Homestead National Monument Seg 13

Seg #13 Homestead Corridor Trail: 4/8/13

Start	Pickrell, NE	N  40.37869W-96.72634	N-S miles 8.8*
End	Beatrice,NE	N  40.25194W-96.73918	Trl lgth10.1 Ride 21mi

 

During the cold Iowa weather I have planned 45 trail rides in 24 states, from the 48th through the 35th parallel. Two more degrees of latitude (parallels) need to be planned to get me to the Mexican Border. Finding trails in the 33^rd and 34^th latitude has been challenging. With a case of cabin fever infecting me, I have been pushing the envelope to get out and ride some of these trails. While Connie hosted her college friend Linda, I went riding. First I headed down to Runnells to take Ian golfing and catch a few of Alex’s softball pitches. Clumsy old me, I succeeded in pulling a rib muscle or worst going for a high pitch. When I tripped and crashed to the ground, I felt every form of kinetic energy possible. Bones and muscles really don’t behave like they did thirty years ago! The next morning I found out how much I took healthy ribs for granted. Ouch! It was painful experience pulling my sweatshirt over my head, reaching into the cupboard to make the grandkids breakfast and  loading the bike for the Homestead Corridor Trail. Ibuprofen soon kicked in, so I headed down I-80 to Lincoln and then to Beatrice, Nebraska. The temperature was good but there was a fifteen mile per hour wind. 

Homesteaders refers to the first pioneers who settled in the Wild West following President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of July 4, 1861 regarding a new government program known as homesteading. Lincoln said the concept was ---“to evaluate the condition of men, to lift artificial burdens from all shoulders and to give everyone an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life”. Congress implemented the 1862 Homestead Act to encourage the western settlement of the United States. Daniel Freeman and his wife settled in the Beatrice area after filing for a claim ten minutes after midnight the day the Homestead Act went into effect. Freeman is recognized at the first American to pay $18 for 160 acres of land. He was expected to build and maintain a homestead for a minimum of five years. When a homesteader “proved up”, the property was deeded to the courageous souls who braved isolation and incredible living conditions. The Homestead National Monument commemorates pioneers who dared to expose themselves and family to challenges of homesteading. The last homestead was established in Alaska in 1974. 

The Homestead Corridor Trail is surfaced with crushed limestone, which is a surface I like to ride. There is a crunchy sound as you roll along that compliments the chirps of birds and an occasional mooing cow. I was hoping to roll right into the Homestead Monument grounds but the trail did not go that way and I was not going to ride a traffic road. That meant mounting my bike on the back of the car and driving to the monument.

Connie and I had visited the monument nearly twenty years ago.  At that time it the park seemed more realistic to the period, but now there is a huge building with Disney World displays---that just doesn’t do me much good. Needless to say, I took a photograph and headed out for Arkansas. It is four hundred miles from Beatrice to Bella Vista, Arkansas; too far to get there on Monday, but I drove as long as I could. When I started getting “bushed”, it was time to get a motel room in Wamego, Kansas. “Where-in-the-heck is that?”, you say. Take a look at a map and you will find this town east of Manhattan, Kansas. Wamego is at least three hours from Bella Vista and the Bentonville, Arkansas area.

 

First Ride of the Season---Opening Day for Trails--Seg 12

Seg #12 Great Western/Bill Riley Trail Cumming, IA: 7.8/22 sm 3/31/13

Start	Cumming, IA	N 41.48770W-93.76293	N-S miles  7.8*
End	WindsorHgt,IA	N 41.59936W-93.71750	Trl lgth13.8 Ride 22mi



Yesterday (3/30/13) was
Opening Day for Trails
as proclaimed by the
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy



My goal yesterday was to ride the first segment of the 2013 rides with son Chris and perhaps the grand kids, Ian and Alex. The weather was not cooperating and Alex was playing in a girls volleyball tournament. Grandpa watched her Southeast Polk games but didn't bring her team any luck. Video footage below shows how her dad's coaching prevails over the standard "send it over the net on the third hit". Alex is a tough cookie for an eleven year old. She just swatted the pill right back, catching her opponents off guard. In the video below Alex is #19 in black and white (far court) with white knee pads. She makes grandpa proud!

