"You can choose front yard, backyard, or living room." - Day 19

Day 19. Geez. This morning Ken's mom had breakfast out for us, which was a welcome improvement over instant oatmeal and convenience store pastries. We bid farewell to the Ferrells at 6:30 and after turning the right way off of their street, set off towards Davenport.
Riding early in the mornng was pleasant and we were pushing at a steady pace with our lofty goal of reaching Davenport. We hit another milestone coming down a hill outside of Grinnell, breaking 2,000 miles.
We were on pace to make it the whole way at 15 mph for 12 hours through the first 60 miles. We had Subway in Grinnell before trudging onward until Travis caught is front tire in a crack and went down. The tire was shot and it took some time to replace it with a spare. We endured a strong south crosswind along with moderate hills all day. Fortunately, we avoided rain though.

We had checked the highway report online in Des Moines to avoid any closures due to the recent flooding. As a result, we stayed off of Highway 6 between Iowa City and Davenport, opting instead to take a county road to the north. We kept seeing ominous signs warning "thru traffic only" and "road closed ahead" but without alternate route, decided to keep going and hope that we'd be able to get through on our bikes. It turns out the bridge had been badly damaged and was fenced off. But we decided that we'd risk collapsing the bridge with our additional weight, rather than head backwards 6 miles to try to find another route. Needless to stay, it remained upright.
By the time we made it past the bridge it was getting pretty late. The floods had also caused us to end up crossing I-80 more times than we would've liked and a wrong turn outside of Wilton left us behind. With 25 miles to go to Davenport, we called it a day as the sun set.

In our typical fashion, we went to the first bar with food that we saw. When we asked if anybody knew where we could pitch a tent, the bartender offered her front yard, backyard or the living room. When she called her husband to let him know she was brining to guys home from the bar with her, he responded that he'd have clean towels ready for us! Erik and Holly were great hosts, offering laundry and breakfast that we refused. The two felt like they should pay some of the hospitality they had received on a motorcycle trip forward and we were the lucky beneficiaries. Their company was enjoyable, but we were exhausted from our longest day yet and had to go to bed. We didn't quite make it to Davenport, but we're in great shape for a 25 mile rest day tomorrow before crossing the Mississippi!

Time	Trip	Odometer	Average	Max
11:36:10	164.7	2110	14.1	35.7