Day 12: Sweet Dreams
We left Nebraska to the roar of classic cars at 7:15 AM, a temperature of 57 degrees that seemed colder than it was, and a low sun rising over a flat horizon with no mountains to give us an intermittent reprieve.
As luck would have it, the parade of classic cars was set to depart from our hotel, and we scrambled to insert ourselves into the line not once but twice as we jockeyed to get gassed up and on the road amidst the endless line of Chevelles, Camaros, Scooby Doo-themed Astrovans and wood-sided station wagons.
We'd played ready golf two days prior and our fairway shot to Kearney was a safe lay-up that left us a long fairway wood to the green in the form of I-80 across much of the remaining distance - 665 miles to Delafield.
With the heated grips set on "LIGHT TOAST" we made excellent time thanks to Nebraska's 80 mph speed limit, and we entered Iowa at 10 AM to an immediate wake-up call through the handlebars - potholes a fixed cat couldn't fill and winding construction zones with a maze of repainted lines - a poor substitute for winding mountain roads. Making a repeat appearance, Iowa once again wins the "worst roads award", this time for the 2019 Prefrontal Tour.
The humidity took on a darker shade of grey behind us as we continued eastward, a harbinger of the severe weather to come in a day or two. We passed hundreds of wind turbines now, all slowly revolving - blades whirling, shafts spinning, busy generating little of net gain other than subsidies.
I don't know who invented those circular irrigation devices, but they're all across the country and that guy must be vacationing in Fiji - everywhere you look they're poised over the fields, at the ready, waiting for the rain to stop, and they don't look cheap. Speaking of water, all of the rivers are swollen all the more now, the Raccoon, the Mississippi, even the smaller tributaries. Great rivulets of chocolate milk over their banks and far into the trees on either side with no sign of letting up.
Nebraska went by fairly uneventfully, and Iowa was very Iowa. As a state, it's not particularly featureless, but not particularly interesting either. Probably the only thing of note across the entire state was the hundreds of whitetail deer sleeping by the roadsides. So many, in fact, that I was able to generate a theory on why they choose such unconventional resting arrangments.
Next to most of the somnolescent deer was a large spray of red liquid - obviously an ingenious combination of deer attractant and sedative, powerful enough to lure the deer in, then put them into such a deep sleep that they assume positions that look altogether uncomfortable... Heads back, mouths agape, tongues lolling and some even drooling their last waking mouthful of that liquid slumber onto their pavement pillows. I'd go so far as to say they look dead tired.
It doesn't create the most scenic view, but at least it keeps them out of the roads and harm's way, so there's that. I stopped and collected a small bottle for the next time I'm on a flight and there are misbehaving kids who could use a good calming tonic. I'm sure their parents will appreciate the gesture.
We pulled into Delafield in the early evening, the smell of evening dinners wafting down the country lanes, and put the bikes to rest in the garage for the night. The weather isn't cooperating over the next two days, so I'll have to play it by ear in the early AM to see if I can make it back to Albany in one, two, or three days hence. No matter how long it takes, it won't be the same without Uncle Jack.
Thanks for following along, keep your powder dry, and as always, onward and upward!
As luck would have it, the parade of classic cars was set to depart from our hotel, and we scrambled to insert ourselves into the line not once but twice as we jockeyed to get gassed up and on the road amidst the endless line of Chevelles, Camaros, Scooby Doo-themed Astrovans and wood-sided station wagons.
We'd played ready golf two days prior and our fairway shot to Kearney was a safe lay-up that left us a long fairway wood to the green in the form of I-80 across much of the remaining distance - 665 miles to Delafield.
With the heated grips set on "LIGHT TOAST" we made excellent time thanks to Nebraska's 80 mph speed limit, and we entered Iowa at 10 AM to an immediate wake-up call through the handlebars - potholes a fixed cat couldn't fill and winding construction zones with a maze of repainted lines - a poor substitute for winding mountain roads. Making a repeat appearance, Iowa once again wins the "worst roads award", this time for the 2019 Prefrontal Tour.
The humidity took on a darker shade of grey behind us as we continued eastward, a harbinger of the severe weather to come in a day or two. We passed hundreds of wind turbines now, all slowly revolving - blades whirling, shafts spinning, busy generating little of net gain other than subsidies.
I don't know who invented those circular irrigation devices, but they're all across the country and that guy must be vacationing in Fiji - everywhere you look they're poised over the fields, at the ready, waiting for the rain to stop, and they don't look cheap. Speaking of water, all of the rivers are swollen all the more now, the Raccoon, the Mississippi, even the smaller tributaries. Great rivulets of chocolate milk over their banks and far into the trees on either side with no sign of letting up.
Nebraska went by fairly uneventfully, and Iowa was very Iowa. As a state, it's not particularly featureless, but not particularly interesting either. Probably the only thing of note across the entire state was the hundreds of whitetail deer sleeping by the roadsides. So many, in fact, that I was able to generate a theory on why they choose such unconventional resting arrangments.
Next to most of the somnolescent deer was a large spray of red liquid - obviously an ingenious combination of deer attractant and sedative, powerful enough to lure the deer in, then put them into such a deep sleep that they assume positions that look altogether uncomfortable... Heads back, mouths agape, tongues lolling and some even drooling their last waking mouthful of that liquid slumber onto their pavement pillows. I'd go so far as to say they look dead tired.
It doesn't create the most scenic view, but at least it keeps them out of the roads and harm's way, so there's that. I stopped and collected a small bottle for the next time I'm on a flight and there are misbehaving kids who could use a good calming tonic. I'm sure their parents will appreciate the gesture.
We pulled into Delafield in the early evening, the smell of evening dinners wafting down the country lanes, and put the bikes to rest in the garage for the night. The weather isn't cooperating over the next two days, so I'll have to play it by ear in the early AM to see if I can make it back to Albany in one, two, or three days hence. No matter how long it takes, it won't be the same without Uncle Jack.
Thanks for following along, keep your powder dry, and as always, onward and upward!
