Day # 25
Miles Covered Today: 38
Hours on The Road: 3:45 (including breaks)
Miles Traveled Since Beginning: 1,422
Where We Are: Dubuque, IA (route completed so far is shown above)
Day Overview: With just a 40 mile day planned, there was no particular rush to get on the road today. So, this was a good opportunity to be productive and catch up on work that piled up over the course of last week.
Generally, our routine is such that we bike for most of the day, then settle down wherever we arrive, eat dinner with the hosts or on our own and then we work from about 9-10pm to midnight every day.
The work varies. Sometimes, it’s brainstorming and writing the blog. Others, it’s planning our the route and researching accommodations, catching up on email, and handling other work issues related to EVELO. There is always something that needs to be done, so our late evenings are generally dedicated to that.
Of course, those late evening hours aren’t always the most creative ones, so it’s helpful to have easy days every once in a while to catch up.
While working, I had an opportunity to catch up with Anna who was looking into accommodations and route details from Omaha to Colorado. That will be an interesting stretch, as Couchsurfing and Airbnb have a very limited, if any, presence there and motels – when there are any – are miles and miles apart. We were able to get everything planned out, but it will certainly be a challenging segment of the journey.
At around 2pm, I decided that it was time to get on the road, so I finished up the remaining work and wheeled the bike out of the motel. It was virtually empty and eerily quiet for most of the day – not a lot of people tend to come through Darlington, WI apparently.
40 miles zoomed past in a short three and a half hours. Truth to be told, after getting in the “zone”, it was even a bit disappointing to stop. But I reassured myself that I’ll have an opportunity to spend another 80 miles on the bike tomorrow (and the next 55 days), so that feeling quickly passed.
On a parting note – and a bit off-topic – I’ve come across an interesting article this morning that I wanted to share: The Top 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From Bicycle Touring by Darren Alff. Worth a read!
Next Scheduled Event: Omaha, NE on May 8th at 5.30pm with Omaha Bikes. See full schedule of future stops.
Crossing the Mississippi river into Iowa on the Julien Dubuque bridge. There's certainly not a whole lot of shoulder to spare there!
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