Sunday Ride Blues

Sunday and I went for a ride, but it was one of those rides I never really quite got into the groove of. I suppose I went about 25 miles before I packed it in. Just felt tired the whole time,like I could have just hung my head and slept while riding at any moment. Weird! I took the Fargo which worked flawlessly. What a comfortable frame and fork!



I took off down the bike path towards Hudson, took the Cedar Falls cut off around the Supervisors Club, Ace Fogdahl, Wal-Mart, down to College Square, past Deery's, past Pfieffer Park, through lower Hartman, (Shirey Way) along the old river road, past Cattle Congress, across the Sans Souci bridge, down the new bike path, across the river, and to the new construction along the riverfront.

I rode down along the flood wall on new bike path and then onto the fill in the river that allows the construction equipment access to the project. The Fargo was perfect for this, and my curiousity of construction sites didn't hurt either. I've been like that since I was a kid.

I rested a bit, looked around, and grabbed the camera. Ever since I've been "exposed" to Jason Boucher and Captain Bob I've gotten a bit of that shutter bug rubbed off on me. So much so that I'm going to start referring to these as my "JB" shots. (He's waaaay better than I am though!)

Waterloo is somewhat of an ironic community. Always looking like it is "under construction". Tearing down and building up. It's been that way all the 27 years I've been around here. Now the past floods have added another aspect to this. Destruction, despair, construction, re-birth.

Riding where there is supposed to be a river is cool. I always marvel at the extent humans will go to place something somewhere on the earth. All the energies and resources to do this seem sort of odd and excessive. Even though it's for recreational purposes, and is supposedly going to upgrade our living experiences. The efforts here seem out of place when just upstream there is still a complete roof jammed against a tree and flotsam and jetsam all up and down the river.

And finally, here is the shot I just had to take. I am standing on a temporary dirt path for construction equipment that put me right in the middle of where the river normally flows. This is looking downstream just underneath the 4th Street Bridge. You can see the broken down rail road bridge, still where it fell back in June. I wonder how long that will sit there and decay while all the other stuff gets built up around it. Strange I say.....Just strange!