Perfect weather
Clear skies in the morning, overcast in the afternoon, high in the low 80s. The warmest part of the day occurred just as we rolled up to a Dairy Mart selling icecream. Just what the doctor ordered after several days of rain.
We tried to take some pictures of the county side, but pictures don't do justice to the scale of the fields of beans and corn. When you are on top of a ridge, with a cloudy background, it's like looking out over a green ocean. The land rolls beneath us like waves, but these waves are frozen in place. Very little moves on the landscape, although once in a while we see a mariner setting sail on his equally green John Deere tractor.
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We didn't have many trail miles today. We started out on the Raccoon River Valley trail, which was unexpectedly bumpy today. We were on an older section of the trail paved with asphalt. There were gaps across the trail at fairly regular intervals. The gaps were more of less straight, at right angles to the length of the trail. Every time we crossed a gap we would make a kachunk sound.
My theory is that when they made this section of the trail they only had one truck to bring in the hot asphalt. They would pour and roll one section, then have to wait for the truck to go get another load of asphalt. By the time it got back with a new load, the previous section of trail had already cooled. The result was a gap between the sections.
All to soon we saw a sign announcing that if I didn't have anything nice to say about the bumpy trail, I might as well get off the trail. Next time I'll remember that if I can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
After we left the trail, we were following an active Union Pacific rail line. Every small town had a massive elevator next to the tracks.
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