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Years ago, maybe, when this was the frontier and months lay between the sight of one new faee and another, but today? When rapists, thieves and murderers roam the land ?We were unprepared, but on reflection, we shouldn't have been, because that invitation was just one more of the delightful surprises we've had while pedaling around Iowa:A farmer stopping to chat while we were resting and eating lunch . . . discovering the Lansing Hotel, where the rates were $5 a night without privatebath, $6 with (they may have♦enough ahead to pass.Cycling around Iowa means to see and feel the state and smell it — I'm talking about apple blossoms and about newly cut mvcet grass as well as hog lots — in a way that is impossible when insulated from the world inside a car.I mean, when you've sweated up a two-mile hill out of the Mississippi valley, you know you've come up a hill.(We finally accepted *the invitation, incidentally, and had a delightful time. But more about that later.)I have a recurring fear thatOther states have built more bicycle paths and have marked more bicycle routes, but I doubt than any has paved as many roads from nowhere to nowhere as has Iowa.They lay out there stretching smoothly through some of the prettiest, countryside in the state, just waiting for the bicycles to take them over.Some areas have more than others: South of Des Moines and west of the Des Moines River there are relatively few;in northwest Iowa there is an al-♦most embarrassing many.Most of them (they're theson to Marengo).We tour light, staying in whatever accommodations are available, rather than camping. This approach has had the advantages of keeping a lot of weight off the bikes and of allowing us get the feel of the small towns we've stayed overnight in. And that's been at least half the fun.The trick, whether taking a one-day ride or an extended tour, is to get the bikes out of the city to where the good roads startWe usually j ust put the bikeson Page 6)DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER—MARCH 2S, 1973-PAGE 5^,(Co7itinued
Newspaper Details
Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa, US
Sun, Mar 25, 1973
Page 153
Full Page
Clipped by
University O.
IA, USA 11 May 2023
Other Publications Near Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines Daily Leader
Des Moines Register and Leader
Des Moines Iowa State Register
Iowa Industrial Progress
Des Moines Daily News
