Leaving Wyoming after the eclipse, we found ourselves on the interstate highway, in heavy traffic, starting to sense the fun was over. Impulsively, I pulled of the highway and onto a rural road in Iowa, that ironically took us to Madison, Iowa. In Madison, we visited the Nisha Heritage Center. We spent two hours captivated by the collection of this local museum. Clearly they had a gifted curator who spent decades collecting objects that spoke to life on the farm in Iowa. I don't have many photos, frankly because I was too engaged in the experience to break away from our guide and take them. A lovely woman, probably in her 80s, spent two hours telling us how the exhibit of the town's doctor was obtained and how made the doctor was to come to work one day and find his door broken. Someone had entered the office forcefully overnight, perhaps in the 1930s, and damaged the door. The damaged door, his medical school degree, and various other tools of the trade were now housed in the Nisha Heritage Center. The list of common everyday items is too long to list but there was a butcher shop, a blacksmith shop, a collection of wedding dresses, a collection of 2000 buttons, locally found fossils including a molar from a Columbian mammoth, the old post office service window, goods from the old general store, on and on and on. The lady who became our guide had a story to tell about almost every item we saw, who it belonged to, how it was obtained, etc. This stop reminded us of the importance of looking closely in out of the way places for such hidden treasures.
We found that Iowa had a small museum in almost every town we drove through. We ended up stumbling into the town where John Wayne was born, Winterset, and just by accident drove past a sign to the Roseman Covered bridge, one of the famous bridges of Madison County. All three of these surprises happened in one day, at the end of which, we were back on track and our travels were once again an adventure.
Earlier, we had been invited by Cecil Goettsch, a fellow rider on our Coast to Coast bicycle trip, to visit him in Des Moines, IA. At the time, we planned to travel through Minnesota and we told him that we would not be able to make the visit. Readers of this blog know what happened to our plans regarding Minnesota. However, once we found ourselves leaving Wyoming, we were clearly en route to Iowa. We ran into Cecil in downtown Des Moines at their Framers' Market. He was calling trying to see where we were, and it turned out we were standing about 50 feet apart in the middle of a crowd of 1000s, visiting the market. We managed to get in a bike ride with Cecil on the High Trestle Trail, and spent time catching up with him at his home. Cecil has crossed the US about 6 times on his bicycle, and is now working on a route to retrace the famous route 66. Cecil sings a Capella, and and and was kind enough to offer us a spare CD that he just happened to have lying around.
A town I would highly recommend anyone visit is Pella, IA. We visited since my father in law was a dealer for Vermeer Equipment, which is headquartered there. The town has a very interesting, Dutch, heritage. There is a working windmill that grinds meal that you can visit. It was a marvel of design and craftsmanship. There are two amazing bakeries in town and a historic village. We also toured the Vermeer museum and scored some merchandise at the Vermeer dealer discount rate. It was emotional to think that we were perhaps viewing things that Wayne and Sue and viewed on one of their trips to Pella when he was still running his business. Apparently, their tulip festival is a big thing.
After Iowa we traversed Wisconsin. While staying in Waupaca, we enjoyed one of the most beautiful bicycle rides I have ever taken. I downloaded the route from Ride with GPS and we traveled on great roads that were almost free of traffic. In 50+ miles, other than a short one-half mile on a busy road, we had about 10 cars overtake us. We saw sand hill cranes, dairies, turkeys and beautiful farms and forests.
After Wisconsin we landed in Bay Furnace campground in the town of Christmas, MI. We visited the Pictured Rocks seashore on Lake Superior. I cannot overstate how beautiful the lake is in this area. The water was crystal clear and the lake bed littered with smooth beautiful agate. You could spend hours wading in the chilly water picking up stones and never grow tired of the colors and patterns you would find. The sandstone cliffs along the lake are very surprising, and the blue/turquoise water is evocative of the Gulf of Mexico or the Mediterranean Sea. Kayaks toured the shoreline, offering the best view of the cliffs.
After leaving the UP, we crossed the Mackinac Bridge, and make our way down to Grand Rapids, where I sit now. Last night we were visited by Craig Anderson, who was in Peace Corps with me. Craig stayed on in Africa and work for US AID. After the AID mission lost funding, Craig joined the Foreign Service working at US Embassies around the world, serving as Charge d' Affairs and multiple sites. He now owns a farm in RSA, just across the border from Lesotho, where we both served. This was the 3rd former PCV that I was able to reconnect with on this trip.
Today, I plan to visit with a former work colleague, Peter Cherry, in Ann Arbor. Then we are off to Gambier to see Maggie. We should be home next weekend.
Some photos of the places we say along this segment. BTW, we discovered White Pelicans. We had no idea that fresh water pelicans were a thing, but we saw them in the Dakotas and again in Iowa.
