Omaha to NYC Day 7
(The Wilton Candy Kitchen)
Animated map: https://www.relive.com/view/vXvLDdd8L7v
I woke up at 5:30. Normal for me. I decided to get an early start. I'm glad I did because it's going to be a longer ride than I thought. The dew was heavy and condensation on the inside of the rain fly occasionally dripped, plink, on something. I was out of camp just before 7:00.
From camp I could hear the road. I was dreading riding in the three miles necessary to get to a bike trail. The way out of the park was beautiful. People overlook the beauty of the prairie and so little is left. At the turn off to the road from the park I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was it not so busy, but it has a good shoulder. Bike tourers are obsessed with road shoulders.
Soon I hit bike trails, the first sign of a bigger city. I thought of Iowa City as strictly a college town where the student body dwarfs the residents, but I saw a lot of cement and landscaping type businesses on the way in. It was a shock to pass under a bunch of freeway spaghetti after a week on the backroads. The trail passed through woods on the way to the University of Iowa. Speaking of which I passed a somewhat disturbing statue of their mascot. Gradually more university buildings appeared, including the holy football shrine that seems to playing the Iowa fight song 24x7.
I came into downtown on a new, busy road. All the buildings seemed too big. I wanted to find a place to sit and have coffee while my tent dried. Where in this Bellevue-que environment could I find a place. Was all of Iowa City like this? Thankfully, Google Maps didn't fail. Just north of the modern midrises was a neighborhood of small buildings catering to students and faculty. My unerring sense for bougie coffee led me to a place with single origin pour overs and great southern exposure for tent drying.
As I sipped and caught up on this blog, I contemplated the annoying squeak my bike had developed. It sounded like a pack of chickadees lived behind my saddle and not in a good way. I fiddled with the cable tension which is what Google told me to do, but to no avail. Even though it would result in another late departure, I waited until 10:00 to hit a bike shop. Best decision ever! They fixed it in two minutes. It was the jockey wheels, the two little wheels on your derailleur. And they didn't even charge me. World of Bikes, you guys are angels!
I took the bike guys advice on getting out of town and was soon enjoying low traffic roads with great shoulders. I ate lunch in West Liberty. It was my last Iowa tenderloin sandwich. It was so-so as tenderloin sandwiches go, but the waitress was really nice and offered to refill my water bottles. I took the increasingly busy US 6 out of town. Diverting would have caused a long detour because only so many roads had bridges over the wide Cedar River.
I ducked off US 6 as soon as I could which was great because I stumbled across the best ice cream shop, the Wilton Candy Kitchen. The building dates to 1856 and it’s been an ice cream / soda / candy shop since 1910 and has only had three owners! I ordered a peach float and it delivered. The shop was also Wilton's local history museum. Celeb photos on the wall included Brooke Shields and Gregory Peck. The patrons included a mix of tourists and local folks.
Peeling myself away I hit the road again. I banged out the miles because it was getting late and the local roads were getting increasingly busy acting as funnels to I-80 about a mile to the north. I saw some increasing older architectural styles which added interest when I wasn’t jumping off the road onto a gravel shoulder to avoid cars and trucks.
The last couple of miles to the Davenport city limits was nerve racking. I approached a ring freeway. There were only a few ways across and they were all busy. I ducked off the main road as soon as I could once across. Davenport incorporated a lot of space. There are whole farms inside the city limits. The road because a pleasant downhill, curvy ramble filled with trees. Eventually I got dumped onto Third Street which has seen better days. Many houses were abandoned and the inhabited ones were in severe disrepair. Was the whole city like this? I recalled a long ago conversation with an Uber driver in Pocatello, Idaho. The driver was planning to move to Davenport because it offered a good income to housing cost ratio. Was that true? I hope he did OK.
I’d opted for a hotel so I could cross the Mississippi first thing in the morning and so I could poke around downtown Davenport. There wasn’t a lot of it, but I found the fanciest place in town and had a fine dinner. My room at the Blackhawk had a deep tub. I had a nice long soak after dinner. It was all I could do to stay awake. Soon I was dreaming about crossing the Mississippi.
T.J. - you have a gift for writing! This is a delightful journey with you!
ReplyDeleteThanks, TJ
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