O The Flats

            This week riding has been very straightforward with very few hills.  But it has been nice to see different parts of the country than what I’m used to.  For me it has been interesting to see a lot of the farmers working on harvesting their crops for the season.  Using all their equipment such as combines in the process that I’ve never really seen in use before.  It has also been pretty fun riding by all the cattle farms and checking out the cows.  Sometimes when riding by some of the younger cows they are still interested in me as I ride by so they start chasing me along the fence.  When a couple of them start going it always seems like the whole herd starts running at the same time which is funny to watch.

Todd from Council Bluffs

            I have been lucky to meet some very cool people this week though.  The first cool person I got to meet was Todd in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  This is basically the same place as Omaha, Nebraska.  It’s just the other side of the state line.  But I was able to find him through warmshowers.org.  Todd took me out to eat at a great pizza place, which just happened to be right next to the TD Ameritrade College World Series Baseball Stadium.  Now of course if you’re a Gamecock fan at all you know that this is where the baseball team won the College World Series in 2011 after winning in the old stadium in 2010.  It was cool getting to see where the gamecocks have seen so much recent success in person.

            The next night I stayed at a church in Onawa, Iowa.  They were nice enough to let me stay inside their family center for the night, which also had a kitchen that I was able to cook my dinner at for the night.  When I left Onawa the next day there was a very stiff headwind though.  It was blowing directly in my face from the northwest all day.  Not to mention it was blowing between 15 and 25 mph all day.  This made for a very frustrating ride because of how slow I was going.  I gained just over 400 feet of elevation in 40 miles so it was a very flat ride overall.  However, because of the wind I was still only able to average 7.6 MPH. 

College World Series Stadium

            O well I had two rest days coming up so I just kept pushing on and eventually made it to Sioux City and my next couch surfing destination with Titus.  This turned out to be a very fun weekend of watching football and hanging out with Titus’s friends for Halloween.  This was one of the most fun weekends I’ve had on this trip and some of the coolest people that I had met yet. 

            The next step is Hawkeye point on Tuesday for the 7^th high point of the trip and then on to South Dakota for number 8. 

            - Michael Hunter