Chris was tired and opted out of the trail ride. So once the rain stopped and the volleyball games were over, I jumped on my bike in Cumming, Iowa and rode the Great Western Trail toward Des Moines. Thanks to Google Earth I was able to determine that there was nearly seven degrees of down-slope riding south to north (Cumming to Windsor Heights). In addition, with a light tail wind, I made good time, for me, especially. Too good when it came to coordinating a pick up from Chris and his pickup truck. He works long and irregular hours as hemodyalysis nurse.  Hours so irregular that his slumber time is all screwed up. He can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and sleep through the most obnoxious, plus fifty decibel noises. So when I phoned him to come get me, he slept through my calls. Even though my tail feathers were chaffed to the point of pain and it appeared I was not going to connect with Chris, it was time for me to man-up and ride back to the car. Evidently Chris caught up with me in Water Works Park. He tossed my bike in the back of the truck and gave me a ride back to my car at the Cumming trailhead.



This trail ride went very smoothly due to a well maintained asphalt trail that was cleared of fallen trees and branches from winter storms. When the sun broke through the clouds and it warmed up to a comfortable fifty-five degrees, folks spilled out on the trail like ants seeking a scrap of pie. People were running, walking, biking and socializing like school has just been dismissed. I have not seen a trail "buzz-up" in such a frenzy over twenty-five years of trail riding. Maybe it was a bunch of Iowans escaping Cabin Fever.

The Great Western Trail is a true Rail-Trail that opened in 1992, a hundred years after its establishment as a rail line from Des Moines to St. Joseph, Missouri. It is named for the Chicago Great Western Company whose trains operated on this line from 1892 to 1968. The Bill Riley trail made up the last two miles of my ride. Both trails filled a latitude gap I needed completed in central Iowa. Bill Riley was a Des Moines radio and television personality known as "Mr. State Fair". He started the Iowa State Fair Talent Search in 1959. Riley went from town to town in Iowa, holding talent competitions for Iowans age 2 to 21. The best of these contestants would then be invited to compete at the Iowa State Fair. Bill Riley was the host and cheerleader for these competitions until he retired in 1996.

The most exciting part of the ride was having a jet-liner cruse over my head at a very noisy low level---seemed like a hundred feet. When some liquid dropped on me from the plane, it brought back 1960 era memories of my forest fire fighting days in the northwest. Two of my summer breaks from the University of Northern Iowa were spent in the northwest fire fighting with Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Battleground, Washington and the Deshutes National Forest, Redmond, Oregon.

The reason I thought of my forest fire fighting days was due to jet-liner  landing at the Des Moines International Airport that dropping something wet on me. I instantly had a flash back to a huge uncontrolable fire near Boise, Idaho. This was one of forteen fires I fought my second year as a firefighter, when I was on a twenty-five man crew led by a very capable leader Carl Raider. We were on a fire from hell. The conditions were horrid, with extreme low humidity, winds and hundred degree heat. Starting before daylight, our crew built fire lines two ridges away (at least two miles). The idea was to complete a fire line by noon, only to have the fire work its way down a far ridge by 5 a.m., up the next ridge in thirty minutes (5:30 a.m.) and then creaped down the ridge next to us in four hours. By this time the ambient temperature was in the 90's and the wind picked up to twenty-five miles per hour. So the stage was set for a fire storm. Never have I ever, thought a fire could go so fast up a mountain. Our crew was forced to escape up a slope. As we sat at the top out of harms way the biggest noise, blast of air and dripping fire retardant, hit us. Believe it or not, the US Forest Service hired air power in the form of B-47 bombers to drop fire retardant. The pilots would scrap the tops of ridges. In this case we were sitting no more than fifty feet below the belly of the airship. I looked up and could read words less than two inches. Man that was close. But the fun was only beginning for the pilot because he was heading into a two hundred foot tower of black smoke. Just as he disappeared into the abyss, he dumped his load of red retardant. It made for a great mental picture with the silver bomber dumping red retardant and then disappearing into dense black smoke. It was exciting but that was was about it. All the firefighters on the ground would roll their eyes when some big wig would brag up the value of retardant drops. For a fact, most always these drops came to late and did not slow the fire at all, in fact, fanned the flames to greater levels. I see they still approach fire fighting today in a similar fashion. Our taxes working hard!  Any way the crap that fell on me riding the Great Western Trail stirred these forty-eight year old images. I just hope what hit me was jet fuel and not a flushing toilet.

