Cedar Falls to Hiawatha via Vinton – 70.9 miles straight up hill – no matter what Cedar Falls said

HRH has a 2400 foot climb today if she makes it all 70.9 miles. The heat and humidity are up today. Truth be told, they aren’t up to the “If you live in Iowa during the summer, those days come off purgatory” up but hotter and stickier than they have been the last two days. Like I said, CaDiva pronounced Tuesday a sucker day. 

 This morning reminded me why I am the most patient and caring of all three of us. At 5:30 AM, after sleeping on the pull out sofa, I grabbed the alarm and quieted it immediately. Then carefully took my suitcase into the bathroom and shut the door BEFORE turning on any lights. I completed my morning ablutions and dressed. I snuck quietly back to the room and began folding up the couch when my traveling companions went all bat crap crazy over not waking them up.

I told them I got up so they could sleep a little longer, where upon they continued their whine and cheese fest about how they were awake listening to me snore. This is patently impossible. I have a machine that keeps me from snoring. It actually forces air up my nose so that a snore can’t get out unless I open my lips. And I don’t do that because the air up my nose comes out my mouth. And that is not only nasty it feels weird. So they were just whining because I was going to drive this morning. And they should remember, stopping at Starbucks is not guaranteed.

We were able to fool Jillian into taking us almost all the way back to Cedar Falls from Marshalltown this morning by getting right up to Highway 30 before asking her directions. We made it as far as Hudson, IA when a very pleasant State Trooper who was directing traffic told me to make a U-turn at Hudson. This was the point when all the 20 THOUSAND riders were lined up for the single-holer flush toilet across the street from Hudson High. Now we know full well there are toilets in most high schools, that’s where you go to smoke. We don’t, but other people do. Not now so much as in 10^th grade. But if they let us in to pee, we wouldn’t.

Waiting for the bathroom

Wake me when it's free

Anyway, HRH told us to hold back near La Porte City in case she needed rescuing. The bike traffic was between us and where the support route was, so we had to find another way. This entailed CaDiva and I, mostly me, but she was sitting there too so I’ll give her some credit, using a road map. We carefully followed all the state and county roads we could take to get to Vinton, IA. 

How about 58?

Nope the riders are on 58.

38?

Nope they are on 38.

What about 46?

Nope, they are there too.

Ok we back track to Traer on 63 and cut over on 8. That way we can take 218 to LaPorte City if she is in trouble.

Bikers are on 218.

DAMMIT!

We’ll have to tell her to make it to Mount Auburn and take V61.

Well, if she can make it to Mount Auburn then she can make it to Vinton.

By which time she texted us to go onto Vinton. Which we did. But we came in the back way and ran smack dab into the middle of the riders.  We worked our way around to a residential streets just three vehicles wide, with parked cars on both sides.

This is harder than it sounds since I don’t know right from left (And you should be more tolerant of diversity before you start making smart-ass comments about those of us who are spatially-impaired.) CaDiva, who is not so inflicted, has trouble watching out for bicyclists on narrow streets when I’m trying to explain we should go behind us over there and turn that way to find a residential street with some shade. Turn to my side, not the watch side (she doesn’t wear a watch). But we are now one of the parked cars in the shade, so life is good.

HRH found a kybo in La Porte City and now she is two hours out. We will wait. CaDiva is looking through the owner’s manual to find out if we can charge anything without the motor running. And I’m trying to write fluently without a mouse. Yeah, I don’t know why I need a mouse either, but it is not as easy as it sounds with a laptop on your, get this, LAP and not mouse. I have to keep turning off the touch pad because it is where I rest my wrists and I keep relocating my insertion point. Well, that did not sound that dirty before I typed it.