Day 35 June 26th Acton Figures

Dysart IA to Marshaltown IA 50 miles (1,578)

This is a picture of me standing with artist Patrick Acton in front of one of his creations. More about his interesting work later...

Today's ride was hard. I don't know if it was because:

1) I rode too many miles yesterday.

2) I camped out last night. I think I slept well, but for some reason I always seem tired after camping overnight.

3) I thought I lost my hydration/backpack. I was sheltering under the overhang of a grocery store, eating a sandwich, when I went to get a drink from the straw of my hydration pack; only to find that my hydration pack was not on my back. I quickly scoured the area around my bicycle and inside the grocery store, but could not find my pack. So I quickly rode to the town park's restroom where I had stopped earlier, but still couldn't find my pack. I then quickly rode to the museum I had stopped at but didn't go in because they weren't open yet. I remembered setting my pack on a bench while talking with Scott (see below). The pack wasn't on the bench either. Then I looked through the glass doors of the museum and saw that someone had placed my pack in the foyer of the museum - what a relief!

4) I thought I lost half my clothes. I saw very threatening weather I had a new I was on a collision course with it. So I was there myself to be ready to drop off my bicycle and put on my rain jacket at a moment's notice. Of course, I did not hop off my bicycle as soon as I felt rain, but rather thought I would wait until it started coming down a little bit harder - that is called an Iowa rookie mistake. Before I could do anything it was pouring rain so then I jumped off my bicycle and unrolled my handlebar bag, reached in and pulled out my rain jacket. I quickly put it on, remembering to put on my hydration / backpack (see entry titled Blue Samaritan where I forgot to put my hydration/backpack back on) and began riding. It was raining so hard, I'm sure the drivers had their windshield wipers on high; so I was concerned about my visibility. After a mile or two I noticed that I had forgotten to roll my handlebar bag back up and it was just flopping around. I knew then that I had probably lost half of my clothes along the side of the road. It was raining too hard to stop and take inventory so I continue driving until I saw an open garage with some people working in it. I asked them if I could take refuge and they said yes. I took inventory and, miraculously, none of my clothes were missing.

Here are the clouds that dumped on me:

By this time I was exhausted, probably from a combination of the four reasons above, so I called my warm showers host and asked If he could pick me up about 12 miles from his home. I still had 19 miles to go to the point where he would pick me up, but felt like it was doable and it would not interfere with my east to west route since he lived fairly far south. Darrell graciously picked me up in Marshalltown, Iowa, and then drove me to a car wash where we sprayed down my dirt and mud and gravel and everything else encrusted bicycle. We probably should have sprayed me down, too. When we got to his house, Darrell pointed me to the shower and then proceeded to clean my bicycle bags and my shoes which were full of muck, mire, gravel and other debris. I SOOO wish I had pictures of my bicycle, bags and shoes before they were cleaned. 

I then fell asleep in my room and when I awoke I was welcomed to lasagna and Texas toast. Darrell's wife, Barb, defrosted some amazing banana bread, which I ate too much of for dessert.

This kind of Warm Showers care and hospitality was just what I needed to recover from a hard day - thank you Darrell and Barb!

Darrell in front of his very cool barn.

My bags in the back of Darrell's car after he cleaned them.

Today was my 35th day. It was also the first day I rode without at least a few miles of trails. However, RidewithGPS did take me on a quarter mile of whatever this was:

How did it even know about this "path"? It turned out to be an effective shortcut between last night's campground and today's first road:

Today I was passed by a funeral procession. I pulled over out of respect for the deceased, who must have been quite popular as the train of cars was very long.

This is Scott, a city employee for Gladbrook, Iowa, and a fellow cycling tourist who saw me and stopped to talk about my journey as well as his touring experiences, including the Cowboy Trail in Nebraska. He rides an excellent gravel bicycle and is very knowledgeable about cycle touring. Nevertheless, he was turned back by the harsh, arid, thorn filled conditions of the Cowboy Trail. This has me a bit concerned as I will begin the Cowboy Trail in a week or so.

While in Gladbrook I visited Matchstick Marvels. This is a museum of unbelievable creations made out of matchsticks with the sulfur heads cut off. The artist is Patrick Acton- you can see him above in the first picture on this post where he and I are standing in front of his scale model of the Capitol building. Here are some more pictures of his astoundingly detailed creations:

Patrick Acton and I talked for a little while about his work and  about cycling. He has ridden RAGBRAI numerous times. In fact, you cannot talk to a cyclist in Iowa without talking about RAGBRAI as every cyclist in the state has ridden it many times.