Day Twenty-nine: Neligh, Nebraska to Onawa, Iowa

July 8, 2019

I was up early and ready to ride this morning, excited, as always, by the prospect of entering a new state. I'm always excited when I first ride into a state, but then, near the end of it, I'm ready for the next one.

Instead of backtracking a half mile to the Casey's, I rode to the inferior "Cubby's" convenience store, where, after failing to find a breakfast sandwich without meat, I settled for a lemon Hostess Zingers, washed down with a large fountain Diet Pepsi. It'll be a couple of difficult days giving up caffeine again when I get home.

It was nice and cool this early in the morning.

I stopped in Tilden, population 932, and actually parked the bike and walked around downtown taking a few photos. I haven't felt like I've had the luxury to do that very much on this trip - I've felt hurried most days.

I had a great-uncle named Tilden, who would be well over a hundred years old by now - maybe 110. He was an occasional presence in my childhood, memorable because he had left rural Kentucky years before and moved to the Big City of Cincinnati. His brother, my grandfather, had stayed on the farm, and as a child I remember being slightly impressed by what I then considered Tilden's dapper ways when he'd occasionally visit. I was also slightly fascinated and repulsed by his several missing fingers, the result, I believe, of a childhood misadventure involving dynamite caps.

Obviously Uncle Tilden has only a tangential connection to the bike tour, so I will end this digression now.

Down the road, I stopped in Meadow Grove, population 301. I didn't see a single person there, but I saw (and heard) several barking dogs - by far the most dogs I've seen on this tour.

Lots of little towns have obscure things to brag about, but Meadow Grove has one of the oddest. It is apparently the "Birthplace of Free Outdoor Movies."

I found this a little hard to believe, so I actually looked it up, and it does appear to be true.

Just outside of town I stopped at a small gas station, self-described as "Your favorite gashole."

I talked briefly to a bushy-haired, bushy-bearded old man there. Oddly, we each purchased the same, single item: Chocolate milk.

Next up was the big city of Norfolk. The three young people at Subway last night had informed me that it is pronounced "NorFORK."

Its population of 24,210 doesn't sound especially impressive, but it is a big sprawling mess - a mess if you're bike touring, anyway.

If I'd had more time, I'd have probably worked out some low-traffic route on side streets through the town, or maybe skirted it entirely. In an uncharacteristically incautious move for me, though, I just decided to take US-275 straight through.

It was pretty bad. Walmart to my right. Gigantic big box store Menard's to my left. Tons of traffic.

I eventually exited Norfolk through an industrial zone. For a while, US-275 turned into a super-busy divided four-lane with gigantic rollers, before reverting to a super-busy two-lane with gigantic rollers.

Fortunately the shoulder continued to be wide and relatively smooth.

I was surprised to see a man and woman approaching me on touring bikes, So I crossed over to talk to them. It was the first morning of their tour across Nebraska - final destination Mt. Rushmore, which I've been told is terribly busy and unpleasant to experience on a bicycle tour.

After a while I reached Wisner, population 1,170. It smelled nasty, and the reason was soon apparent: It was a feedlot town, a fact proudly announced by a perhaps unintentionally grim billboard.

I stopped at the Subway in town and spent a long, long time there - by far the longest I've stayed in a restaurant on this tour. I checked my maps and decided to ride six or seven more miles on US-275, and exit at the next town, Beemer. There appeared to be back roads from there all the way to Iowa, although some of it was possibly rough gravel. That was fine - I was tired of all the traffic, even with a wide shoulder.

Beemer, population 678, was more pleasant than Wisner, and I finally, after what seemed like forever, got off a busy highway and onto a lightly traveled local road.

The pavement turned to gravel for six miles, which tried my patience, but then it was a smooth downhill to Lyons, population 805. Lyons is odd because it has a fairly large supermarket, but no restaurant, except for some warmed-up food in the gas station.

I had a tailwind from Lyons to the last Nebraska town, Decatur. There was no traffic.

Once I was startled to see a movement of dark shapes crossing the road ahead of me. What?! Was I hallucinating this? I believe it was eight or ten fat raccoons. One of them turned to look at me, and then they all slunk away into the grass before I could get my camera out. I find raccoons creepy in general, but I find a large group of them moving together, something I've never observed before, especially creepy.

I crossed the Missouri River on the old metal bridge at Decatur and entered Iowa. When I'd ridden on this bridge in the opposite direction six years ago, there had been a toll booth, but it was gone now.

I got a room at a motel that had many, many rooms and was very under-utilized. I told the lady that I wanted a quiet room, and she gave me one on the end of the most remote of the three buildings.

Dinner was a milkshake and two orders of large fries at Dairy Queen next to the motel. In what has become an all-too-frequent occurrence on this tour, the Mexican restaurant was closed on Mondays.

I didn't have a route figured out for tomorrow, so Joy created one, and texted it to me, which was very nice of her.

Today's ride: 112 miles (180 km)
Total: 2,361 miles (3,800 km)

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