Country Views: Cool May Day

Escape Route: Riverside bicycle trails East.

This Spring has been wet, April was super warm, but now May has entered the chat. And it has cooled down a lot. We've got frost warnings, low 50's, and gray skies. Yeah, you get the weather you get. Just ride, right? 

So, Friday afternoon on May 1st I had a chance to go for a quick ride. I was thwarted in my attempt to go down near Washburn, Iowa last time and I just felt like I needed to get that done. So, I departed the HQ here and headed down along the river toward Evansdale. Once again, I found the bike trail closed. 

So, I did some urban scrambling and came into Evansdale on the main drag, which hasn't changed at all since the 1950's, I would bet. The last bit of road between Waterloo and Evansdale is so narrow. Fortunately there is a fairly wide dirt shoulder, but the cars and trucks passing by are so close you feel like you could reach out and touch them and they are on two lanes so narrow they cannot move an inch to the side without possibly running into an oncoming vehicle. 

Maybe someday that will be addressed and we can have a real separated bicycle path like Evansdale has on the Southeast side going to Elk Run heights. 

Maybe.... 

The trees are almost all leafed out. The river is full again. This looks normal for once. 

The chip seal part of Foulk Road just past its dead end to the CVNT.

I finally got on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail (CVNT), and then a short while later I turned Right onto Foulk Road. My plan was to go up and see if I could ride McKellar Road and the dirt part of Weiden Road. I didn't know if these dirt roads would be passable after all the rains we had in April. 

Stopped by a train of empty flat bed cars? Weird!

McKellar Road was fine. It looks weird with no crops though!

The dirt was fine on McKellar, which made me hopeful I'd be okay on Weiden Road. Every field along the way had just been worked up and planted. Maybe this season this area will be all soybeans. It was all corn last year. 

My Dad used to call these a "honey wagon" IYKYK

Later on the Sun tried to come out, but it just wasn't quite there.

Weiden was full of water pits, but all had work-a-rounds, so I made it through. Then it was just time to loop it back around to get going home. I didn't have time to get a big loop in on this day. I did make it home after a couple of hours of riding though. 

Stacking days.......