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2015-09-17 tl;dr: I biked past corn and hogs on long straight roads. The hotel I picked in Waterloo was in one of those boring off-the-highway locations, so I didn't do much of interest while my legs recovered from my first real weekend of biking in months. I did decide to remove a few items from my packs to mail home in order to reduce bulk. I'd like to remove more, but winter is coming.The rain for the day was mostly (but not entirely) past when I finally checked out of the hotel and hit the road. Iowa has a lot of corn (really, a lot). It also has hogs. Given the nature and odor of hogs, they've come up with a novel way to farm them. Every few miles will be a set of long buildings housing hundreds of hogs each. There are feed silos and absolutely nothing else, because who would want to live or work anywhere near one of these buildings? As far as I can tell, these buildings require minimal maintenance. I visited the Peter Toth Indian Monument in Iowa Falls. Iowa Falls also has a pile of huge modern churches. I don't know if I've noticed any country churches in Iowa. Iowa also has straight roads. I biked for miles and miles without ever even needing to turn. After leaving Waterloo, I biked in a straight line for 32 miles. That route passes 31 intersections. It's actually quite hard here to find a place to camp, because neither corn nor soybeans make for a good place to set up a tent. It's flat here, so there are few grassy waterways. Eventually I found one, though, and sneeked off the road far enough to set up my tent. |
 Cedar Valley Lakes Trail  Waterloo yard deer  South Riverside Trail  another straight road in Iowa  hog house  hogs  typical Case tractors  oh hi  Peter Toth Indian Monument  good night Iowa  good enough place to camp |