Brown Season: Flying High

Escape Route: Cedar River bike paths.

March came in sort of quiet, I guess. Clear, cold, and without much of any traces of Winter left. The air temperatures have recovered from mid-February's Arctic blast and now 40's seem heavenly. Spring cannot be far off now. 

I had a chance to get away on Sunday, so I grabbed that and ran with it. I did not get out until 2:30pm, but this was when the day was warmest, so I did not mind. The temperature ended up being about 44°F, and the wind was out of the South at around 15mph according to the weather folk. I decided to go Northeast of town because I hadn't been out that way in quite a while. 

You had to look pretty hard to find any evidence of Winter out here.

This glacial erratic seems to have been cut down a bit to my eyes.

I rode out on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to get to Newell Road and gravel heading East. There is a big glacial erratic South of the road which is not noticeable so much when crops are growing all around it. Now, with everything dead and down, it sticks out like a big wart in the middle of stubble out there. The Sun shone on a curiously flat Western facing part of the stone. Perhaps this stone was carved up a bit for building materials. This was not uncommon in the early days of the European settlement of this area. 

A few eagles soar over the barren plains.

There is another eagle high in the sky in this image as well.

Back in about 2017 or so I was out riding these very same roads at about the same time of the year. On Newell Road, just East past the intersection with North Raymond Road, there is a tall stand of trees on the South side of the road. It was here back then where I saw a couple of eagles. Well, on Sunday I saw eagles in the same place. Only there were over a half a dozen of them cavorting on the currents of the wind. 

I decided to go with the Honeman Flyer for this ride.

Bin it!

I decided to make a counterclockwise loop and so I went up to Big Rock Road and this would then take me back West over the North side of Waterloo. Then I'd only have to go two miles into a headwind to get back to town. 

This is the most snow I could find left out there.

I got in a good few hours of riding and came back into town from the North. It was very good to get back into the country again. Hopefully things will go so I can ride out in the country on a more regular basis soon. This will depend on the weather we get, but I am very hopeful this will occur.