There are many wild stories about firefighting I can and will write about in this blog. For example my first season with the Gifford Pinchot National forest was an inter-regional 12 man crew. We had only one big fire that summer. It was up in a wildness region on Mt. Rainer. Being our first really big fire, made for a scary adventure for all of us. Our fire suppression crew, affectionately known as Ground Pounders, started building a fire line with shovels, pulaskis (a pick and axe combination) and back fire drip torches. I was only into my assignment a couple hours when I felt something wet dripping on my dirty arms. Ick! it was blood! Mixed with the dirt, I bet I looked pretty pathetic. John Plesa, our crew boss came running over to me and made me lie down on my back with head cocked back. With all the commotion from my boss and crew mates, all at once a sick weak feeling hit me like a the thud of a fallen two hundred foot Douglas Fir. The blood was from my nose only. Just a nose bleed; but never had I bled this much. Not any old routine bloody nose bleed. This baby was a gusher. Squeezing my nose was a waste of time. John found a fairly clean handkerchief and ripped it into strips. He took the strips and wadded them into nose plugs. After thirty minutes the faucet seemed to be closed but the minute I stood up and started working, blood spurt again. Back to my back I went and John got on the radio and reported a bleeding fire fighter. "Ya, one of my guys has nose that won't stop bleeding, he is getting weak, send a medic if you have one". About two hours latter a pack horse team driver arrived with four horses in tow. "Wha's up Ground Pounder?" he wheezed. I decided that John could explain the situation better than I could in my wasted state. Oh course, this pac fellow was not a medic and didn't pretend to be. John gave me the rest of the handkerchief to squeeze my nose and ordered me on the back of the last pack horse. "Ho! We're out of har!" the driver shouted. My horse lunged forward and cracked my neck and back with a snap. Ouch I thought. I thought it because my horse was spooked enough without me hollering ouch. It was a wonder I remained in the saddle with me trying to squeeze the handkerchief with one hand and hold on to the saddle horn with the other. Good gravy it was scary being on this last horse. I could not see ahead, only down. And, there was lots of down---like two hundred feet of down. The trail was really narrow and my horse was spooked from overhanging tree limbs, causing the beast to step off the trail way to frequently. Thank goodness only one leg went off at a time. Any more and I would be sliding down the mountain to this day. What a fear factor this horse generated in me with its slip and slide style. I never was good with heights and this horse back ride was adding to a new level of terror to my life. The good of the bad is that the pack horses stirred up tons of dust which seemed to clog my nostrils. By the time I got to the Tacoma, Washington hospital, the bleeding had stopped. No it wasn't that I was "bled out" but the first couple of hours had me worried.



Des Moines International Airport is to the right of the trail. When passenger jets
come in for landing, a trail rider can read the fine print on the fuselage (see the fire story).  The last three miles of the north-end of this trail is the Bill Riley Trail 



Grandfather Katy

I have been watching snow come and go the past three months so I have only ridden the bike four times, less than forty miles--- not good for conditioning the heart, lungs, legs and tail feathers. There has been over fifteen inches of snow I have blown and shoveled off the drive and sidewalks since December. We got another inch today but it might melt---Yes! Good grief, a year ago it was eighty one degrees on Saint Patty's Day. This boy is beginning to catch a big dose of Cabin Fever so I hope there will be a break in old man winter's clutch and Chris and I can ride the Green Belt Trail in Des Moines this weekend, filling in one of two latitude gaps remaining in Iowa. 

