Day 44. Muscatine, Iowa

Downtown Muscatine, Iowa

Iowa Farmland

Iowa Countryside

Today we are feeling battered and pummeled. This Ride Across America is not a joy ride, it is an expedition. As Pete says, "We are still looking for cycling bliss!" The roads have been so rough the last two days, "KER-chunk, KER-chunk, KER-chunk," for mile after mile after mile, for 96 miles yesterday, and then again for another 50 miles today, uphill and downhill, over and over again. The hands, wrists and arms hurt, the neck and shoulders are in agony and the head is pounding, nothing that several ibuprofens and getting off of the bicycle for the night won't cure! The air is so thick and humid and the sun is beating down incessantly, there is no shade around because there are no trees anywhere near the road. The feet start to literally boil in our shoes; they cramp and feel as if they are on fire. So you've taken about as much as you can take and pull off to the side of the road, whip off your shoes and try to find some freshly mowed grass to sink your feet into. Temporary cooling relief...can't waste too much time beside the road so it is on with the shoes again and off you go. Next thing you know you are enjoying the beautiful scenery...BAM...everything feels mushy and your back tire skids to the side. You just hit a big rock with your back tire...broken spoke, wheel out-of-round...now you have to "limp" for the next 100-150 miles to the next bicycle shop that is actually still in business.

And so our saga continues as we enter Muscatine, IA today. I hope you can kind of get a feel for what we are enduring out here. The scenery is still beautiful in its own way. It is just amazing the amount of corn growing here, corn as far as the eye can see in every direction, and most of it is already over 6 feet tall. The smells out here though are another thing altogether! The little bit bigger towns are quaint, Muscatine has a nice historic downtown near the Mississippi River and a lovely riverwalk. The first thing we did when we entered town was take care of Pete's bicycle's broken spoke and out-of-round wheel, and he has also worn through another back tire so, had that replaced also. The guys at Harleys Cycling Shop took care of us right away, and even checked out our gears and adjusted our shifting. Thanks again! While at the shop we discovered sandal cycling shoes, Pete and I are now the proud owners of new pairs of cycling sandals, hopefully that will solve the baked feet problem. Tomorrow we will give them a test run. If they work we will be mailing back our other cycling shoes, don't need the extra weight!

Yesterday we went through a small town called Petersburg (pop around 600). It has a large, beautiful Catholic church. The inside was as amazing as the outside. Such a beautiful edifice in such a small town in the middle of the countryside. then in Dyersville another huge basilica.

Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, Petersburg

St. Francis Xavier Basilica, Dyersville

We have met quite a few wonderful people here in Iowa. Tomorrow we will be crossing into Illinois. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures taken in Iowa. - Alicia