Like the parts of western Missouri we visited, we quickly discovered that our stereotyped views of Iowa as being nothing but flat cornfields was completely off the mark. Yep, there are cornfields galore, but flat? Uh, no. Perhaps some parts of Iowa, but certainly not Shelby County. You can actually see a representative hill at the upper left of this photo. There were also a lot of hills in the park. If you aren't familiar with Iowa, here's where Shelby County is, in the western part of the state, fairly close to Omaha, Nebraska. Although Prairie Rose State Park has a Harlan address, it's actually located down at the lake you can see in this zoomed-in map, about 11 miles southeast of Harlan. Another thing we learned about Iowa is that in the rural areas, there are very few paved roads. In fact, the roads you see on the map to the right are the only paved ones: the highways in yellow, and the county roads in gray. There are a lot of other roads, but they're all unpaved. Barry had drawn a detailed map showing all the roads in the area from Google maps, but once we got out there on our bikes, we realized we had very few choices since most were unpaved. We'd just cleaned and detailed our Bike Fridays, so we weren't going to ride them on the dusty gravel roads! So our planned ride to Harlan for a couple of groceries ended up being mostly along Highway 44, not exactly our favorite type of riding. The main part of the shoulder was gravel, so we only had a small lip of the road to ride on as there was also a serious rumble strip. Fortunately, drivers were courteous and gave us the whole lane when passing, if they could. We appreciated that! We didn't take any photos along the road, as we were too busy concentrating on holding our lines. The first grocery store we came upon in Harlan was Fareway and even though it was a little small, it turned out to be a real gem, with a good selection, and bag boys wearing white shirts and ties and assisting customers by taking their groceries to their cars. We felt like we'd stepped back into the 1950s! On another day, we rode over to the little Danish-American town of Elk Horn, also shown on the map above. This route was hillier and a little longer than the route to Harlan. We also had a hotter day for it. As a result, I really suffered, but it was very pretty ride, and the town was cute. There's a Danish-American museum and the only working Danish windmill in the US! .The 60-foot windmill was built in 1848 in Denmark and purchased here for the US Bicentennial in 1976. However, it took the people of Elk Horn until early 1977 to fully re-assemble it, so they missed the Bicentennial celebration (Source). It was a beautiful day to view the windmill. On the way back, I took this photo of Barry; you can see some of the hills we tackled. Fortunately, traffic was light, and the area really was beautiful. I love the hex signs on barns. Most in this area had one. Although Iowa was beautiful, we're still looking for flatter roads to ride. Maybe in Minnesota?
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We chose to stay at Coleman Lake Recreation Area campground in beautiful northern Alabama in part because of its close proximity to the Chief Ladiga Trail, a paved bike path that Barry had ridden in 2014, while I drove our car with Paisley. However, things don't always go as planned, and it turned out that our campground was a wee bit too difficult to ride to the trail from. But we didn't know that starting out. We chose to ride our Bike Fridays with their mountain gearing, expecting a hilly route, but we didn't realize that half of our riding would be on unpaved roads, since the roads around the campground were all paved. Between the often steep hills and some fresh, loose gravel, this meant slow going for much of the ride and quite a bit of walking our bikes to avoid wiping out. Definitely should have taken the mountain bikes on this one! After accepting the fact that we weren't going to make it to the Chief Ladiga Trail, we found a different route back that we hoped would be easier. But it ended up being similar to the ride out, with over five miles of seriously hilly gravel. Running out of water and food, I was feeling awfully cranky, but eventually we did hook back up with the paved roads in the national forest and finished the ride on a fast and fun note. Still, it was the toughest 27-mile ride of our lives, and certainly the slowest, at well over three hours of pedaling and/or pushing! An epic ride like this reminds us that sometimes it's just as well not to know in advance what awaits you; otherwise, you might miss out on some crazy adventures. I'm sure we'll look back on this one and laugh one day soon, right?! I had intended for this post to be all upbeat and cheery, but unfortunately, life isn't always all sunshine and kittens. So let me get "the bad" out of the way first. Yesterday at the end of our excellent bike ride, Barry went out to do a couple more miles after I finished riding. When he arrived back at our rental, I could tell immediately that something was wrong by the large dirty spot on the right shoulder of his t-shirt. Turns out he had crashed. He was making a right turn on a paved street, when his bike's wheels slid out from under him, and he slid across the concrete pavement, which was very slick from age. He was very lucky as oncoming cars saw him and stopped, even asking if he was okay. He was wobbly, of course, but able to get back on his bike and ride back to our rental. He's a little scraped and bruised up but fortunately doesn't appear to be seriously injured. He bled very little, mostly his elbow, and we cleaned and doctored up his wounds with the first-aid items we'd brought along. It was scary, though, and reminded us once again how quickly and unexpectedly accidents can happen -- that's why they're called accidents. Up until this crash, we'd really been enjoying our rides here in Playa. There is a fair bit of traffic in the downtown area, but once we get north or south of that, there are lovely places to ride where traffic is minimal to non-existent. So now onto the sunshine and kittens portion of this post! On the north end of Fifth Avenue, we discovered a paved multi-use path that has very few crossings. There's little traffic along the narrow road there, so if we need to exit off the path to pass a jogger or dog walker, it's easy to do. The best part of this path is that across the road there is colorful graffiti art/murals on nearly every building surface. We don't know the history of this area, but there are some really gifted artists whose talents are on display. Here are just a few examples of some of my favorites. On the south end of town, there's a bike path in a loop through the huge golf subdivision Playacar. This is little more than a glorified sidewalk and is pretty narrow. It has a bit more ped and bike traffic and is not in quite as good condition as the other paths, but it is a pretty area to ride in a residential area, with some nicely shaded parts. We didn't take any photos of this one. Just west and outside of Playacar is our very favorite path to ride on. This paved path goes either north towards shopping (busier and with more road crossings) or south to the huge Xcarat Park, often called the "Disneyland of Mexico". This path is smooth, has very few driveway crossings, and is lightly used, at least in November. There are more iguanas out sunning themselves than people on it most of the time! The path is lined with beautiful foliage including many small Flamboyant Trees (Delonx regia). The only negative of this path is that it does run alongside the highway for the most part, so it can be a little noisy at times. But that's a small price to pay for a path like this. Here are some of the exotic creatures seen along the bike path! And talk about exotic, we thought these trees growing in the concrete entranceway to Xcaret were unique! See the roots coming out the bottom? So, that's what we've discovered about cycling in Playa del Carmen so far. It seems to be one of the best places in Mexico for people who like to ride bikes. We hope that Barry will heal up quickly and we'll be back to it!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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