Matt decided to send back his trailer and just use two panniers for the duration of our trip. We set out early, but were still a little weary of his back tire, that was being held together by duck-tape. A few hours in, Iowa gave the old detour sign, due to a bridge that was out. We flagged over a car and asked if we could still ride our bikes on the road. They said that we’d be fine the next 7 miles, but then we would have to take a 3-mile detour on a gravel road out and around the bridge. We decided to go for it, since we were planning to meet up for lunch with a friend from the Appalachian Trail days as well as pick up the new tires from Matt’s parents. We made it to the fork in the road, gravel on one side and construction signs ahead. I thought maybe we should just go and see how bad the construction was, and that perhaps we could just hop over the small creek. When we got to the site, it was apparent that there was no good way to get across. One of the workers suggested we walk along a corn field and find a narrow spot and hop over, although we’d probably get wet. We decided against it since Matt’s tire was already in a vulnerable state. As we head back to the gravel road, Matt’s tire blew. We had already blew through all of our tubes the day prior, and so we had to patch the tube. This was our first tube-patching event of this trip and we settled on the side of the road to wait for it to dry. I busted out the snacks and we waved to all the construction workers who were now driving out to pick up lunch. The patch held for us to make it only an hour late meeting John for lunch in Lowden. We picked up the new tires and said our final goodbye to Matt’s parents and Lily. It was a sad farewell, but I felt so lucky to have had their support over the past week. Fully loaded with our gear we set back on the trail and ended the day in Muscatine.
Memories from Iowa: three flat tires, hilly and too many detours!
Leave a Reply