Days 38-41: Grand Junction to Ames to Nevada, but mostly just Ames

Posted by: Arin

We woke up at our little spot on the side of the road to the sound of trains. We've become strangely attached to the sound, as almost all of our sleeping spots end up being right next to train tracks. It feels familiar, almost safe now. While getting ready for the day we even spotted a couple tags by Collosus of Roads, one of the most famous train artists of all time. We've seen his stuff four times now on this trip, and we're still on the lookout for the elusive Bozo Texino.

Anyways, we were only about the 35 miles from Ames and the only wind was a mellow crosswind. That meant we were able to fly through the ride in about two hours. We arrived in Ames and went straight to the skatepark. As we were arriving, however, a man on a bike rolled up and started talking to us. One thing that everyone who sees us in Iowa talks to us about is RAGBRAI, an annual organized ride all the way across the state. This guys was no exception; he went on and on about it, telling us we should have planned our trip to coincide with the ride. Of course we couldn't have done that because we just heard about it a few days ago, but it does seem like a cool event. Everyone seems to know about it.

We went across the street to change out of our biking clothes so we could skate and rolled back over to the skatepark. One of the locals was super surprised when he saw us pull our skateboards out the bags they were in. We skated for a good few hours before getting too hungry to continue. By that time we had met quite a few of the local skaters, and they all ripped! 

We left to go get some Thai food (disappointing) and then donuts. The only donut shop we could find was a dunkin' donuts. I had never been to one before, so we decided to give it a try. That was a bad idea too. It was pretty much a fast food restaurant that happens to sell crappy donuts, and the guy working there didn't even like donuts. We then headed to the grocery store to get some food for the next day. 

It was already fully dark out by the time we were done, and we headed back towards the skatepark. Throughout the day we had kind of been probing for a place to stay, but all we had gotten was some info on a place to camp in the woods by the skatepark. However, when we got back to the skatepark one of the guys from earlier was there and offered for us to stay at his place. What a rad dude. He was going to a little get together and invited us so we hurried over to his house.

Ames is a huge college town with over 70,000 students, but the school year ended a week ago so almost no one was there. Josh (our host) ended up taking us over to some of his friends' place where they were doing typical college things like beer bongs and beer pong. We saw one dude take something like 15 beer bongs! After getting a little too drunk and staying up a little too late, we walked back to Josh's and passed out. Here's a little snippet of the night:

The next day we decided to stay in Ames a little longer to check it out, and where else could we start the day but the skatepark. Let me tell you though that the Ames skatepark is amazing. Josh drove us over there and we spent a good few hours skating all the stuff there. Of course we got hungry again, so josh took us over to one of his favorite Chinese food spots in town. The place was called Joy's Mongolian Grill and it was delicious, highlighted by unlimited rice (steamed and fried) and soup. We then went back to the park, where Brad and I were barely able to move but somehow Josh was ripping right away. We spent most of the day at the park, and even got to climb another tall tree! Here's a sweet picture of Josh boosting a clean ollie over a rail and Brad at the top of a tree:

That night we went to another party. I felt pretty out of place, with kids everywhere. The host was super drunk already when we got there, and he was pretty agro too. Brad and I mostly just hung out with a guy named Bryan from the skatepark out by the bonfire. He actually ended up driving us back to Josh's later.

The next day it was tough for us to get going. The four of us ended up going out to another Chinese food restaurant that also had unlimited rice and soup. I guess Ames in known for having good Chinese food. We went back to Josh's and took our time getting ready. After finally leaving around 2pm, we headed back to the grocery store to grab a couple more things and then to the skatepark to say bye to everyone. While we were there, some girl and her mom came up and started taking pictures. The girl was in a princess dress and it was really bizarre.

We didn't even leave Ames until after 4. We started riding, but neither of us felt too good. We rode past Nevada, the closest town, and three miles later we were already ready to camp. We even managed to find the perfect spot right alongside the river. Unfortunately I tweaked my back trying to lift my bike over the barrier at the top and was in pain for the rest of the night. We set up our camp and just chilled out before going to bed to the sound of trains (of course).

The next day I woke up and my back was still hurting. Because of that, and because our spot was so good, we decided to stay another day. That day was mostly spent lazing about and exploring the river around us. We saw some pretty neat stuff.

As the day neared its end, we realized we didn't have any food to make dinner so we stripped all the stuff off of our bikes, loaded it all in the tent, and rode back to Nevada where we had some prime Mexican food. It's crazy how we've been able to find such good Mexican food in the Midwest. I guess yelp really works. We filled all of our water up at a gas station and rode back to our camp. Luckily everything was still there! We would finally get some good riding in the next day, but after putting all the panniers and skateboards back on our bikes, it was time for sleep.