Storm Lake, IA to Webster City, IA

Happy 4th of July to everyone!  Tony, Happy Birthday!

This morning when Cal opened the drapes in the motel room he said, “It’s foggy”!  This is the first we have experienced fog on this whole trip. We knew we had to kill some time until the sun burned the fog off, so we went to HyVee for breakfast.  At breakfast we meet the “unofficial City council” of Storm Lake - a group of men who meet at HyVee every morning.  They wanted to know if I had any problems they needed to discuss – I told them “I needed the fog to lift”.  The one guy said, “Well give me 1 ½ hours and I can guarantee you it will be gone!”  In about 1 hour it was lifted and Cal began riding. 

We learned from the ‘coffee club’ that last Sunday night this area of Iowa had 5 to 7 inches of rain in 50 minutes.  There was flash flooding everywhere – including basements!  As we drove/rode east of Storm Lake we could not believe the amount of water damage in fields.  Some fields still had ponds/lakes of water standing in them, while in others the water was gone and so were the plants.        

Flooded Field of Soy Beans

Soy Bean Fields as far as you can see

From the time we left Storm Lake this morning until we drove into Webster City tonight we did not go through any towns – that is any towns with as much as a convenience shops. There would be a cluster of a few houses with a huge grain elevator standing beside the rail tracks.  Cal is riding on secondary roads as there is less traffic on them.

Grain Elevator in Vincent, IA - The Only Business in Town

Cal rode 75 miles again today however he did not get the whole way to Webster City.  He stopped about 12 miles west of town.  Today the temperature was up to 86 degrees, and the wind was out of the east southeast, so the wind was in his face all day, at variable speeds.  At 4:15 he told me to not get too far ahead of him.  At 4:30 I said, “enough is enough!”  He was hot and tired. We loaded the bike on the rack - the rack Cal has made for this bike has worked wonderful on this trip.

These are a few of the sites we saw today:

Egg Factory - Egg farm - 9 barns for laying hens

Hog Building - The smell!  To a hog farmer they say it is the 'smell of money', to the rest of us ..... 



Barn Art



The weather forecast for tomorrow includes storms during the afternoon, so I guess time will tell as to how far we travel/peddle tomorrow.  They are also saying there will be a northwest wind, so Cal hopes to make good time while he is riding.  If the wind is indeed from the northwest, this will be the first westerly wind in 4 days - Cal is ready for the wind to help him move east.