I used to find it impossible to get up early in the morning, the world soupy, thick and heavy, but that's shifted substantially in the last two years. Anjali started me a little at school, and in Davis, I'd get up before work to run because the summer days there are brutally hot. Now, on this trip, I love waking up at 6:30, getting out before 8. No flies, the air is cool and sweet, the sun's up but not fiery and there's nothing like putting 50 miles behind you before noon.

So I left Jim's place early, before Rachel woke up. And this splendid day rose before us and the tailwinds propelled us and there were those 50 miles by noon. I also don't do well with heat so I stopped for lunch in a cemetery (only place in Fort Dodge with shade on the way out). Rachel and I decided we could do 100 mile, our first century, so we plugged Iowa Falls into the GPS. Best decision ever.

It's this sweet little town that feels bigger than its 5200 residents. We figured we could camp in Assembly Park, which was right on the Iowa River without getting kicked out so long as we hid ourselves kind of well. Cooked up some lettuce wraps filled with kielbasa, quinoa, mushrooms and onions and basked in the glory of the evening and how easy the day felt despite the distance.

The evening was so warm, I decided to clean up in the river. I ran up the swinging bridge and down the road to the river, interrupting the migration of twelve mama gooses and their goslings. I wasn't sure if the river was safe.. It seemed a special kind of crazy that on such a gorgeous evening, there was no one else swimming in the river. So I flagged down a guy driving a boat and asked if the water was safe. He assured me it was.

I jumped in with all my clothes on ... double duty, washing machines are few and far between. While I scrubbed off the thick cake of sweat, dirt, sunscreen and bug spray, the guy on the boat, Mark, docked his boat right there next to the shore. When he found out Rachel and I were cyclists, he called up his friend Sherrie. It was Tuesday and Tuesday's are bike nights in Iowa falls. She's loud and blonde, Mark said, you're gonna love her.

Sherrie was awesome and kind of adopted us for the night. She took us to Alden, where the cyclists were grabbing some brews before heading back. And the first song Burchfield plays when we arrive is Wait So Long by Trampled by Turtles! I went crazy like always; that was a good introduction.

Anyways, we stayed there for a while, then Sherrie drove us back to town to meet Mark, Chow neè Kevin and Ricky T jr at Woody's, where Rachel was proposed to and then had the world's second worst beer (the first can be found on tap in Sundance). Old Legion: don't do it.

We ran outside at midnight to look for the ISS but it was too bright, or we got the time wrong. As the night wound down, Ricky T convinced Mark to take us out on his boat on the river. And out there you could see the stars. We've had the universe stolen from us by weather for the last two months so to finally see them speckled up there was, well, kind of magical. Mark got a call from a guy in England about an engine failure in a commercial airplane we could see flashing in the sky from the deck of the boat. Turns out he's a machine genius.

We didn't end up camping in the park today, we slept on the couch in Mark's basement which is the most classic man cave I've ever had the opportunity to invade. The plane was fine, made it safe all the way across the nation. Now we just have to do that.