2,300-mile Mississippi Bike Trip

Part 5: The Final Leg and a few stitches

By Amanda Hall
Special to the Turnagain Times

Well, we’ve made it to Dubuque, Iowa—829 miles on my odometer—but are about three weeks behind our original, very flexible schedule. We have had a wonderfully warm, dry Indian Summer but now it is goose weather, cold, cloudy and windy from the north. Perfect for flying south wrapped in goose down, aerodynamic shape slicing through gray skies.

All along the Mississippi River Trail, from the Twin Cities to our present location we found towering sandstone and limestone bluffs. Sometimes we were riding at their feet, other times, more challenging, along their crowns. Surrounding us was blazing maples, more somber oaks and the sumac in its fiery autumn glory.

With the tearing winds of late those trees have lost their color along with their leaves. Now exposed among the spiky twigs are the long-abandoned nests of robins, cardinals and jays. The steely gray river is laid bare to our gaze instead of glimpsed through a green and gold haze.

We’ve seen some amazing sights along the river, and some amusing ones. Tom drove past a guy on a double-decker bike one day. This young man had welded another bike frame atop a regular bicycle, strung another chain from the top crankset to the bottom one and was touring with a full set of racks and panniers, plus a backpack. Tom did not get a chance to speak to him to find out the particulars. I would dearly love to have heard his story.

Coming out of La Crosse, I pedaled past an entire street corner dedicated to bicycle-themed windmills. I stood amazed by skeletons and witches, turtles and tigers all on two wheels, spinning merrily with the breeze. How I wished I could take them home to Alaska. We saw Big Indians, Big Muskies, Big Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, a pink elephant (I swear I was not tipsy), murals and museums, pubs and taverns and the Mr. Sippi Bar and Campground of Red Wing, Minnesota. The Mrs. Sippi Restaurant was found in Pepin, Wisconsin. Just a small, informal separation I guess.

We have eaten lots of bratwurst, one of my favorite reasons for traveling to the Midwest. The other favorite reasons are sweet corn and garden tomatoes, but our journey was just too late in the season for these to be at their prime. These menu items are perfect camp food, easy to transport, cook and eat with your fingers.

I have to admit that I was getting rather sick of ramen or minute rice with tuna, but Tom bought catfish cheeks one evening at a Mississippi River state hatchery and combined it with chicken ramen, fresh green onions, ginger and water chestnuts, concocting a feast. He is by far the best, most inventive camp cook I have ever had the pleasure of being served by.

Despite my fears of cold and wet, we have been remarkably blessed by warm dry weather to camp and ride in. Our little two-person home away from home has been perfectly adequate to our needs, since we have been able to cook outdoors whenever we chose to, or to find a pub or cafe if we wanted more complex fare.

We have not met one grouchy person along the way, and in fact have been warmly greeted, supplied with a beer or free apples, or invited into the pub to watch the Packers trounce their competition all along the way. What a great bunch of folks live along this mighty river.

This journey has been full of surprises and the unexpected clouds with silver linings. Our reasons for being behind schedule have all been health related: Tom’s health, the car’s health and now mine.

Coming up the hills out of Dubuque along highway 52 on Oct. 16 an inattentive driver hit me with his mirror, sending me sprawling on the sandstone gravel shoulder. Leading with my left elbow, I opened a gash in my forearm that required a thorough removal of the spiky stones forced into the wound and over 20 stitches, under general anesthesia.

At the same time that I was flying off my bike, Tom was dealing with a blown head gasket on our little old Fiat. He would not arrive at the hospital until more than two hours after I did, and only then through the generosity of a Good Samaritan met at the gas station he managed to limp into. Wouldn’t you know that the recovery room nurse has a brother who is an honest mechanic, and will repair our car for a reasonable price. You can see what I mean about silver linings.

And so I think that for this year, at least, the journey of a lifetime, bicycling down the Mississippi River self-supported and self-contained will adjourn here in Dubuque, Iowa. I purposely say adjourned and not ended. We will pick up where we left off, whether that day is next year, next decade or next lifetime.

In the meantime, we are enjoying life everyday for all it’s worth. I hope that you – like us – are counting your many blessings.