July 18, 2020
another injury, roundabout, field of dreams, strafed
Day Five: Wyoming to Dyersville
For some reason I woke up at 4:50, ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off. It's only ten minutes, but I always feel cheated when that happens, like when a cashier doesn't have any coins for change when you want to purchase that 93 cent pastry.
Sarah carried our gear today in anticipation of sweltering temperatures so it didn’t take us long to pack up, and we were on the road by 5:40.
I took a few pictures but the lens was smeared so they didn’t turn out well until I figured out what was going on.
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As the sun peeked over the horizon, the temperature was perfect for riding. Buttressed by a tailwind, these early morning hours were invigorating and we made good time.
Just south of Cascade we stopped for breakfast at the Cascade Country Club's park. We actually thought we were in Cascade, but didn't realize we had another six miles before reaching the city limits.
Karen was frustrated and beating herself up this morning about her riding ability. I’m still a bit agog that she could believe that, and again reminded her how impressive it is that she’s taking a trip like this after only having ever ridden a gearless beach cruiser until six weeks ago.
If you recall from the first part of this journal, I injured my right ankle a couple of weeks ago. It’s healing well, and I took the sutures out before leaving on this trip. Even so, it’s still in the process of healing, and when I scraped that same spot against my pedal today I felt a blinding pain for a few seconds. It peeled off some of the skin and started bleeding again, but wasn’t bad enough for sutures. When it happened, though, it did hurt like a son of a gun, and blood dripping down your ankle is always, you know, inconvenient.
Noting some ominous storm clouds directly in front of us, we paused on the north side of Farley to check the weather. We were excited to see the movie set for The Field of Dreams, which was just up the road, but if we kept going there there would be no shelter if we got caught in severe weather.
Instead of continuing, we decided to hang out at the City Park until the storm blew over. We parked our bikes under one of the pavilions and while we were waiting for the rain to sweep over us I decided to play on the “roundabout” (aka “merry-go-round”). As a kid, I played on them a thousand times but never knew what they were called and had to look it up to be able to write about it. Unfortunately, most playgrounds no longer have them because they’re “dangerous,” like hot coffee from McDonald’s, plastic bags, and lawn darts (well, okay, maybe the lawn darts are sorta dangerous). Fortunately, there are warnings to let us know about those risky items in life.
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We waited for the downpour, but it ended up only being a light misting as we watched the storm on the radar split and go just north and south of us. Once it looked like the worst of it was past us, we continued on.
When we arrived at the Field of Dreams it was surprisingly busy, certainly more crowded than I’d ever seen it. Fortunately, Sarah had secured one of the few picnic tables and was waiting for us. Whereas there were only a couple of cars in the parking lot at my previous visits, it was packed today. There was a Little League game being played on the famous field, so perhaps that was why.
At this small Little League field there were plans for a Major League Baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox to be played the following month on 8/13/20. They started construction on some bleachers which can accommodate several thousand people but the pandemic put a hold on everything. [2023 addendum: The game was cancelled in 2020 but was played in 2021 and 2022. The average price for a ticket was $967.00.]
Because it was so crowded, it was nice to be able to sit at a table, especially one in the shade. Unfortunately, there was a massive Cadillac Escalade parked five feet away, its engine chugging and farting exhaust, and we had to speak over the noise of the motor to be able to have a conversation. The woman behind the wheel was talking on her phone and mechanically eating fries, one after another, pausing only to stab at the air with one of them to make a point before it entered her mouth.
I ate a peanut butter/nutella/banana chip tortilla wrap, this time with a Moxie cola that Sarah had saved from our visit to the Wilton Candy Kitchen. It had an interesting taste that I both liked and disliked at the same time, like dental hygiene, or getting older.
Eventually, we saw another picnic table open up fifty yards away, gathered up the remnants of our lunch, and walked over to that table…. only to find that there was an RV parked right next to it with its engine running. We walked back to our original table and saw that the Escalade was leaving, I suspect for an emergent resupply of grease.
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I left the site not knowing it would be the last time I'd see it in this form. There are now plans to build more than TWELVE baseball fields. The investor, a former MLB player, has visions of an 8,000-seat, $50 million ballpark with a youth player dorm and a hotel, and plans to bring in baseball camps, music concerts, festivals, and group/corporate meetings. Construction begins in 2023, and I don't think it will be recognizable the next time I see it.
