Post 8- Prescott to Davenport

I woke up early, ready to start my trek down the Mississippi. As I aired up my loaded down rear tire, it began to deflate so I had to pull everything off and replace the tube with my spare. I looked at the old tube and realized that the bike shop in Fargo had replaced my inner tubes with an inferior brand; why would they do that? The fix was easy and I was back in business. A few miles down the road was were the junction between the St. Croix and Mississippi occurred. The town of Prescott marks this location; I stopped long enough to take pictures and do some pushups. The road out of town was very hilly, but I was rewarded with a rare moose sighting and wild turkeys. I made it to Red Wing, where the shoes come from; I also stopped in the store to take a picture of the worlds’ largest boot, size 638 and ½ if I remember correctly. I then stopped for breakfast at the local greasy spoon.
The ride out of town was actually quite nice, with a series of rolling hills and farmland, just a few miles west of the Great River. At around 4pm, I pulled into a gas station at Wabasha. As I enjoyed an ice cream sandwich, I noticed a small boat on a broken trailer on a flatbed tow truck. A barefoot man in his forties who had autism was talking with his mother about what to do with the boat. She approached me and asked if I was riding a racing bike; I told her it was a cycle cross bike and that I was riding across country. They continued to talk about the boat, made a phone call inside the service station, and said something about driving the boat down to La Crosse. I thought to myself, “what a coincidence, I’m going to La Crosse tonight”. So, I jokingly mentioned that I would ride down with the man if he wanted. The mother, Lavern actually thought that was an alright idea but Steve wasn’t sure if he had room. He was on a journey to the mouth of the Mississippi, so the boat was full of food and supplies.
I met them, and the tow truck at the boat ramp and we loaded my bicycle into Lavern’s SUV. We took some pictures and Steve and I were off like a herd of turtles, at about 5 miles per hour. When we left the marina, and crossed into the channel of the Mississippi, we continued at our slugs’ pace. I assumed that we would increase our speed but that didn’t happen; I didn’t want to press him about it so I just sat quietly, absorbing the great views of the surrounding bluffs, bald eagles taking flight, and the sand islands that dotted the river. Steve stammered out that, “I just tuned the m-m-motor, and y-you aren’t supposed to open the throttle m-m-more than half way”. In fact, he only opened the throttle about a third of the way, because I could pick out any tree on a shoreline and watch the squirrels run up and down before we were past it. It was a lesson in patience, and I enjoyed every view, every ripple of water, and the silence that the river afforded us. We didn’t say much for a long time until we reached the first lock-and-dam. I learned how to signal the lock to open for us, and also about what the numbers on the buoy’s meant.
While travelling down river, you are supposed to stay between the green and red buoy’s; they indicate where the depth of water is nine feet or more, which is what is required for the barges’ passage. We did this for hours, and the sun set quickly, we weren’t to La Crosse yet and it dawned on me that we weren’t going to get there by boat tonight. The next dam was approaching, and natural light was fading quick. Steve made a wrong turn at a reedy island, and we got off course. There were large numbers of pelicans roosting and wading in the shallow depths at either side of us. We slowed to a sloths’ pace and Steve finally realized that he needed to turn around. As we pulled around and he opened the throttle up, it sputtered and the clutch slipped. Something was stuck on the blades of the motor, so we limped the boat out of the shallow water, and back into the channel. It was extremely dark and I had no idea where we were going to pull out of the water. Fortunately, we saw another small craft sneak into a dark passage along one edge of the waterfront. I had to put my headlamp on to keep us from getting stuck in the reeds, and we followed the light on the back of their watercraft into a creepy tunnel that seemed to go nowhere. We had to row the boat through the black widow infested tunnel, and finally made it to a small marina with a boat launch. I helped tie the boat up, and promptly called Lavern to come and rescue us.
We were in a little town called Minneaska, where the only thing open was Buck’s Tavern. The locals looked at us like we just landed on Earth from space; I was still wearing my spandex bike shorts and a rain jacket, and he was barefoot and stammering. I actually thought the situation was hilarious and enjoyed every part of the adventure. The bartended got worried when our ride didn’t show up when we said, so she got on the phone with Lavern and directed her on in. I squeezed myself into the vehicle with my bike and all the gear, and we drove the rest of the way to La Crosse. We got into town at around 11:30 pm and I called Stephanie’s father, George. He met us outside of his old mission style house, and I was thankful to have a place to stay.
George made me a sandwich and he let me help myself to salad, grapes, brownies, and Ice cream. I told him a little bit about the day’s craziness and then he showed me my accommodations. He was a very kind man for waiting up for me and having a bed made; I asked him to wake me in the morning. We had cheese omelets, brownies and milk for breakfast and then I gathered my things. George told me a little history and mentioned about the castles and estates that were a product of the timber industry over a century ago. I bought and new inner tube at the local bike shop and then drank three cups of coffee downtown.
