Down by the River

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa – Warsaw, Illinois

Long day, and, as you’ll see, with somewhat complicated camping arrangements, kind of a short night for writing blog posts. So – some quick thoughts on the biking today . . .

It was a generally pleasant day, but we did have some gravel sections and by no means did Iowa make up for its many fumbles over the past few days. 

First off, I have to point out that we came across the Mormon Pioneer Trail. I guess the Mormons were hanging out in Nauvoo, Illinois – across the river from Montrose, Iowa – where we picked up the trail. Eventually the Nauvoo people chased the Mormons out of town. I guess it was a cold winter because the River was frozen over and they crossed by ice bridge. Seems a little hard to believe that the River actually froze over enough for people and wagon trains to walk on this far south, but maybe the Mormons used their religious powers to walk on water or something. 

The story – as told by our quick read of the roadside signs in Montrose – gets kind of confusing. Because after the Mormons crossed the Mississippi they were hanging out in Montrose for a while and they were starving and basically waiting for a miracle. Fortunately, like a million quail were flying over the camp and they got tired and dive bombed dead into camp and the Mormons ate them until they weren’t starving anymore and that was the miracle they had been waiting for. Confusing part is that this happened in October. Did the river freeze in September? I’ll admit, I’m just not good at understanding religion and miracles and stuff . . .

Lots more to it, but basically they went all the way to Salt Lake City before they stopped again . . . You have to wonder if they struggled with the gravel roads in Iowa as well. They didn’t even pneumatic wheels at that point . . .

The last town we biked through before crossing the Mississippi into Illinois was Keokuk. Started with a big hill up from the river, and the two dozen or so houses overlooking the river were really nice. The rest of the town? It felt like we were on a poverty tour. Porches falling down. Roofs caving in. Garbage in yards. Streets in horrible condition. 

I guess you can start to see why middle America is mad. I’m not sure that their putative solution – presumably electing Donald Trump – is going to help the situation. But I can see where the anger comes from anyway . . .

From Keokuk we headed to Warsaw, Illinois. Another tough town. Main Street looks like it peaked 100 years ago and hasn’t had a fresh coat of paint since. But, as usual, you can count on Dollar General being there. 

I guess I had no idea how many Dollar Generals there are in the world. They are not uplifting places. But there must be some actual Dollar General – or General Dollar? – who’s collecting all this money from basically every small town in America . . .

Campsite. Did you ever see the Chris Farley skit where he lived ”down by the river,” in a van. The “campground” we’re staying in seems to have a whole Chris Farley family. They’re obviously living here. Junk sitting all over the place. A small yippy dog tied up under their trailer. A refrigerator sitting outside the door on a table that is sagging because it’s broken. Some kind of vent pipe inexplicably coming out of one of the windows. A little depressing really . . .

Oh, and we’re down by the river. Which is picturesque from a distance. But up close it’s a little rough. Asian carp, an invasive that’s been making its way up toward Minnesota, jumping all over the place. Murky. Mucky bottom. (By the way – Iowa is now so in the rear view mirror . . . The other side of the River? Missouri . . . Progress . . .)

Side note here – which I’m sure some of you will find amusing (not so amusing for me). With the river there and no other bathing facilities – a pretty bare-bones campground – I decided I would bathe in the river. So I did what I usually do in these situations – I put some shampoo in my hair in order to avoid carrying and potentially losing the shampoo bottle – and headed to the water. But after I walked across the big field between us and the water I looked down to see a big strip of muddy bank. Off in the distance were some rocks someone had put down, presumably to prevent erosion. I headed over there so I could theoretically enter the water without sinking into muck. Once there I stuck my foot in only to realize that the “water” was only a few inches deep and the layer of muck on the bottom of the river was seemingly infinite.

I could maybe go in the water and swim out a ways to where it was deeper, but when I inevitably had to come ashore I would come out covered in muck. Not happening.

Ugh. Now my foot was all mucky from trying to step in the river – and I still had shampoo in my hair. Double-Ugh!

New plan. There was a small “dock” sticking into a bay of the river. Maybe I could enter and exit the water from the dock in order to avoid stepping in the muck? I made it work – but it was not pretty. Turns out even at the end of the dock there was only a few feet of water – and then more infinite muck. So I “bathed” by holding the dock in the position that backstroke swimmers use when they start a race.

And let me tell you – the whole thing was a big mistake. This is just not the same Mississippi that we started with in Minneapolis. I guess good to clean the salt off – but I think there will be no more fresh water swimming for a while. (One of the many virtues of Minnesota and the North that maybe go under appreciated . . .)

But whatever. We had a nice dinner. For some reason there were no fire pits so we had to improvise – making a ring out of some stray rocks we found sitting about. And I scrounged some firewood from the woods. Diana had, as usual, thought ahead, so we bought groceries in Keukok so as to avoid the Dollar General in Warsaw.

A nice steak, which we had to figure out how to cook without a grate (our tin foil plan worked in the end, but only after we started a small grease fire . . .). Good corn. Rice pilaf. Broccoli. 

That part was all good.

Okay – that’s enough on the day. Like all of the days so far it had its “interesting” parts – but all in all a great day. 

But I figure maybe we should introduce some of the other characters on our journey. Two important ones in particular – my bike and Diana’s bike. 

I’ve been thinking about this for a few hundred miles now. We’re heading down toward the Ozarks and one of my favorite books from childhood took place there: Where the Red Fern Grows. Basically, if you’re a loyal post reader and you want to keep up with the blog, you should read it – because I think we’re going to have lots of Red Fern references over the next few weeks.

The book follows a young boy who gets two coon hunting dogs. He names them Old Dan and Little Anne. Old Dan is not actually old. In fact, they are pups when the boy gets the dogs and names them. 

Old Dan and Little Anne work together to “tree” raccoons – and there are lots of adventures along the way. Old Dan is bigger and tends to just bull his way forward. If he smells a coon he just rushes headlong into the chase – sometimes getting himself in considerable trouble in the process. 

Little Anne tends to take her time. She finds the scent, circles around, makes a plan, and many times figures out where the coon is hiding out while Old Dan is howling in dismay somewhere down the trail – probably because he stuck his nose into a porcupine or something . . ..

Together they make a great team – each bringing their various strengths to the task. Anyway, I’m dubbing my bike Old Dan, and Diana’s Little Anne. Not that the personality traits of the Red Fern dogs relates in any way to Diana and I. 

So – additional reading assignment: read Where the Red Fern Grows in the next week or so. Quick read – it’s really a book made for young people. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think it’s kind of religious. You can just ignore that part . . . 

One last thing for the day. We LOVE your comments. Keep them coming. One request though . . . People’s names don’t always come through. If you’re okay with it, please finish your comments with your name or initials or something . . .