During this winter lull, I have been able to plan nearly seventy trails to get me to the thirty-seventh parallel. Unfortunately it has been tough going for me to find off road trails
south of 37.12451 degrees. In scanning Googel Earth, Google Maps and Trail-Link it appears I will need to ride shorter trails in several states. This will require extensive driving. For example, to fill latitudes south of 37.1288 degrees, I will need to drive to Durango, Colorado and/or Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. When one must drive ridiculous miles to ride two to three miles, it becomes a bit painful to stick to the original goal.

Now it's time to get on with reporting on granfathered trail rides that preceed the Madien ride a year ago. The Katy Trail (KT) State Park in Missouri is one of America's premier trails. To date the KT is my favorite trail. It is the nation's longest rail-trail—nearly 238 miles of scenic trail skirting the Missouri River stretching from Clinton to St. Charles, Missouri.

   The longest Rail Trail in America resides in northern Missouri. With significant funding from Edward D. Jones, the Katy Trail (KT) State Park was completed in the 1990's. The KT is a premier route that is a destination for folks from all over the world. The white line traces the path of the Katy Trail from Clinton, MO on the left to St. Charles on the right.

The KT occupies a segment of rail corridor that once carried trains of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (a.k.a., the Katy). In 1986 the railroad ceased operations along this route, paving the way to create an exceptional recreational and educational opportunity. A big chunk (150 miles) of the KT, extending from Marthasville to Boonville, follows the Lewis and Clark Trail. These two explorers and nearly fifty men rowing and dragging three keelboats against the current, made it from the middle of the country, 3200 miles to Astoria, Oregon. President Thomas Jefferson persuaded congress to fund exploration of the newly obtained Louisiana Purchase.  Jefferson foresaw Lewis and Clark’s exploration a means to discover a practical route across the western half of the continent, and in doing so, establishing an American presence in this new territory, securing it before Britain and other European powers tried to lay claim.

The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economical: to study the area's plants, animal life, geography, and other natural resources.

There are a several museums along the KT but one Connie and I found most interesting was the Lewis and Clark museum in the Missouri State Capitol building in Jefferson City.

The KT is a crushed limestone trail that is too long for the average person to ride in a day. Many folks will ride parts of the trail, some staying in Bed and Breakfast abodes along the way. Or, do as I did, ride a forty to fifty mile segment and come back at other times in a four year span to complete the whole trail.

One memorable KT trip involved Endontist Tom, his brother John and our wives. We rode as a group from near Rocheport to Columbia (University of Missouri) where John lived. He put up for the night and then we pedaled a bit more before loading up and heading to Tom’s family home in Hamburg, Iowa. The weather was perfect and the sights were exceptional. Red-tailed hawks and vultures were catching updrafts from one to two hundred foot limestone bluffs, soaring for hours with minor wing movement. Near the river there were waterfowl flashing their beauty the cyclists crackling along on the KT.

Gf Wabash Trace



Connie leans on a Silver City sign attached to an
exquisite mural along the WT. The next town is

Malvern, Shenandoah, Coin and Blanchard

Although the Wabash Trace (WT); located  in southwestern Iowa, did not add a bunch of latitude to my overall goal of cycling border to border; it has been a trail I have ridden the most often, except for Iowa City area trails. If memory serves me, at this age maybe it doesn't, I believe I can account for nine rides on the WT.  The WT resides on the Iowa side of Missouri River across from the Steamboat Trace on the Nebraska side. The WT is a nice sixty-five mile Iowa trail that diagonals from Council Bluffs southeast to Blanchard, Iowa. This trail was built on an abandoned Wabash Railroad rail bed, a rail line that connected Omaha to St. Louis. This railroad was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Those who have heard the 1828 American Folksong, the Wabash Cannonball, may find it interesting that the Wabash Railroad actually named its train from St. Louis to Detroit the Wabash Cannonball after the song. Years ago, the Wabash Railroad carried mainly freight from Kansas City to Omaha.  When the railroad went “belly up”, trail enthusiasts struck a deal to convert the rail bed to a recreational trail.