It was about 1 pm and I crossed the Mississippi for the second time headed south. The ride was gorgeous, the hills were rolling and I seemed to hold a steady 18 miles per hour for several hours. The easy part was over though, because before Harpers’ Ferry, the road went up and through the steep bluffs, and my pace slowed back to the turtle speed. The only saving grace was the fact that every uphill has a downhill, and I was able to get some video footage of my descents. As the daylight faded, I finally made it into Marquette about an hour before sunset. I found a Bed and Breakfast, knocked on the door and asked if I could set up my tent in their yard or if I could set up in the city park. They weren’t too keen on that idea, but offered to call the mayor’s office. They were in a city council meeting, but then she looked down the road and there were a group of people standing outside. I went and talked to them, and I was introduced to the mayor and city clerk; they said that they couldn’t let me camp in the park, but Mary Sue offered to let me set up in her back yard two blocks away. The mayor told me that I should buy her a beer, that,” we have priorities in this town”. I laughed, and followed Mary Sue to her yard.
After setting up and catching up on a phone call, I headed over to the casino, which was actually a huge old paddle boat. I took a picture with a giant pink elephant in a top hat, and boarded the docked ship. The only thing that they had for dinner this late was goulash, and stale garlic bread, but It filled me up. I wandered the three floors of insanity, the dizzying array of slot machines, and flashing lights and buzzing bells was almost too much for me. I settled at the bar, and talked with the cute bartender along with a group of older, cigar smoking gentlemen, telling stupid jokes. The funny thing about working in a casino is that you have to say, “thank you, good luck” to every person that you talk to; you also have to show your hands to the camera in the typical “jazz hands” motion so that they can see that you aren’t pocketing any money. I left a couple of hours later after drinking three beers and I told Amy, the bartender, “thank you, good luck”.
The next morning, I crossed the river into Wisconsin. The town of Prarie du Chien was named after the natives here, apparently the tribal leaders name was translated as Dog, hence Prarie of the Dog in French. I bought a loaf of bread at a grocery store called Piggly Wiggly, and started a hilly bike ride. There was nothing about the ride that was flat; in fact, I have never ridden up steeper hills other than Seattle. I stopped for my peanut butter and agave sandwich lunch in a small town about 25 miles away from Dubuque when the rain started. I had a host, Sheri, that night in Dubuque so I just decided to gear up for the weather and go for it. However, just before leaving the gas station, a grumpy old man said, “you are going to get wet”, and all I said was, “yup”. It never amazes me the things that people will say to you just because they can’t keep it to themselves. I was able to keep my shoes dry for the first ten miles, but the drops of rain increased in size and intensity, so my feet were swimming in water by the time I reached Dickeyville. I just kept pushing on through and as I finally reached Dubuque, the sky cleared up and I found a café that had black eye coffee and a restroom to change my clothes in.
Sheri met me after about an hour, and we put my bike on the bike rack the she kept in her trunk. There was a tornado warning county wide and the dark clouds were moving fast. We drove to her house across town, and unloaded my things as the rain started to pour again. We were both hungry, so were went to the grocery store and bought the fixings to make BLT’s and also a bottle of wine. When we got back to her place, we made dinner and talked about Sheri’s trip to Japan, including what she learned about Sake and a little about my bike trip thus far. I had two sandwiches and drank most of the white wine, then did a load of laundry and passed out. I dreamt about flying in a helicopter over glaciers and valleys, it was nice to be dreaming again.
I left town early the next morning, because my trip to Davenport was just over seventy miles, and I was told that the trip was hilly. I stopped at a local BBQ place to use the restroom and fill my water, but the owner told me to just grab a bottle out of the cooler. I love the unexpected kindness that all types of strangers have shown me the past six weeks. I left town on Interstate 61, which was a four lane highway that had a disappearing shoulder every few miles. I don’t know if I have ever been on a road that made me nervous the way that this one did. I kept my cool for nearly thirty miles even though I had three semi trucks honk at me and one pass about a foot away from me. I had enough of the high speed, noisy road, and I stopped at a visitors center at Huntsville. It was a nice stop, there were massive restored lime kilns on a historic estate. I ate lunch at the interpretive center, picked up a bike map of Iowa and took country roads the rest of the way to Davenport. It was refreshing to slow my pace once again, watch the corn fields sway in the wind, and daydream as the scattered clouds floated on by. I only had one dog try to silently chase me, and I easily outran him. I pit stopped in Grand Mound , had a Diet Coke in a dark, cavernous bar, and rested for a about an hour. I called my host, Eric and got directions into West Davenport where he lives. The rest of the ride was actually really comfortable, as the hills decreased in size and I was able to average a comfortable 18 mph the fifteen miles into town.
I got on the bike path that meanders all the way through town and arrived at Eric’s place just as he was pulling in. He got tickets to a Minor League baseball game for us, the local team is known as the Quad Cities Bandits. Eric works in insurance so he knows quite a few people around town, so he was able to get us into the private party with free food and beer. He told me that if I wanted to stay another day, there was a river blues festival going on with Blue Oyster Cult headlining. That was all that he had to say, I love music. Eric told me that he was going to be serving beer for three hours at the festival and asked if I wanted to work so I said yes, sounds like another fun experience. The Bandits won the game, and we left the stadium, got home and went to sleep.