I’ve been wanting to ride on the High Trestle Trail for years since seeing pictures of it in numerous rails-to-trails bike publications. I was excited to see how close it is to our planned route and happily stuck an “additional stop”pin at the trailhead in Madrid, IA, roughly halfway through Thursday’s Google maps driving directions.
The trail runs from Ankeny to Woodward in central Iowa and was once part of the Milwaukee Road railway. The most interesting feature is the 40 meter high and nearly half mile long trestle bridge over the Des Moines River. The bridge is located near mining shafts worked by Italian immigrant families that settled nearby. The structure over the bridge is meant to resemble the view through a mine shaft and is illuminated with blue lights every night. I had hoped to see it at night but didn’t make sense to stay here overnight.
We rode 12 or so miles on the trail, turning around at the terminus in Woodward and then back to an ice cream shop in downtown Madrid recommended by a local fellow out enjoying the bike trail. The weather was great except for a stout wind, particularly in the middle of the bridge where we had to hold on to our hats lest they end up floating down the river. It’s been very windy all day.
Today was my turn to drive giving Riley a chance to chill out and mindlessly scroll on his phone or Wikipedia interesting road signs as we drove along the highways. Did you know there’s a town named What Cheer, IA? What did we do before we had all the world’s information at our fingertips?
I really enjoy driving Charlie. Because I don’t drive as often as Riley does, the first few minutes are always a little intense. I’m hyper aware of the length, height and weight of the fully loaded van so it takes a bit to get comfortable with maneuvering in traffic and relearning acceleration and stopping distances. It wasn’t long before it felt perfectly normal and I settled in to the drive.
Time and miles go by faster when you’re concentrating and trying to keep a 24’ Sprinter van between the lines with a constant crosswind. I didn’t know that afternoon wind speeds would be 28 mph with gusts up to 44 mph when we started out. You can really feel the windbreaks created by the occasional hills on the otherwise flat drive across Iowa. I had to constantly steer against the wind, especially on the two lane highways through the countryside.
After the bike ride, we drove west on Iowa Highway 141 to Missouri Valley where we hoped to find a campsite at Missouri Valley City Park, a first-come no-reservations campground. We decided to take the scenic route rather than more boring interstate driving. About an hour into the drive, we heard a loud BEEP and cruise control suddenly turned off and “ESP Visit workshop” appeared on the display. Oh great, just what we need on the 4th day of a 2 month roadtrip.
Electronic Stability Program is a Mercedes feature meant to help stabilize the vehicle primarily by controlling the speed each wheel is turning so it remains stable and forward facing. Sometimes a failure in one of these systems causes the vehicle to go into limp mode which limits your max speed to 30-45 mph. We had a similar experience with the check engine light a few years ago driving through Wyoming and had to stop at a Mercedes dealer in Great Falls, SD for service.
Riley called Mercedes Sprinter service centers in Sioux Falls, SD and Billings, MT to see if we could schedule an appointment in the next few days. Everyone is short staffed, with the earliest appointment available at the end of the month! Perfect. The service manager in Billings said he has two vans belonging to people on the way to Alaska parked out back waiting to be seen right now. I guess this par for the course.
He did have a suggestion though. He said it could be as simple as bug guts and road grime obscuring the sensors on the front of the van. He said to really clean the front, paying particular attention to the emblem on the grill. He also said he didn’t think it would cause the van to go into limp mode so along as we were careful and could do without cruise control it would be fine.
Guess what? It worked! A quick stop at the car wash that conveniently had a setup for large vehicles did the trick. Not only did it solve the sensor issue, the bikes and Charlie got a much needed wash.
Feeling relieved and optimistic, we soon arrived at Missouri Valley City Park campground and found a nice spot to camp for the night. The park has a large grass square with shade trees, picnic tables and a pavilion where a local band was setting up for tonight’s free concert. Campsites are located around the outside perimeter with water and electric hookups.
All this for $15 a night! It seemed a bit less of a bargain the first time a freight train roared by on the elevated track about 40’ away from Charlie. Oh well, you get what you pay for haha.
It was a great day, in spite of the brief vehicle trouble anxiety. I’m glad we built in 3 or 4 extra days to account for unplanned delays. I’m even more thankful that we don’t need to use them now.
Spoonfeed 