Crazy train

July 28, 2022

Iowa bike day

For today's ride, we're meeting our friends at the High Trestle Trail's parking area in Woodward. This is a shorter rail trail - 25 miles - that goes from the northern part of Des Moines to Woodward. A connection is being slowly worked on that will allow you to someday ride from this trail to the Raccoon River Valley trail in Perry.

The highlight of the High Trestle Trail is its amazing bridge over the Des Moines River. Blue neon lights line iron arches above the trail and are lit at night. There was once a trestle located here when the trains ran, but now there is a new bridge that looks like nothing you've ever seen before.

At 10 am we all gathered at the parking area and hopped onto the trail. Right away we noticed that the pavement here was much smoother than the rough, cracked asphalt on the section of the Raccoon Valley River Trail we rode yesterday. That's always a plus when riding a tandem as I can really get a jolt when we hit a bump.

It was another great morning for a ride - sunny, low humidity and cooler than yesterday. We really can't complain about the weather here in Iowa this week.

I bet the people riding Ragbrai (which is going on this week in the northern part of Iowa) are happy as well. Doing a 100 mile day when it's in the 90's would be miserable. And add in the humidity to make it tougher. No thanks!

It was only about 3 miles to the bridge where we stopped to read some signs and take pictures. The bridge is 13 stories high and spans 1/2 mile across the valley. It's the 5th longest pedestrian and bike bridge in the country.

Our friends were willing to ride to the next town, so we hopped on the bikes and continued across the bridge to the trail head in Madrid.

We could have gone further, but we all wanted to have lunch in Perry and see our friends' new home. So retracing our steps, we were soon back at the cars where we loaded up the bikes and drove to Perry.

Lunch today was at the historic Hotel Patee. Completed in 1913, it's now a beautifully restored hotel where all of the 40 rooms are decorated in various themes from a Japanese room to a Stickley room to a Louis Armstrong room. After eating, Bev was able to have the front desk give us keys to a couple of empty rooms so we could see the interesting decor. We looked at the Circus room and the one named for William Morris.

We also were able to walk around the hotel where we found the operational bowling alley, library and ballroom. It's a beautiful hotel and would be a fun place to spend the night. There's a dance happening here on Saturday night that we're all planning to attend, so we'll be back again.

After our hotel tour, we drove over to our friend's home to visit a bit, then headed back to the campground. It hadn't been a long bike ride, but we'd enjoyed our time in Perry. I hope that we'll be up for another ride tomorrow.

The High Trestle Trail parking lot in Woodward had a really nice trailhead with bathrooms and information signs. Someday this trail will continue to the west to Perry where it will hook up with the Raccoon River Valley trail.

The highlight of this trail is the cool looking bridge over the Des Moines River. It's a really wide river valley and there used to be a trestle located here.

At each end of the bridge are these tall art sculptures called "Here to There". The columns are "gateways" to the bridge and there are lit "seams of coal" that wind up around them.

If you look closely at the iron arches, you'll see blue neon lights. These arches light up at night which would be neat to see. They were working on them today so had them lit.

One of the original tunnels on the trail.

Today's ride: 11 miles (18 km)
Total: 33 miles (53 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0