The white line is the Wabash Trace. Southwest
is the Steamboat Trace (red). Most of WT cuts
down through the Loess Hills National Natural
 Landmark---thousands of square miles of fine
windblown soil known only of this magnitude
here in Iowa and a region in China.
 

In the future, trail riders should be able to ride on from Blanchard, Iowa to Marysville, Missouri; eventually connecting to one of the nicest trails in the country, the two hundred thirty mile Katy Trail (KT). I will blog more about my experiences on the KT in the future.  Like most trails, the conversion of the Wabash rail line to a recreational trail was done in sections. Several times Connie and I rode the first section from the Iowa School for the Death to the tiny town of Mineola. The beauty of rolling into Mineola, especially late Saturday afternoons, was the tantalizing aromas from the Mineola Steakhouse. It has been a hot spot for wonderful grilled rib eyes and prime rib. My taste buds would hallucinate and still do just thinking about those times. Among all the trails fifty miles or longer I have ridden, the Wabash Trace is the rail-trail I have ridden the most. Often I rode sections where Connie would drop me off to go antiquing and I would ride thirty miles or more and then she would pick me up.

One of our more memorable WT rides was a group ride that included Rick and Pam, Boris and Maxine and Connie and me.  Rick was my officemate and teaching colleague at the University Of Nebraska College Of Dentistry. Boris and Maxine were exchange professors from Brisbane, Australia. We had visited Boris and Maxine in Brisbane when Connie and I were part of the same exchange program between the University of Queensland and the University of Nebraska. I doubt if our Australian guests were as impressed with their Nebraska visit compared to our visit to Down Under, especially when we able to see the Sidney Opera House, Canberra, Great Barrier Reef, O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat and hold a Koala or pet kangaroos.

These guys are soft!! Connie feeds the Kangaroos     

Boris and Maxine

feeding the Scarlet

Rosellas at O'Reilly's

I thought it would be fun to take our guests’ bike riding on the WT. I don’t remember any concern about the weather, yet about twenty miles down the trail, a thunderstorm blew in and “nailed” us. We were all sopping wet even though we were able to seek refuge under a bridge. So much for me being an entertainment director. When I find the photo of the drenched look, I will insert it.


Before the storm, all smiles from the Maze's and Reinhardt's. After the storm we were looking like drown rats and freezing cold from the 35 degree tempature drop. Note this is the younger slimmer version of the Maze's in '95.

 



A Funny Thing Happened On My Way Out of Town

What a nice surprise and relief
from the cold. A hug from Miss
India!

This blog post is not bike related but I thought the story was humorous. Maybe the reader will chuckle too.

The young lady with the Hollywood smile is Ranjitha, my friend and former perio department colleague at Georgia. The funny part of this chance January meeting on Forest Edge Drive, Coralville, Iowa, is that, back in August, I thought I saw her look-alike on the putting green at Brown Deer Golf Course.  Because I knew that her husband Raj had a brother living in Coralville, I went up to the couple and sheepishly asked, “Any chance you know of a Raj and Ranjitha?” They gave me the blankest stare known to man and then an emphatic, “no”. When I emailed Jitha this story, she replied and said, “Glenn, there are only about four billion people from India! LOL.”

Ok, this sets the stage for the most serendipitous happenstance sightings I have ever had. It was a very cold Sunday afternoon in late January, snow falling with blizzard like blasts---muito vento. I was heading out of town to do some grandpa sitting for the grandiose grand kids, Ian and Alex. As I was driving up our street, I saw a couple, all bundled up, walking down our street. I thought, Goodness, those folks are tougher than me, taking a stroll on such a cold day! The minute I drove by them I noticed they looked familiar. Good gravy, that looks like that Ranjitha Clone, I talked to back in August!!!”  The lady waved and I waved back. As I shot on by, I thought, “Damn that looks like the real Ranjitha”.  As I waited for a car so I could turn out of the neighborhood, my cell phone rang. It WAS Raj and Ranjitha! “Ranjitha are you here in Coralville?” There was a big laughing YES as I did a U-turn. I felt badly I needed to get going to Des Moines ahead of serious snow and darkness and Connie was too sick with a norvovirus to have visitors. So we had a very short visit in a neighbor’s driveway, exchanging hugs and laughs.


