Day 28: The Longest Road, One Victory Point

Colin:
Our host David provided us an excellent breakfast (creme brulee french toast i am told) and we set off through downtown Mitchell to find the interstate.
Once we got onto the shoulder of the highway, putting the wind squarely behind us, we were off.
Life in the real world briefly intruded on our trip as I texted and chatted with my parents about mail forwarding.
But with the long straight roads you find out in the Midwest I was able to do that while keeping up a solid pace.
The land was as almost perfectly flat until we reached Sioux Falls shortly after lunch. We stopped off for a snack in the city, but on some level, that really may have been just to break up the constant bumping of riding on and off sidewalks going through the city.
Shortly after rather abruptly popping out of the east side of Sioux Falls and about 75 miles into our day we found ourselves crossing into Iowa.
We stopped in the first town we came across to fruitlessly check the town hall for a bike map.
Sitting down outside we saw forecasts of continued west winds for the rest of the afternoon and for thunderstorms out of the southeast the next day.
Thinking to take advantage of the wind while it lasted, we abandoned our previous plans of heading south and just went straight down the same state road until it was time to make camp.
Carol took a bit of a spill getting onto the gravel shoulder to let some enormous bit of farm equipment pass by but she was just fine and able to push on none the worse for wear.
After 129 miles on the bike, we made camp in an RV park on the local golf club.
After our typical dinner of tuna, rice and an orange, Carol went to shower while I got to chatting with the gentleman a few sites over.
We talked sports and cars, and after she returned he invited carol and I to have a couple of beers and a second dinner with him. We gladly accepted and talked with him about his travels hanging steel anywhere from the Georgia Dome to Gulf oil rigs and eventually Iowa.
Such chance encounters with friendly strangers on the road and glimpses of lives so different from our own have been some of the most positive experiences from our trip thus far.

129 miles

1790 miles total.