Harriet, aka Little Dick
An interesting sign on our Iowa bike ride
Pleasant sight in Old Town Omaha
This is a big stone sculpture of the mountainous profile we rode over, starting with the Cascades on the left. (Although judging from the height, that must be Mt. Rainier, which we certainly did NOT ride over!) This is at the western trails (?) museum in Omaha.
Best coffee place in Fargo. How could it be otherwise?
Days 34-35 - July 23-24th - Fargo, ND
No biking!
70, rainy - perfect biking weather!
The rest of the group has now all gone home, and I so enjoyed not leaving the hotel at all yesterday. I only left my room for breakfast and dinner at the hotel café, and spent the rest of the time sleeping, staring out the window, reading, watching TV.
Our farewell banquet Thursday night was great fun. We took over the hotel bar before the banquet, and again afterwards,where we all sang a reprise of my version of “What a difference a day makes” and Christine’s “Will the shoulder be unbroken”. Much laughter, lots of hugs, vows to see each other again soon. This has been such a great group of women! I see reunions in our future.
About half the group is signed up to ride the “eastern half of the northern tier” next year, continuing on from Fargo to Maine. I don’t plan to do this, but would like to do it on my own at some point. Riding self-supported in the east, where there are fewer mountains and more civilization, is much more feasible.
If I can afford it, my next WomanTours tour will be the Meandering Mississippi in 2012, from New Orleans to the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.
One thing I have learned from this trip is that I really don’t want to ride more than 60-70 miles in a day, unless, of course, we have one of those 30mph tailwinds. Fully loaded, my preference is about half that.
I called my dad this morning and asked what’s new, he said “well, I started my new year”, I said “huh?”. Today is his 83rd birthday and I TOTALLY FORGOT IT! BAD, daughter, bad, bad daughter! Sigh….
One more night here at the Radisson, and then tomorrow I go to my friend’s house just a couple of miles from here, for at least a few days. I have nothing certain scheduled until August 6th, when I meet up with Kathy to ride on into Minnesota to the 2005 tour’s reunion.
July 28 -- Omaha, Nebraska
No, I did not bike to here!
After spending a day exploring downtown Fargo on foot, I relaxed for two nights at Ann’s (who I met on the 2005 Southern Tier) house. We went for a nice 25 mile, very flat bike ride, and she showed me around suburban Fargo. I got to ride the ferris wheel inside Scheel’s, which seems to be the prairie states version of REI / Cabela’s.
At 1am Tuesday morning I was awakened by tornado sirens. Ann, Ed, and I migrated to the basement for an hour or so until the all-clear, and then I got my wish of seeing a good thunderstorm… and then another one …. and then another one. Pretty much constant thunder and lightening for the rest of the night.
Trying to figure out how I’m going to fill up more than a week until the reunion in Minnesota, it suddenly occurred to me that I could rent a car! So yesterday, that’s just what I did… and drove from Fargo down to Omaha, to visit Lynn and Christine. It’s much different, and nicer, here than I had expected. They live in Bellevue, just outside of Omaha, and it’s just lovely… hills and wooded, winding roads. Today we rode our bikes into downtown Omaha, much of the way on nice bike trails. A very pleasant ride except for the heat… 90+ with what seems to be about 110% humidity. The old part of downtown merits more exploration, which is my plan for tomorrow.
I crossed 3 state lines yesterday -- South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska -- and have tried to convince Lynn and Christine that I deserve 3 margaritas as a result, but so far no luck with that.
August 1st - Beatrice, Nebraska
August at last! I get to go HOME this month!!!
After spending 4 nights at Christine and Lynn’s lovely home, like staying in a 5-star hotel (except the wireless internet service was a little spotty), I took off again in the car yesterday.
The stay in Bellevue was wonderful. I drove back into Omaha one day to walk around “old town”, a very pretty area of old (1800’s?) red brick buildings which have been converted into galleries, restaurants, boutiques, and the like. We went to the movies to see “The Triplets of Belleville”; I’ve seen it several times before and it seems I like it better every time. It was new to Chris and Lynn, and they thought it was a hoot.
Thursday we drove over into Iowa and went riding in the Loess Hills, with friend Pete. This is a very pretty area of short, forested hills rising up out of the cornfields. We were stopped at a corner and heard a loud, pitiful, “meow, meow, meow”. And found a beautiful grey tiger-striped kitten, probably 3-4 months old, cowering alongside the road, terrified of the big trucks going by. What to do? We tried both of the houses nearby. No, they hadn’t lost a kitten and didn’t want one either. So, Lynn stayed with the kitten while we rode back to the car. We drove home with kitty in my lap, purring. Surely we can’t take this cuddly sweetheart to the humane society? But Patsy and Eddie (my host’s cats) aren’t likely to cotton to her, and Pete’s 23-year old cat isn’t either. Lynn says their neighbor was, she thought, looking to adopt a cat. And sure enough, when we get home, the neighbor comes over and immediately falls in love -- how could you not?
Neighbor has another cat, named Ozzie, so we thought the perfect name for kitten was Harriet, such a sweet little thing. But neighbor calls later to say Harriet was cleaning herself when it became clearly visible that she was a he…. So Christine came up with the alternate name of Little Dick, “LD” for short. Not sure the neighbor agreed with this, though.
So, yesterday I drove down to Nebraska City, home of Arbor Lodge state park. Arbor Lodge is the former mansion of Julius Sterling Morton, founder of Arbor Day and secretary of agriculture during the Cleveland administration in the 1890’s. His son Joy was the founder of Morton salt.
The lodge is well worth a visit -- 52 rooms to wander through on 4 floors, including a bowling alley in the basement. The mansion is surrounded by, of course, trees -- a beautiful arboretum of some 270 species from all over the world.
Just across the road is the Arbor Day Farm, a bit more touristy but still interesting, and a lovely half-mile or so trail through the woods to the Lied Lodge, a big (old?) hotel and conference center, where I had lunch.
In the afternoon I drove to Brownville, right across the river from Missouri. I had planned to drive across the river there, just to rack up another margarita point, but the bridge was closed. Brownville, however, was charming… a tiny town with several enjoyable art galleries and many beautiful old houses tucked into the hills along the river.
I stayed in Beatrice last night because it’s near Homestead National Monument, where I will go today. Had some trouble finding a hotel room here; the first two I checked were full, something to do with baseball. Can’t imagine playing it in this heat and humidity.
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