Peosta, IA

It's been a crazy couple of days!  Saturday night (after I last left you) I headed up along the Great River Road roughly along the Mississippi up through Illinois.  In the mood for a break, I stopped in Thomson to check out a museum.  It was closed, but on the way I saw a small bicycle shop, and stopped in to chat, get another water bottle (stupid leaking camelbacks...), etc.   In the window was an ad for a Saturday evening worship service on the river.  So, I headed down that way.

After some wandering, I found my way to the service. Pastor Paul, the local Methodist minister has organized the area churches to put on the service as a joint event. We were joined by a few campers, and it seems to be budding outreach opportunity. At right is the view from the shelter over the Mississippi - which is over 3 miles wide at this point.

Since rain was expected in the evening (as it seems to be every day around here), I decided to stay under the shelter after the worshippers left, just pitch a tent to keep the 'skeeters off, and try to stave off the mildew by keeping everything dry for a night.  I watched the sunset for a few minutes, and then headed off to take a shower in the nearby bath house.  When I returned the light was still fading, and the last fishermen were packing up, even though we could see the fish jumping at bugs over the water.  One other couple was around, walking their dogs.  Well, I try to be discrete when camping where I don't technically belong, and chatted with them about the weather.  Mrs. C (as I'll call her) told me some stories about taking shelter from tornadoes, and that their family rule was to always find shelter against an east or west wall - even if it's outdoors (theory being that you won't get buried in rubble that way).  It's apparently worked for her through several tornadoes!  I'm of course glad to take what advice I can get.

Well, conversation turned around to the nature of my trip, and Mrs. C had some motherly concern over my well-being (not uncommon along the way, but she had an exceptional case), but when it finally came time to part ways, we shook hands.  While still grasping my hand, she says "Blessings on you, child" (or something similar) which piqued my interest, and I asked her about her faith.  She told me she believes that God lives in everyone's hearts.

She then told me (still holding my hand) that she was a Protector (it sounded capitalized the way she said it).  Of course, I couldn't let that go without some investigating.  Mrs. C told me of a time when she was ~9 years old in the fields with her father, and said to him "Daddy, there's someone who needs our help in the valley.  There's a snake."  Sure enough, they went down into the valley, found a young woman asleep on sleeping roll, with a snake nearby, which they removed.  Ever since, Mrs. C said, she's had specific revelations of people she was supposed to protect.  She said that she knew I'd be down at the causeway, but she wasn't sure why she was supposed to protect me.

By now, I'm pretty curious.

I pressed her for more information, but she was pretty vague. I began wondering if this was some sort of supernatural event, or if I was hallucinating, or something else!


She turned again, to walk off, but turned back over her shoulder and said, "Remember, the wolves will protect you, too."

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.

But it's not like I'm going to stop being curious at this point! "How will I know which wolves will help me?"

She demonstrated by doing this, and warned me not to look the wolves in the eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was then ready to leave, but not before leaving me with tip that she was only the first of three "Protectors" who would visit me.

 

WHAT?!  At this point I was debating moving my campsite.  She seemed sincerely helpful enough, but the last thing I wanted was a midnight visit from a crazy person who thinks they're a wolf or some such nonsense.  I stayed awake for quite a while, listening to see if anyone was around, and once the local teenagers headed off I slept pretty well.

 

The next morning I woke up early, began packing my gear, and went to go fill my water bottles when - you guessed it - Mrs. C comes driving up.  This time she gives me a zip-lock bag of supplies (matches, tea, non-dairy creamer, a radio,  soap and shampoo...). She could not be convinced that I did not need more of these items, so I dutifully packed 'em up, hoping she'd leave. 

 

Mrs. C had other plans - first was a fighting lesson for me.  "How would you react if a bad person was coing at you from behind?" she asked, to which I showed her a basic fighting stance.   "NO!" she shouted.

 

Proper fighting stance, according to Mrs. C.

