Iowa City

Today we went to church with the Moline Rohrbachs, where we met a boy named Chance and his brother Gabe. Chance was diagnosed with AML, and his brother Gabe was his bone marrow donor. The pastor had us stand up at the beginning of the service, and we gave both of them t-shirts and made a quick announcement. We had a pretty good reception; the congregation applauded despite seeing us in bike shorts. Afterwards, we showed Chance and Gabe our bikes, made a quick stop at the John Deere visitor center with the Rohrbachs, and crossed the Mississippi into Iowa.

Unfortunately, there was no 'Welcome to Iowa' sign, so we had to stop at the world's largest truck stop, just off of I80, to get our picture with an Iowa sign in the background. The truck stop itself was pretty cool - we got to take a look at the showroom (those trucks are a major upgrade from our bikes) and have some lunch.

With lunch out of the way, we kept on heading west, expecting an easy day, only about 60 miles in flat Iowa. Unfortunately, it turns out Iowa's not so flat. The hills aren't that bad - they were nothing like what we had in New Hampshire and Vermont - but after Nick's stories about seeing clear across the state, we were a little disappointed.

Still, we made it to Iowa City in pretty good time. There we met the Wicks family, our hosts for the night. They made us some dinner, including some Iowa sweet corn. In this case, at least, Nick's stories did not disappoint. It was some good corn - Austin ate four ears. After a little ice cream, we sat back for the evening. (Man, life on the road is rough)

~ Tom