Day 6: Wednesday, September 20: Shenandoah, Iowa to Brownville, NE , 42 miles [166]

 to River Inn Resort, 648 A Ave; 402-825-6441

As we write tonight, we are in Brownville, NE, sitting on the deck of a riverboat/lodge where we are staying, watching the Missouri River flow by. So peaceful at dusk... so quiet except for the occasional sound of a fish jumping and the night insects in this riverside park. 

Today we began biking in Iowa, biked through the northwest corner of Missouri and ended the day in Nebraska--having crossed the Missouri River for the 4th time in 6 days. 

It was a challenging 42 mile day to get here. We had a headwind or side wind all day. The sun was intense, even though the temperature was only about 80. We rode up and down hills for 3/4 of our ride. Without electric assist, we would have been unable to do this day. (And not using all the assist we wanted to use, because of worries [somewhat unfounded] about using it up.) We felt depleted upon arriving at our destination. We passed windmills, cows scared of cyclists, silos awaiting the harvest, farmhouses with large lawns. Large trucks passed us (respectfully)--either returning from silos empty or going to silos full. We biked on asphalt and better gravel surface than we experienced on Day 1. It turns out, that day we experienced only the base layer. On top of that Iowa puts a layer of quite-rideable finely crushed limestone. There were also  a few miles on harsher gravel and hard-packed dirt. 

We passed thru only one town the whole day, Farragut (population 490), not far from our start in Shenandoah. We stopped at a picnic table on a deserted main street to eat our slices of Casey's-Country-Store breakfast pizza. No coffee shops or restaurants today; the side of the road provided grassy places to rest and eat the food we had brought with us. On one long stretch of road, we spotted one house with one tree and headed for a break under the shade of that one tree. No car was in the driveway, but three dogs were tied up outside and we could hear another in the barn, another in the house. What a noisy ruckus of the watch dogs and lucky for us they could not reach us in the bit of shade we found. We had knocked to ask permission but no answer. Fortunately we felt better after 20 minutes of shade, and the dogs quieted down and let us rest. We wonder what story the dogs had to tell their owners later.

A highlight was meeting Gary and Sherry Thompson (residents of this area for 36 years), their granddaughter, Mazie, and dog Sadie. They kindly allowed us to rest on their lawn in the shade and to add a boosting charge to our bike batteries. Because of a wrong connection, Bob's bike did not gain much charge, but happily made it to Brownville--his conservative use causing exhaustion.  That made it especially pleasing to find TJ's Tavern facing us as we exited the bridge at the end of our ride. After sharing 3 cokes, 4 glasses of water, and 1 pizza as we watched college volleyball, we revived and headed contentedly to the River Inn Resort.