I have a small bone to pick with the geographic United States. I haven't been able to stop at a library the last 3 days, and this has been on my mind the whole time. I have been educated about the Great Plains in grade school. Just to back my impression up, Wikipedia says, "The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie, steppe and grassland which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada." I have seen pictures. I have seen movies taking place in the Great Plains. The Great Plains span the entire middle of the US on a map. And when you think the Great Plains, you think flat, flat land, joyous riding. Well, I am here to tell you, that they don't. exist. in. Iowa. I crossed the Mississippi and all I have found have been pointless, torturous, hills.
Now sure, you could say, "Miroslav, just look at a topographic map, and you'll see what the land looks like". But no, not I- I trusted google maps bike directions that take you through the least elevation changes. Then decided to improvise the route using a map, with common sense telling me, "the Great Plains should start sommmmeewheere in Iowa. If it's hilly, I'll just go a bit further and they'll be gone sooner or later". Well let me tell you, a week into riding, less than 100 miles from the border with Nebraska- THE GREAT PLAINS ARE NOT HERE. THE HILLS HAVE ONLY GOTTEN WORSE AND IOWA IS BIKING HELL. I won't go any further into detial, but I'll conclude by saying that I have been cursing the hills, and the word "hill" makes my stomach turn, and the sight of a hill makes my spirit shrivel a bit more.
But, enough of the rant- I should be in Nebraska tomorrow, which locals tell me is flat. Now, they told me Western Iowa was going to be flat too, but this time I believe them. I have internet access and topographic maps at my disposal now. (Also, rhetorical writing aside, I talked to my campground host last night, and he said the catch about Iowa is that the south is all hills, and the north is flat- so, keep that in mind next time you decide to cross the state without a motorized vehicle).
So what's been new besides grueling hills? I had an interesting encounter near Oskaloosa, IA the other day while shopping for some food. I was wearing my biking gear and the woman at the cash register asked me if I'm biking, so I told her I'm headed to San Francisco. We had a little chat and I left outside and sat against the building with a snack in the shade. Then pulls up this nice cool blue colored old car (the long boat-like ones, late 70s/early 80s, I don't know the mark) with white leather seats. A Mexican man in his late 50s, a bandana with a cap on top that says "Pride" on it comes out, a t-shirt with the aztec calendar on it, covered in tattoos, a knife scar across his left cheek that had bad stitching and has the dots from the stitches. He looked like the what has now become the image for "mexican gang member" tv shows and movies have created by hiring out of "gang member" acting agencies. He greets me as he comes out of the car, and I tell him that he has a nice car. We start chatting and he says, "my wife told me there's a guy here biking across the country". Now, there were 2 people working at the store, a young girl, and the older woman at the cash register. The older woman looked like what I imagine when I think the stereotypical slightly overweight, white anglo-saxon prodestant quaint midwestern woman that goes to church on sundays. That was his wife. What an odd couple. The guy was from New Mexico (we didn't exchange names) and moved to Iowa because he said it was too cold in the mountainous region he was from. He said he really like living in Iowa. We chatted for a bit longer, and then we said good bye and he left. I think he came out just to talk to me, lol. It was a weird encounter.
The other interesting character I met was before yesterday at my campground. This guy was named Glenn, and he was sharing the camp site across from mine. He saw my bike and came over asking where I was headed. Then he asked if I wanted to accept Jesus into my life. Glenn is a missionary that says he was in the Navy in Italy when he found Jesus. He said he had no meaning to life and was doing the usual things "drugs and drinking", but then found Jesus' love which transformed his life and gave it meaning. So he became a missionary. Since then he has traveled to 51 countries preaching the word of God. Most recently he was working for FEMA on flood relief in Iowa, but he was let go (I wonder if he was coming up to random people and asking them to pray with him and bluntly accept jesus into their hearts on the spot, sponsored by the federal government). I took his little prayer sheet and told him I didn't want to accept Jesus into my heart. He seemed like a lonely guy that was keeping a tally on how many people he has converted. The way the camp was set up was that there was a communal water faucet in the middle of the circle of campsites. So every time he got water, he would randomly say something to me either about biking ("so do you eat beans and rice all the time?") or he would try to set up a conversion ("do you want me to give you a booklet, they're really hard to come by"). He was a nice guy though, though he got annoying with his preaching sometimes. He said if he passed me on the highway some time, he'd pass me a Gatorade. Hallelujah to that.
NEBRASKA TOMORROW!!! FLAT LAND!!!
UPDATE: Sitting at the library, there are about 3 groups of people doing Geneology searches. This library has a big Geneology section. Is it a special day? Or is this a big thing here. This is the biggest town in the vicinity, so it seems to have the collection of newspapers for the area.
No comments:
Post a Comment