Pactour Day 17 "Corn today, Corn tomorrow"

"Corn to the left of me..."

"...Soybeans to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you."  Prolly gotta be +40 to appreciate a play on a Steelers Wheel song.

Really cool fence in Amish country made of old metal buggy wheels (probably still functional.)

Really pretty flowers by the roadside when we stopped to pee.  I'm sure Papa Free could ID these, especially since they were in Iowa.

?The road old cyclists retire to when they get dropped on too many group rides?

Ah, the ole Miss.  Now we're making progress (nearly 2/3 across the U.S?)

Overnighting in Lon and Susan's home state.  And Opa's roots and alma mater.

Let's see Lon rides across the country and back in 25 days, runs Pactour with Susan, rides his bike (a single speed) dropping everyone in the process, fixes peoples bikes in the afternoons and in his spare times, restitches Will's Pactour luggage bag which wasn't done quite right "outsourced."

Jim's hairdresser may have less work to do from now on.  He has learned to shave his own head on Pactour.  We were suspicious his head resembled the shape of a Beluga whale, we now have affirmative confirmation.

It is said that at some point Pactour seems like "Groundhog Day."   Starting out this am we thought we were at that point.  Up at 5:45, Breakfast at 6:30, Bags out at 6:50, On the bike at 7:00, 150 miles of headwind and rollers, etc etc etc.  Part of this was the last 2-3 days we have entered Corn country and the scenery didn't change much.  Corn to the left, soybean to the right, vice versa, corn both sides, you get the picture.

Jim had started saying smart things like "Today there is an 85% chance of Corn, 15% chance of Soybean."  Or singing the above Weird Al version of Steelers Wheel "Stuck in the Middle with you."  Jim and the boys have a disgusting joke "You know what they say about corn.  Corn today, corn tomorrow" - I'll leave it to you to figure that one out.  We now had a new meaning for the joke since we were riding thru Corn fields daily.

The first 40 miles started out like that then things got really interesting.  We dipped into Northeastern Iowa and went thru Amish country, seeing adults and kids in typical Amish garb, riding buggies.  The farms were beautiful and the roads started rolling and turning.  We started going thru small Iowa towns, which are simply beautiful.  Really brought back memories of RAGBRAI (ride across Iowa) that the family did a few years back.

We did get chased by 2 pit bulls today.  Jim kicked them both in the chops (while riding.)  They seemed to enjoy it.  Everyone made it thru unscathed, fortunately.  Only, later did Jim reflect on the fact that he was riding in his Sandals and things wouldn't have been too good if he had taken a tooth in the big toe.  Oh well, no worries.

After lunch we hit some bigger rollers, then dipped down towards the Mississippi River, crossed it into Wisconsin, Lon and Susan's home state.

The colorful figure of Pactour, Hooker, didn't ride the bike.  Hooker has not missed jumping in a body of water since we departed from Washington.  We think that Minnesota (The land of 10,000 lakes) might have exhausted the Hook the past 2 days and he needed a respite.

We are obviously moving east as the states are now ticking off alot faster than Washington, Montana and Wyoming did.  Only 2 days in Minnesota?  Only late morning thru later afternoon in Iowa?  

The family did awesome today.  All 4 riders did the 135 miles.  No extra miles or reroutes today.  No spills.  JW was tired in the am, Will in the pm.  Fortunately we generally end up riding after lunch for several hours with Cathy Nixon-Heibel, and her amazing energy and enthusiasm is always just the antidote for the tired riders after lunch.  We lose Cathy tomorrow as she is leaving Pactour to get ready for Paris Brest Paris so we will need to find another source of late afternoon energy from now on!!

Later.

The Slausons