When it was time to leave we had a decision to make: we could stay at New Wine Park, which is 3.3 miles off the route, or we could continue another 20 miles to Twin Bridges Park near Colesburg. After some consideration we decided on the closer campsite.
I missed the turn onto 136, mainly because signage said it was Highway 52, and we ended up in Dyersville. In order to get to the campsite we had to ride three miles on a gravel road, which was providential because gravel was much more preferable to what lay ahead when we got back on the route.
Highway 52 was one of the worst roads of the entire trip. There was no shoulder, and the road itself had huge cracks. These weren't those tar-filled indentations so common to rural roads. No, these were the angry fissures that will snatch a wheel anywhere within six inches and hold it in place while the rider continues awkwardly forward, ultimately ending up in a position that results in less skin than before starting. The heavy traffic in both directions made it doubly risky because if you fell, the passing drivers would then have to choose between swerving, thus slamming into oncoming traffic, or continuing over the small biker-shaped speed bump in the road.
We navigated the cracks and traffic for a few miles and eventually turned onto Vaske road. After another couple of miles we turned onto the park road.
New Wine Campground was tucked away in a tree-filled valley surrounded on all sides by thousands of acres of farmland. It was scenic, but being in a valley meant there wasn’t much of a breeze, and what little there would've been was blocked by the trees. Although it was only 88 degrees when we stopped, the stillness seemed suffocating. The other consequence of being in a valley was that cellphone reception was nonexistent.
We saw an eagle sitting on a branch overhanging the river. At only thirty feet away, it was the closest I’ve ever been to one in the wild.
Karen let me know that tomorrow would be her last day of riding. Some issues had come up and they needed to drive to Princeton where Sarah is attending graduate school, then head back to Galveston.
As I was unloading my bike I noticed there was still blood on my ankle from when I scraped it against the pedal earlier in the day. Then I noted some kind of white substance on the open wound which, after closer inspection, appeared to be bird shit. I stared at it like a chancre on a nun, unbelieving, as my mind tried to process what I was seeing until finally I had to accept the fact that, “Yes, there’s bird shit on my open wound.”
I gave some thought as to how something so egregious could happen and eventually determined the cause: it’s the result of a petty grudge of a mini-tyrant.
There's a remote section of road where I train that has an extremely territorial red-winged blackbird. Every time I trespassed into his fiefdom he attacked me.... flying over my head and scraping his claws across my helmet. Most people find bird attacks disturbing, but since my helmet was taking the brunt I found it entertaining, and even videoed him one day.
Clearly, this bird didn’t appreciate the fact that not only did I continue to intentionally intrude into his kingdom, I did it repeatedly and even showed a clear disdain by filming him! This WOULD NOT DO. I now realize he’s been biding his time, waiting for the right moment. After weeks of investigation and planning, he found the perfect opening, literally, and strafed me.
His revenge was complete as I painfully cleared away the white matter, then doused it with the hydrochloric acid which had been exchanged for my bottle of antiseptic. In vain I looked around to see if I could locate him observing me, smugly celebrating among the trees, then returned my attention to the wound. I gave it a final examination, sure that it would develop an infection which would seep into the bone, requiring multiple surgeries and the ultimate loss of my foot, then my leg.
The sun set, but the evening remained sultry. Even after a cold shower I had a difficult time cooling off, and when I climbed into the tent that night it was too hot to sleep. I peeled off the rainfly, then unzipped all of the windows hoping that maybe a breeze would spring up, but there was only an occasional whisper, faint and rare. I laid there exuding heat, and finally fell asleep around midnight after listening to an hour of my audiobook in a futile attempt to distract me from the droplets of sweat sliding off my skin and onto my sleeping pad.
average temperature: 211 F/99.4 C
distance: 53.3 miles
elevation gain: 2678 feet
moving time: 4:45:28
total time: 9:01:00
average speed: 11.2 mph
max speed: 33.3 mph
calories: 2434
average heart rate: 89
max heart rate: 127 bpm
Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 266 miles (428 km)
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