Day 37 - Tuesday, August 5
Sioux City to Sioux Center —61 mi, 98 km
After having a good night of sleep in the gym we passed through Sioux City. By the way I learned that this is supposed to be pronounced “Sue City” - English is a complicated language. :)
The surroundings were really beautiful. Everything is so green, especially compared to the states in the west where we traveled through the past 5 weeks.
The drivers in Iowa are also more “biker-friendly” than the ones we met in earlier weeks. They wait to pass us, until there is enough room on the other side of the road. Often that takes a lot of patience, because the road goes up and down, and so they can’t easily see the oncoming traffic.
On the above picture, you see a big semi that is behind several cyclists, waiting until it is clear to pass. And the drivers here often wave to us in a friendly way…..
These states we are in are part of the prairies and while we were in the Rockies we would consider these states “flat”. Now we are finding out that these states are not as flat as a pancake (that is only true for Kansas). Today, the road went up and down all the time. It reminded me of the Haitian proverb “deye monn gen monn”, which means that behind every mountain is another mountain.
At the same time, the wind was not very helpful and I got really tired from this (relatively short) trip.
On our way to Sioux Center we passed through a town, Ireton, where the local CRC had prepared refreshments for us.
It was a “root beer float”, ice cream with root beer, a treat when the weather is warm. It was good talking with the people from the church, especially because many of them are or were farmers. In Iowa there is not a lot of irrigation. Their corn and soybeans depend on rain. Water is pumped from the ground mainly for drinking water.
By 2:00 pm, I had arrived at Dordt College, the place where we would stay for the night. We are going to sleep in the student dorms in a real bed. That is a luxury for people who are used to sleeping on air mattresses. I decided first to change my back tire. After having many problems with that tire, I asked my biking partners, who went to the bike shop yesterday, to buy me a new tire. So I put a new tire and tube on the back wheel. After that I did laundry, using the opportunity of using the washing machines of the college.
At 7 p.m. there was a Sea-to-Sea celebration – many people from the area came. After this celebration there was another mission fair, where Leanne and I stood at the CRWRC table, giving out information about the work of CRWRC to participants. We met many people who were interested in what CRWRC is doing for the poor. We also met the father of Howard Van Dam, who came down with his wife from Minnesota for the Sea-to-Sea celebration.It was late when we went to bed and I had a headache. With two ibuprofens and a short prayer I went to bed, hoping I would be able to bike the 113 miles the next day, the longest day of the tour…….