We heard a couple of distant rumbles of thunder, and her tone began to turn ominous: "Three!  There's always three!  And then the storm comes!"  I took this as my opportunity to depart, strapped down the last few odds and ends, and took off for church (with Pastor Paul at Thomson UMC).

(Deep breath)

The service was nice, and I stopped for lunch next door while waiting out some morning rain, where one of the employees' stepdads (a fellow adventurer) was called in to the restaurant to give me advice.  All day I town-hopped, trying to avoid the worst of many isolated storms.  Towards the evening I rolled into Galena, IL - a very 1830's style town, with a lot of history.  Supposedly it was set to rival Chicago in its heyday, but the Chicago bankers refused loans to the area to protect their city.   It's also Pres. Grant's birthplace, and his original house is preserved.

Try to beat dark in finding a sleeping spot, I headed to the local bike trail along the Galena River.  At the entrance, I spotted another guy with a loaded down bike!  He was at a table talking with Jeremiah Johnson.  They were eating dinner and invited me over. 

I quickly learned that Cory (the cyclist) and John (who drives a truck) are both transitionally homeless.  Cory had set out from Minneapolis to find work, and John is a startup musician plying the trade.  We talked, trading advice from the road and got to know each other over a couple hours, so that by the time it was dark enough to set up camp, we'd decided to sleep in the same area (Cory had scouted out a nice underpass the night before).  Then we were set to live the dream:  John pulled out his guitar and serenaded our little neighboorhood for an hour or more (the video doesn't do him justice, and sooner or later I need to learn to embed them).

Later in the evening I told them about the morning's experience, at which point John pointed out something interesting (and possibly a production of our imaginations) - that when I'd laid the bag of goods from Mrs. C on the ground, Cory went straight for the radio, and wound up looking quite a bit like the bowing wolf.  Then John pointed out Cory's wolf tattoos - one on each hand.

Spooky!

Except for the train it was a pretty calm night.   The train?

The train.  It's about 30 feet away, but at least it only comes through twice a night - about midnight and 2 am.

This morning I was a bit tired, and a bit wet (more drizzling), but ready to hit the road.  I headed up to Hazel Green, WI for some cheese, but found the locals to be suspicious of me, and turned towards Iowa.  I've had U.S. Route 20 recommended to me as a path through the whole state since mid-Illinois, so I felt confident in my directions.

U.S. Route 20 is not a good path for cycles!  There's a dirt/sand shoulder (no good for me) and heavy traffic from 2-6 pm at least.  I kept pushing down the road, hoping it would improve just over the next hill, for 10 miles or so, but finally gave up at Peosta and determined to get off on some back roads.

Mom and the faint of heart should skip the next paragraph, but rest assured that I'm fine and you don't need to worry about me.

It appears that I chose the wrong exit.  Since the roads are concrete slabs, there are some seams in between.   Well, at the Peosta exit the seams are significantly larger than the width of my bike tire, and run parallel to the road (so you have to cross to get off).  I attempted to hop off the road, and the tires slipped down into the groove, sending the bike off balance.  Since the bike was headed down, I instinctually dived away from traffic and towards the shoulder, but in the process banged up my hands and an elbow.  I was, fortunately, able to get out of traffic and even pulled the bike clear.  I immediately went for my medical kit to stop some blood flow.  A couple of cars pulled over (judging by their reactions, I suspect they thought they were going to have to drag me out of the road) and looked appalled at the blood running down my arm.  Really though, there were just a few little chunks of skin gone and all of the wounds were pretty superficial - mostly some bad road rash and bits of embedded gravel.

For those of you catching up:  I crashed, but I was OK.  One of the passerby insisted on calling the sheriff, and the fire & ambulance crews heard the radio traffic and showed up as well (Nice thing about small towns:  available emergency crews).  So, I was checked out very thoroughly by a bevy of experienced folks, and they pronounced me (as I had) all right.

I'm going to be sore tomorrow, and I need all the sleep I can get - so I hope you forgive me for signing off on this seemingly negative note, but I feel as good as can be expected, and I think everything looks much worse than it is.  I'll keep you posted on that.