August 20: North Sioux City, South Dakota to Norfolk, Nebraska
I rode in three different states today: South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. And Nebraska is the fortieth state visited in The Dream Tour.
We took an extra day of rest yesterday in North Sioux City. I felt like I needed some preparation time for the upcoming events in Norfork tomorrow. I also needed to get a refill on my insulin prescription. I had convinced myself that Norfork was a 60-mile bicycle ride from North Sioux City. I felt like I could do that ride in one day, so we took yesterday to get our errands done.
Well, it turns out that North Sioux City, South Dakota to Norfolk, Nebraska is more like 90 miles. So, today’s ride becomes the second longest ride in The Dream Tour so far. The longest was 93 miles way back on March 27, the day I rode from Page, Arizona to the Navajo National Monument in northern Arizona.
Fortunately, it was a good day for such a long ride. The winds were light (about 8 miles per hour) and from the south. The temperatures were pleasant — highs today in the upper 70’s. And the best part about the weather today was the humidity was very tolerable. There was about 25 miles at the beginning of the ride that was very flat. As I was enjoying the flat riding this morning, I could look to the west and see a line of hills on the horizon and I knew that the easy flat riding was coming to an end. After reaching the hills, the remainder of the day was up and down climbing about the same two hundred feet in elevation over and over again all the way to Norfolk.
I arrived in Norfolk about 2 PM. As I passed through town on Norfolk Avenue, I spotted some of the places where tomorrow’s events will take place. First, there was the Norfolk Daily News office where I have an interview at 2:30 PM. Just a block off of Norfolk Avenue are the studios for KEXL and US92 radio stations where I have live interviews scheduled at 7 and 8 AM, respectively. Then there’s Faith Regional Health Services where I’m part of a kick-off event for an American Diabetes Association Walk for Diabetes fundraiser. That event starts at 6:30 PM, but I’m going to be there at 6 PM for an interview with KTIV TV, the NBC affiliate based in Sioux City, Iowa. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff going on in one day!
The neatest thing about today happened after we checked into the hotel. We were just getting ourselves organized and there was a knock at the door. I thought it was the local Bayer HealthCare sales representative, Brad Gulker, stopping by to say hi, but instead it was a hotel staff member. She was holding a huge gift basket from Faith Regional Health Services. She handed the basket to me, saying something about having to ride a few extra miles to work off the contents of the basket. There was all kinds of stuff in the basket — fruit, crackers, cheese, apple juice, popcorn, granola bars. What a great “Welcome to Norfolk!”
August 21st, 2006 at 10:39 am
Hi Pete - I’m (we) are the newcomers in your parents unit, having moved here last Feb. Your dad put my name on your email list somtime back and have enjoyed following your adventure ever since. Your DreamTour seems like a huge undertaking to me, an older person, but congratulate you and Pat on your great effort. I had hoped to talk with you when you were here in St. Peter but called at a time when you were out. Hope we can connect sometime soon. Keep up the good work.
Pete Disher