggling to find decent roads to ride on since we've been off of the Adventure Cycling maps and it seemed like we picked a lot of trucking roads without much of a shoulder. And perhaps the worst part was the smell. Seemed like there was the constant smell of manure and pigs, it was especially pleasant when a truck full of hogs would ride by and make the smell even stronger.

However, there was definitely many pro's for Iowa. The scenery was beautiful, even though the rolling hills meant more work on the bike it was beautiful to look at. The people in Iowa were extremely friendly, it seemed like at every gas station we would get into a conversation with someone. This morning we were waiting out a storm in a gas station and a gentleman came up and talked to us for about a half hour. Iowa is also a big biking state. They have a cross state ride every year called the RAGBRAI which involves around 11,000 riders so they were fairly bike friendly and it seemed like we were asked about 50 times a day if we were preparing for that. We also made use of a couple of nice bike trails in Iowa, those were always a nice change of pace away from the busy traffic. State Parks in Iowa were also really nice. So all in all, Iowa wasn't too bad, it was just a hard state to bike in.

Our next state is South Dakota. Even though I have a feeling that much of South Dakota will be fairly desolate and perhaps windy I'm excited about it. For some reason South Dakota sounds like we've finally hit the west. I'm also excited about biking through the Badlands and the Black Hills. We'll be at those within a week or so.

Make sure to check out our new pictures, we finally found a place where we can upload some more. Sorry that they're not really in chronological order but they're from 3 different cameras so its the best we can do.

There is another sad thing about Iowa. We'll be losing Karla. Tomorrow we'll head off from Sioux City with only 3. She has to go back to Canada in order to get back to work. We've known for awhile she would be leaving us, but sadly that day has now come. It's been great having her along, she was our bike mechanic/cook/defender against racoons/voice of reason. Plus it was just great getting to know her and have her along for the ride.

Well thats all for now. They tell me this computer will be shutting off in a couple minutes so I better go. Til next time....