The trip from IowaFalls to Waterloo and Dyersville

Hi again from Iowa. Travel by bicycle through Iowa is, for me an exciting experience. You see corn every day and as I said, it is not flat and for every hill you climb there is a descent and then another climb. But it's the agriculture resource that is America and I love the hills, the corn, and the ride. Today's ride from Iowa falls to Waterloo and then to Dyersville had some additional things to look at, both. terrible and beautiful. While on a country road we came upon a farm yard with tons of old farm machinery. Every sort of device; none looking like they worked and all rusty. Sorta reminded me of our garage for those of you who know it with two tandem bikes, a recumbent, several other bikes and assorted 'stuff'...and no room for our cars.

We were looking at the farm yard when a motorcyclist came by. Turned out he was a highschool teacher from Parkersburg and he said we should stop by because they had a tornado go through on May 15th and wipe out half the town so we did. It was reall something and the place was a disaster. Lots of rebuilding (the contractors were all driving nice new fancy expensive SUVs) and lots of rebuilding...

We saw lots of trees like this. Just gone. Others were uprooted and laying on their sides like you'd pull a carrot out of the garden.

There was a house here. This was a pile of rubble left and te hole behind it was a foundation. Whole houses were lifted up and plopped elsewhere.
Parkersburg wasn't the only place hit by weather. Since the beginning of the trip we were hearing about all the flooding in Iowa and wondering if we'd have a motel to stay in. We rode along the Iowa river into Waterloo. Part of the time we rode on part of their lovely bike trail system including riding along the top of the levee. The entire town wasn't protected by leveees however and above you can see one of the many houses that were sandbagged to protect against the flood. Our motel was high and dry but many of the businesses nearby in downtown Waterloo were closed though we did get some dinner and a good night's sleep. Our trip so far has been blessed with wonderful riding weather. Really makes your heart go out to the folks who were hit by the havoc of nature though.

On the trip from Waterloo to Dyersville we passed Petersburg. Rising from the middle of the fruitive plains and corn was this beautiful church. Looked like a castle...a prelude to our Disney trip that will follow the bike ride across America and beauty to come. (The woes of computers. This picture will have to be in the next post along with a picture of the uprooted trees in Parkersburg).