Days 26 & 27: Des Moines, IA to Harlan, IA to Omaha, NE

• Distance: 65.36 mi
• Elevation: 2,687 ft
• Dedication: Colton Kirchnier and Uncle Tim
• Ride group: Rose, Bethany, and Jake, plus Eli
• Host: Prairie Rose State Park/First United Methodist Church/Motel 6

Greetings from a tent in a campground in Iowa… because 4K has COVID!!! Turns out the head cold-esque sickness most of the team has felt recently is more than just a head cold from inhaling dust on gravel roads, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition like we thought. Finding out that we had a positive test during lunch was quite an experience, but all things considered things have gone pretty smoothly for adjusting our plans so suddenly.

Yesterday’s ride was supposed to be around 73 miles. We started the day as usual by getting ready, packing up the vans, and our dedication circle and team chant. One of us looked a little different though– today we celebrated our first “4K birthday,” so Jack donned a tutu and other birthday gear. It’s not actually his birthday, but everyone picked a fake birthday during the trip on which they get to choose their ride group, get special food, and are forced to wear the tutu.

The first 40 were on beautiful trails out of Des Moines. A construction worker told us earlier in the week that Iowa has the most bike paths per capita in the US, which is interesting. The only real issue with the first half of the ride was that it was quite windy, but the trail was more or less flat and we did have a nice tailwind for a few miles as well.

After our second water stop we were off the trail and onto roads. The wind was brutal at times without the protection of trees, and we were also climbing some decent hills. At times the landscape was so open we could see for two miles– I know this because we played a game where we each guessed our distance from a far-off point and measured it with my bike computer. I won once! I felt a lot better than I did on the century ride before our rest day but my heart rate was really high, especially when we were going up any sort of elevation.

We stopped for lunch at an unusual spot because we ran into a road closure. The road was impassable for vehicles but water van got them to agree to let us walk our bikes over the bridge that was being worked on. So, we stopped for lunch before the construction so we could cross as a group and were spread out on a section of the closed road (behind the signs for safety purposes lol) eating lasagna from Olive Garden.

While we were there someone who was feeling very sick had to take a COVID test in order for their doctor to prescribe them medication… and it was positive. Just to be clear if I’ve failed to convey the 4K team environment, having one positive test means most of us have had or currently have it. The most pressing issue was our host situation– obviously, we do not want to spread anything to the communities that have generously taken us in. Thankfully we have been relatively isolated from other people with our past few hosts, but we were scheduled to be at a church in Audubon last night. We do carry tents with us in case hosts fall through, but in this case we cancelled on the host and found a nearby campground to stay at and the sickest people were put up in a hotel for the night. After running into a second road closure we decided to just rack and drive to the campground since we were no longer going to Audubon. But of course it wasn’t that simple– we had all of our stuff in the host van still since we weren’t going to our scheduled host, so we didn’t have room to take everyone at once. We left one group behind who were taken in by a nearby property owner who was unbothered by the COVID risk and let them occupy his man cave shed for a few hours. I was a little afraid they were going to become subjects of a Dateline special but everyone made it to the campground unscathed.

Our spot at the campground was right next to a lake and was very nice (aside from a LOT of bugs). And it had showers!!! We had a huge spread of food from host van donations and very generous contributions from the First United Methodist Church in Audubon, who still fed us even though we couldn’t stay with them.

This morning we woke up to rain but we were all mostly dry in our tents. We spent most of the day just sitting around waiting for updates. Katy’s dad, Bob, donated an AirBnB in Omaha to us for Sunday and Monday when he saw we were still in need of a host there and was able to pull some strings to get us two extra nights, so in the afternoon we packed up camp and relocated to Omaha. It’s so convenient that we are able to quarantine safely together in a house instead of tents– as an added bonus we have a pool, hot tub, fire pit, laundry, and loads of space to dry out our wet gear!

Grace just made a delicious soup for dinner and now most of us are hanging at the pool. I took a high-quality nap earlier but still feel wiped, which has been the worst aspect of my sickness so far. I’m definitely looking forward to these unexpected rest days, even though it is sad that we’re missing a few days on the bike and weren’t able to bike across the Nebraska border. But on the bright side, we really couldn’t have timed something like this better, and now get to relax and heal as a team!

Until next time,

Lauren