Country Views: Ditch Harvest

Escape Route: Burton Avenue in Northern Waterloo.

 Rain. Lots of it too. We went from having Extreme Drought conditions only three weeks ago to now a "moderate" condition for drought, all thanks to near daily rains over the past week or so. 

Not just your garden variety showers here and there either. Day-long soakers. Big downpours. Inches of rain at a crack sometimes. We have a flood warning! I see overflowing ponds and water standing in the ditches in places. It's a total turnaround from the last two years of very dry conditions and rain coming, at times, months apart from each other instead of near daily events. 

Look, we need that rain badly, so I am not complaining, but the riding has suffered due to that. A respite from the rain occurred, finally, on Friday, so I got the bike out and headed North. I did not feel that great because the previous week was riddled with poor amounts of sleep for many reasons. Storms at night being one of them. That said, I was going for this ride regardless. 

It was pretty breezy out of the West-Southwest, and the skies were beautifully peppered with puffy clouds and blown apart contrails from jet traffic. We have a LOT of jet traffic overhead here in this part of Iowa and having a completely clean sky is super rare. I've only seen it twice in the last quarter century. Once after 9-11 and then most recently four years ago at the beginning of the pandemic. 

The Cedar River at Waterloo. Brown water filling the banks. Hasn't been seen in several years!

The Solar Farm off Burton Avenue finally had some Sun to work with.

I also had to climb up out of the Cedar Valley on my way North which requires covering several rollers, always gaining a little elevation as you go North. The wind wasn't helping as it was shoving me sideways a bit, so I had to kind of ride herd on the bike to stay in a straight line. Fortunately the gravel was excellent, as it has been to start out this season. 

While we have a "grid system" for roads, that doesn't necessarily mean the roads are straight!

Something not seen for a few years: Standing water in the ditches.

I really didn't know how far North I'd go. I always think in my head I'm going further than I actually do most rides. This one was no exception. I reached the corner of Bennington Road and Burton Avenue and decided to take a break. There is a little community of homes here in the Southeastern corner of this intersection. As I stopped I noted a UPS truck straight ahead that was stopped at the corner farm on the Northeast side of the intersection, and to my right, a hundred yards or so down Bennington Road, a Ford F-150 sat idling. 

That's a lot to have going on in the country! Usually I don't hardly see anyone or any vehicles in this region. The F-150, an older model, with stickers all over the back bumper, was my main concern. The truck was just sitting there for several minutes. Should I go around it or go up Burton? I wanted to start heading back to Waterloo but not back the way I came. I also did not want to go the two miles North to get to the next East-West gravel road. I stood by my bike for several minutes debating what to do. I felt uneasy about passing by the running truck, but I did not feel very great and riding more miles than I wanted was not appealing either. 

The intersection where I stopped dead ahead here.

 I eventually decided just to go for it and ride by the truck. I felt pretty unsure about how this might go. The rear window of the cab wasn't very transparent and the Sun made a glare off it as well which precluded my being able to see if anyone was in the truck. That only added to my fears. But my fatigue was such that I was willing to just go ahead and ride by the thing. 

As I approached the rumbling Ford, I could hear rock music emanating from the open driver's window. A heavy riff on guitar and really, not a bad sounding tune. This made me think the driver was a male and probably younger than I. I glanced over to the truck as I was passing it, expecting some encounter, but to my surprise the truck was empty! 

I looked up the road just then and I noted some movement in the ditch about 30 yards up the road from the truck. It looked to be a young male, maybe in his twenties, seemingly looking side to side in the knee-high grass, and holding a bundle of something green in his right hand. As I approached it became apparent to me what was going on here and I relaxed and smiled.

"Asparagus?", I asked, and the young man replied, "Yes Sir!", to which I replied, "Nice!". And I was happy to understand that the young man was doing something positive and healthy. I mean, many older folks are into harvesting wild stuff, so when I see younger folk doing that it warms my heart a bit, I guess.

The blue color of the metal roofs on this farm is jarringly vivid.

I saw these ducks beside the road which are scurrying for cover here, but the goat stopped out of curiosity.

Heading East now I had the wind mostly at my back and I felt hot. Hot for the first time in 2024. While it was only in the mid-70's, I am not yet heat acclimated. I'd better get there soon because in a month or so 70-ish degrees will feel like air conditioning! 

I thought about heading as far as Sage Road but then thought better of that because I'd likely end up battling a headwind up Airline Highway and I wasn't up for that on this day. So I made the lazy right hander on to Moline Road instead. 

Shreds of jet contrails are blown overhead as a lone vehicle travels North on Moline Road.

Clouds begin to gather as the afternoon wears on.

I was out during the warmest and windiest part of the day. Heading back South on Moline Road wasn't too awful. In fact, it was better than I expected it to be. The wind seemed mostly to be out of the West. I'd only have a mile of headwind to get back to town once I turned off Moline Road. 

There still is not much growing out in the fields yet.

The farm fields seem dormant yet. I think this cool, wet weather has had an effect that way. The ditches showed signs of life. I spotted at least one Prairie Rose, a few violet/purple colored flowers, and some random bunches of yellow that were not dandelions. I am hopeful that with this injection of moisture that the wild flower action will be very good this year. 

Waterloo is an old "train town". Here were some idling locomotives just off 4th street at the rail yards.

I had a decent ride. I made it home and felt a bit worn down, but not awful, so that was good. My decision not to go longer was a good one on this day. At least I got out there again after sitting watching the rain fall for so many days. 

I will be getting back out there sooner than later with all this Velo Orange stuff that landed on Friday. Stay tuned for that coming soon....