October 22, 2022
Day 31 - Wapello, IA (Wapello Hotel) to Muscatine, IA (Great Rivers South Finish!)
The Pearl Button Capital Of The World!
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Statistics, Useful & Otherwise;
Elevation Gained Today; 447 ft Cumulative; 63,577 ft
Roadkill Seen Today; Raccoon (7), Snake (1), Possum (4), Unknown (1) Cumulative; Hawk (3), Raccoon(38), Possum (36), Mouse (1), Squirrel (12), Armadillo (9), Bird (3), Coyote (1), Deer (6), Snake (22), Skunk (5), Rabbit (1), Turtle (4), Owl (1), Turkey Vulture (2), Unknown (28)
Found Money Today; $0 Cumulative; $1.75
Lodging Cost Today; $0 Cumulative; $2197.40
Bad Drivers Today; 0 Cumulative; 13
Dog Chases Today; 0 Cumulative; 21
Confederate Flags Today; 0 Cumulative; 7 (plus 30 little flags decorating confederate soldiers graves on the Natchez Trace)
Average Speed Today; 11.1 mph Cumulative; 9.86 mph
Summary of Today's Ride; A flat and easy roll with a tailwind made for a great end to the journey.
I woke to the alarm at 06:00 and for the last time on this journey I went through my morning routine of packing everything in it's proper place in the panniers and preparing to leave. I could have let the wife transport the panniers for me today, but I only had 24 miles to ride this morning and since I've carried them this far I figured I should carry them the rest of the way. Wifey was tired after her long drive yesterday and opted to sleep in rather than go to breakfast with me.
Harvey was standing by in the hotel hallway outside my room, and I loaded him up and then rolled him out to the street. There was a coffee house just catty-cornered across the street from the hotel, and I was there at 07:00 when they opened. The local crowd was there, and everybody knew everybody except for me, so they asked me the usual questions; "Where you heading today?" - "Where did you start from?" - "How long did it take to ride from New Orleans?" - "Where do you sleep at night?" - "Why would anybody ride from New Orleans to here?" That last one is one I haven't fully answered yet, so I told them a few stories about the trip and then said "I rode all this way so I could try the breakfast at Jamie Lynn's Coffee House." That got some laughter from the locals, and when I tried to check out the owner insisted that my breakfast was free. I really did try to pay for it, I told her that she can't stay in business if she gives things away, but she said that I paid for it with my stories of the trip. And so I rode away from Wapello with a good feeling about the folks of small-town Iowa.
It was another perfect morning for cycling. Great temperature, the tailwind from yesterday continued to make the riding easy, it was just one of those pleasant fall days when you appreciate being alive. I came upon a huge flock of blackbirds feeding off of the remains of a cornfield.
I estimated a bit over 1 million blackbirds in this flock - you can't see them all in this photo, they were on both sides of the road. Do you think I'm joking? Hey, I'm a scientist, I never kid around except for those times that I do. But it just so happens that some of the largest flocks of blackbirds ever recorded were in nearby Arkansas and Missouri, with estimates of 10 - 40 million made by competent and trained observers. So while my estimate of 1.3 million (made by an untrained but at least marginally competent observer) may be off by several factors, there were a lot of birds there on both sides of the road. Here's some more info for the curious among you --> Large Blackbird Flocks.
I was anxious to complete the ride this morning, because; 1.) I told the wife I had a surprise for her that would take a little time, 2.) the wife told me she wanted to detour just a bit to go through Kansas City on our return trip so she could stop at a store she likes for Christmas stuff, and 3.) even without my surprise and the wife's shopping detour we had about 9 hours of driving to get home. So I only took a few photos along the way, and here they are.
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As I rolled into Muscatine my path diverted to a trail along the Mississippi River levee. It was very exciting for me to see this bridge ahead. Last year Doc and I crossed this bridge to enter Iowa from Illinois on the Northern Tier route.
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As I approached the finish point of the Great Rivers South route, I saw the wife up ahead standing across the street, but she had her back to me and was looking ahead at the Mississippi River bridge. For some reason, she thought I would be finishing coming across the bridge - not sure how she thought I was going to cross back over the Mississippi River to be coming from that direction, but I am certain that any failure of communication was my error. I blew 4 separate blasts on my stadium air horn before she turned around to see me - it seemed humorous to me. In the photo below, I'm really pretty happy to be at the finish point.
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I changed out of my riding clothes in the back of my little cargo van, then loaded Harvey for the return trip. Then it was off to the surprise I mentioned to the wife, and we found ourselves in downtown Muscatine.
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We made a stop at the Pearl Button Museum, because, you know, we're in Muscatine and that's what you do. It's really pretty incredible how big the pearl button industry once was - we live in an era when anything can now be fabricated from plastics, but not so long ago everything had to be made from natural materials. So some buttons were made from wood, or from bone, but the best were made from pearl. This short video may be of some interest to you;
At the peak of the pearl button industry, some 19,000 people were employed either making the buttons or fishing for the mussels. The Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Arkansas Rivers and their lesser tributaries were the primary mussel sources. Entire barge-loads of mussels were caught and shipped to Muscatine. The museum has a film about a family who spent each summer gathering "clams" and made more money in the summer than they made for the entire rest of the year. It was a way of life for many people, all made possible because of the tenacity and drive of one immigrant.
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I'm usually not attracted to things you find in gift shops, but how could I possibly resist the tiny bicycle below? The wheels are made of pearl and it is mounted on a domino (numbers are on the bottom). The wife and I buy our own gifts for Christmas exchange each year - that way she doesn't have to endure me buying some tiger-stripe pants or something like that for her (yeah, I actually did that once), and I don't have to endure another tie that I will probably just give away - so we each buy some things for ourselves that we want and give them to the other to wrap up and present as gifts. Yeah, maybe that dilutes the surprise factor, but it works for us and saves a lot of trips to exchange unwanted items. So I bought this little trinket to go into my Christmas gift collection for this year.
What a perfect little memento for this trip! If you ride this route, you just gotta stop at the Pearl Button museum and get one of these. I had one more thing to do, and as we were heading home we pulled through a McDonald's drive-thru and I asked about the price of a medium coffee. It was $1.79, and since my "Found Money" fund had $1.75 I figured that was close enough - so I loaned myself $0.04 and enjoyed the celebratory coffee as we drove off into the sunset.
It's Sunday afternoon and I've enjoyed a lazy day of recovery. My morning consisted of nothing more than reading the Sunday paper and drinking coffee. I've got some things to say about this route and will summarize them in an epilogue within the next day or so while things are still fresh on my mind. I took some notes as I went along, and I'll make some suggestions that should be helpful to others who may want to take this journey - I really wish I knew beforehand some of the things I learned the hard way, so I think my thoughts may be of value to others. My short foray into Iowa was good and for now I'll leave you with this;
Today's ride: 24 miles (39 km)
Total: 1,487 miles (2,393 km)
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2 years ago
2 years ago
2 years ago
I enjoy tour journals through geographic and cultural regions that cyclists mostly avoid. I saw many familiar places that I have seen on past tours. And I enjoyed all the historical context you provided. This journal will be a great resource for people contemplating future tours of the Great Rivers South route.
During my 2014 Pittsburgh to Fort Worth bike tour I saw only one other touring cyclist after leaving the Great Allegheny Passage trail, in Golconda, Illinois. He was riding the entire Great Rivers South route as a small part of an epic tour from Seattle to Key West.
2 years ago
4 months ago