Murrs Across America

From Terry and Jane’s yard in Sioux City we set out toward Vermillion with a tailwind, mostly. We enjoyed the river path in Sioux City, which led us to brunch at Bev’s on the Water where we met Tina and Mr. Wright. They were curious about our adventure so we dined together and they graciously picked up our tab. The two were training for RAGBRI and interested in our training regime for the trip (none). Bev showed us pictures of her kids, and at one point said our message of family engagement, health, environmental mindfulness really got her thinking. The meal and the fellowship was a fantastic Father’s Day treat.

In Elk Point, where Main Street was completely excavated and impassible, we visited the grocery store and sat down to have a yogurt snack in the parking lot. My very big boy told me that he needed to go potty and afterward ran up to a stranger in the parking lot and exclaimed loudly: “My goed poo-poo in the potty!” The stranger was Amy Giorgio, and she was tickled pink about Brady’s achievement. She asked us about our journey, told us her father was a cyclist, and invited us to come camp at her house. She was on her way to pick up beans at the local Mexican restaurant, they were having fajitas for dinner, and we should come right over.

At the Giorgio’s we were met by four of the sweetest, most well behaved children ever put on the planet. Jane immediately formed a special bond with Sophie, another five-year-old, and the older kids all helped prepare dinner and set the table.  The family sang a prayer set to the Superman theme song before we chowed down on a lovely dinner. We shared stories, took turns playing the piano and dancing, and gave bike tours.  Kathryn (sp?), the teenager, gave up her bed in the basement for Stuart and I, and the little ones nested on the floor. As per house custom, Papa Giorgio read a couple of chapters aloud from the second “Story of the World” book, and we learned about the Trail of Tears and slave uprisings in the south.

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On this day we hitched a ride out of Omaha with Kayla, a friend of the Richards. We met Francis, the cook at Kings Crossing, out back as we were parking our bikes. He bought us a fantastic chicken fried steak lunch, and Brady learned about tractors from the farmers in the booth behind us.

We rode with tailwinds to Onawa. It was a beautiful day. At one point, a cloud of yellow butterflies fluttered around me for about half a mile.

We stopped to rest at the beautiful historic library in Onawa, where the kids and I read a stack of Margaret Wise Brown books including one about storks I hadn’t previously read: neat story and characteristically gorgeous language, moms.

We camped at the Onawa KOA and dined on rainbow pasta (whole wheat pasta with crushed tomatoes, orange peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, black beans, garlic, onions) and a tomato the neighbor camper gave us.

June 19

Lunch in Sloan at the Pizza Post (freezing, great cinnamon bread sticks)

Ride to Sioux City

Camping in Terry and Jane’s yard

Storm & a Movie (Toy Story 3 – scary)

The kids and Stuart visited the Children’s Museum while Kate posted trip photos. We packed to leave in the evening when Blake would be returning from work and able to drop us off on our route outside of town.

Here is an interview with the Omaha news: http://www.wowt.com/backpack/headlines/96619434.html

We appreciated visiting with LeAnne and sharing a positive story with Nebraska. Check out the comments on this post because my mom seriously rocks, and you’ll probably enjoy her opinion. For more comments on this, check out our Facebook thread here:

The forecast changed to a Tornado Watch so after the interview, we opted to spend the night again at Blake and Sarah’s, who hit the town to celebrate their wedding anniversary. We visited the old market district of Omaha and later I sat on the porch and watched the approaching storm.

On this day Kate wore a dress borrowed from Sarah, who was starting a thirty-hour shift as an Internal Medicine resident at the Nebraska Medical Center. If you’ve seen the size of the bag for all my clothes for four months, you’ll understand why borrowing a dress is news.

We had a rough morning. Stuart and I tried to plan and sort out work for our return. This proved to be a tense and confusing exercise, so when we met a man wearing volleyball kneepads in the park where the kids played in the fountain, it was a relief to respectfully listen to a story that made less sense than our own. He was barely lucid. He was living in six or seven different times and places. But in the story he was sharing with us, the man wouldn’t let us leave without taking his key-of-B harmonica. Also, he said I had grown up to be just fine.

We explored Omaha. We ate made-with-love falafel at Amsterdam (or, according to Brady, Hamsterdam), and fancy-pants ice cream at the e-Creamery. We dined, courtesy of our gracious host, at Dario’s, a Brasserie in the Dundee area where the French fries are authentic and the meat is prepared sous vide.

The kids and I took flowers to Sarah in the ER, where she was doing some tremendous work.

The paths of people, however direct or meandering, are so lovely.

Confusion in Omaha

Hamsterdam

Ahhhhh.

This was the day we learned that we were not too precious to travel on dirt roads. The Surly Long Haul Truckers held up very well on the gravel and rocks, and didn’t complain nearly as much as we did.

We visited the Lewis and Clark museum in Nebraska City where the kids played on a keelboat replica that was made for the movie about the adventure that we had watched in St. Louis. We learned about the plants and animals Lewis reported, we sniffed the medicines the Corps of Discovery took with them, and the kids loved on a large reproduction of Seaman, the charismatic Newfoundland that accompanied the mission.

We marveled at the sky and biked on “class B” roads, where a farmer stopped and gave us cold Gatorade and cookies. We were picked up in Bartlett beside the train tracks by our friend Blake, who whisked us away to his lovely home in Omaha where there is a steam shower (ahhhhhhhh).

We had a lovely dinner there and visited with Blake and Sarah on the kitchen floor, eating cookies right out of the oven. The kids slept in nests beside us on the floor, happy little birds.