June 4, 2018
Onawa to Sioux City
PLUS, A Story About a Mean Little Man And His Sad Little Long Beard
I want to add on to Jen's post from yesterday. When we arrived at Lewis and Clark State Park, the sign said CAMP AREA FULL, but there clearly a couple dozen open sites.
The camp "host" was turning people away, claiming that the park was full, probably so he could sit on his ass all day and drink cheap whiskey. He was rude, dishonest and intimidating to Jen. When she told me about the conversation, I went to clarify with the guy. For simplicity, I'll call him Deranged Incompetent Campground Komandant, or Dick for short. Hey, this is my blog. Anyway, I walked up to a very withered and disreputable looking man sitting in a chair with what looked like a half-eaten squirrel hanging out of his mouth. As a medical professional and CPR responder, I immediately began the heimlich manouver* to dislodge the squirrel from this poor man's airway. After all, the longer his brain was deprived of oxygen, the more function he would lose. And I'm pretty sure his baseline was pretty low to start with. So, like CPR Batman, I took action. But as I got closer, I realized the obstructive rodent was only a scraggly, wispy, sad little beard hanging off Dick's chin. He looked like one of those wierd Duck Hunter guys on TV, only much less attractive and more deranged, if you can imagine that.
Here's my view on the Long beards: Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top have been been sporting those beards since the early 70s, and they can pull it off. I guess there's the Oak Ridge Boys guy too, but come on.
Anyway, this guy's hanging bit of mangy badger fuzz was pathetic, although his wife had a great, thick, luxurious beard -haha, just kidding. She had a handlebar mustache! Haha!!
*The part about me administering the heimlich might not be accurate.
Now for the compelling story of June 4! We slept with the rain fly off and it was nice to get the breeze and views. The campsite was good and we got up again at the crack to get an early start.
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After riding for a few minutes, I noticed a strange sensation: wind was blowing at our backs. What the heck? Tailwinds? Yes, we finally had tailwinds, and, along with flat terrain, mostly, they pushed us to Sioux City pretty quickly, 41 miles in 4 hours including breakfast and numerous other stops.
The plan was to get a hotel in Sioux City and rent a car tomorrow so we could drive to Remsen to visit the graves of some of Jen's relatives. It was pretty tricky coming into Sgt. Bluff south of town, as the roads became cluttered with unskilled and rushed suburban drivers, as well as a pretty major hill to finish the day. Portland spoiled us with great infrastructure for bikes, we somehow navigated our way through like Frogger through the strip mall hell to the hotel. The New Victorian was nice and we were able to make our plans for the next couple of days.
Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 229 miles (369 km)
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Glad to see y’all are enjoying yourselves— “It doesn’t have to be all fun to be fun.”
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