Yesterday (sept. 17), after waiting most of the morning for those heavy storms to pass, I hit an all you can eat buffet, did about five plates worth of damage, and still made Burlington, which is on the Mississippi river. I've slept 6 times in Iowa, one more than Nebraska in fact.
Of course I was dodging storms, visiting museums, meeting with coffee clubs, and zig zagging all over back roads. Seriously, you get on a back road in this state and it goes straight for 15 miles, hangs a perfect right angle, and heads either due north or due south for the next 5 or 10. In addition, the first sleep and the last were both right near the rivers. So, in reality I only biked Iowa for 5 days.
I'm off to a purposely slow start again today. There is a YMCA here (in Burlington) not far from a laundromat. So, in celebration of reaching the mighty Mississippi, I grabbed a long hot shower at the Y (my first since Wamsutter Wyoming) and am now washing my clothing and gear.
I, my clothing, and my sleep gear were all surprisingly non-smelly (except for a few pairs of my socks, which reeked). I attribute the lack of odor to the fact that I have been using paper towels soaked with skin cleaners, good sage oil deodorant, and talcum powders to take "poor man's" showers nearly every day. Still, it feels good to be good and thoroughly clean.
The ladies at the Y wanted to introduce me to the local paper, but I politely declined. I didn't want to deal with any mistaken reporting like last time. (They tried, but there is a lot of important detail to this story.). Maybe I'll feel differently the next time I'm offered. Who can say.
After this, it's off to another buffet, then maybe to a grocery store, and then over the River.
Next stop, Illinois.
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