We left Waterloo under overcast skies and air thick with humidity. Rain would not be avoided today, nor would Michelle's need for a caffeine boost. A few miles into the route, we pulled over at a roadside cappuccino/latte/coffee vendor. Anyone who knows me and has been paying attention should be aware that I am not a coffee guy. In fact, I'm not a guy who drinks anything even loosely associated with the coffee family. But the love of my life needed some, and I was fully prepared to stand by her in line, in the rain and in the cold for 30 minutes while the Pacific Northwestern vendor painstakingly mixed and stirred and blended all sorts of beverages with names and ingredients I cannot remember nor care to know, all the while delivering a message about the benefits of organic coffee beans and the evils of forest logging or global warming or whatever tree-hugging agenda was on his mind. He was a nice enough guy, but I was cold and wet and I knew I was about to hop back on my bike and ride straight into a cold, wet rain. So speed it up, Greta.
The semi-water-resistant jacket I'd bought the night before in Waterloo proved to be useful for about 10 minutes. After moisture finally penetrated its seams, I was as soaked as I would have been if I'd ridden with only my jersey. We stopped at a farmstead where Michelle urinated in a cornfield with about 100 others, and we huddled inside a machine shed next to an Allis Chalmers WD tractor like the one my dad has back at the farm. I found that if I remained motionless, I wasn't quite as cold. When walking was required, I strolled like a statue from the waist up, which humored Michelle and kept me feeling just a tad bit better. But once we began riding again, my body started its uncontrollable shaking.
A couple hours into the light but steady rain, Michelle inquired as to why I was so miserable, which had much to do with being too damn skinny. The jacket seemed like a good idea, considering I'd brought nothing else warm, but it had failed me for the most part. While I was pondering how I could be so uncomfortable on a bicycle in the rain, yet feel mostly warm riding an off-road motorcycle in the rain, Michelle's rear tire punctured. We pulled into the driveway of a farmstead and I began yanking tools out of my Camelbak. I reached for the wheel and nearly lost my hand as Michelle warned that she would learn how to change a flat and do it herself...in the rain, on the side of a road, in the middle of Iowa. I suggested that the warm, dry confines of my garage might be a more suitable place to hone these skills, but that just wasn't going to happen.
So we changed the inner tube together and Michelle learned a few things about bicycle repair. As we finished up, the rain ended. Later in the afternoon, we sat in a grassy field in one of the pass-through towns, basked in the sun and dried out. We met up with Larry and Chris that evening at a residence in Manchester, where our "Old Blue" gang had secured a spot for the night. The hosts had provided a camper trailer with shower facilities, which was a much better deal than the portable $5 showers.
The route had been flat once again, but the terrain was about to change. On Saturday, we would finally be challenged with hills.