What a nice surprise, a Krishna Scarf for
Connie and a Jones Creek golf shirt for
me --- now Old Man winter go away!

A nice outcome of the by chance meeting of Raj and Ranjitha on Forest Edge Drive, was receiving a limited edition handmade Krishna  Scarf and a golf shirt. Thank you Raj and Ranjitha!


 

Steamboat Trace (Gf)

As I write these Grandfather (Gf) blogs about traversing the country on Rail Trails; rides that preceded the official start April, 2012(see prevoius Segment #1 post), I will try to slip in some interesting or entertaining tid-bits to spark some interest for the readers. I rode the Steamboat Trace at least twice back when I worked at the University of Nebraska College of Dentistry in Lincoln. It is a true Rail to Trail, built in the late 1980's using the abandoned rail line of the Burlington Northern Railroad---a railroad company that now belongs to the second or third richest person in the world, OmahanWarren Buffet. One of my rides was a forty-two mile round tripper from just south of Nebraska City, Nebraska (Headquarters of the Arbor Day Foundation---we have all heard John Denver singing about saving trees and joining the ADF) twenty-one miles down to Brownsville and the twenty-one miles back. Another time, Connie dropped me off and I rode to Brownsville while she visited a few antique shops there. Both rides were perfect, with cool fall temperatures(jacket weather!) and a carousel of color from changing leaves. About half way down the trail I was able to divert off to Peru, Nebraska. Peru is the home of the first (1865) and oldest state institution in Nebraska---Peru State College. Over the years Peru State dodged attempts to close its doors. The college now enrolls nearly two thousand students, including over three hundred fifty postgraduate students. Peru State was a early player with internet education. Their on-line credits boasted the school to new levels of respect, sparing its demise. 



The Steamboat Trace in a thirty mile trail that

runs almost straight north and south, a good thing
for me and my passion to gobble up latitudes.

The trail was in great shape every time I rode it
but there were years when the Missouri River
flooded and messed up the trail bed. Peru State
is about midpoint on the west side of the trail.

One Steamboat Trace ride was on a football Saturday. A home game for the Cornhuskers. A football Saturday where Memorial Stadium (Husker Town) swelled to the third largest populated spot in Nebraska. I remember that I had become "fed-up" with Nebraska football.  Too much illegal junk went on during the years we lived in Lincoln including the Scott Baldwin travesty and Coach Osborne's obstruction of justice. So much crap that I was at the end of my rope with Huskermania. So here I was riding on the Steamboat Trace while fifty miles away  the Cornshuckers were trouncing some lesser team in Husker Town.  So when I heard a band playing and the roar of a crowd, I was in a quandary. "That can't be from Lincoln." "Its too far away," I thought. As I diverted toward the sounds of a fall afternoon, I saw a sign for the Oak Bowl, the home field of Peru State football squad and its legendary coach Lou Sabin. Sabin coached at every level and likely a record number teams compared to most coaches. Lou's nickname was "Two point two", meaning his average stint per coaching job, was 2.2 years. The fact that he was a successful coach for the Buffalo Bills, made the one year stop at Peru State a special deal for the tiny school. After my discovery of the Oak Bowl, I headed on down the trail towards Brownsville.

Like the Katy Trail, the Steamboat Trace parallels the Missouri River exposing beautiful soaring bluffs with hawks, buzzards and eagles floating on the updrafts. It's said that Lewis & Clark noted these very cliffs and bird nesting holes in their journals. Like all trails there are great historical flashbacks to stimulate you as pedal on!

I met Connie at Brownsville where she had done some antiquing and discovered the renovated opera house. We liked Brownsville so well, we went back to spend a night in a quaint bed and breakfast cabin. I hope we can get back there someday and enjoy a musical at the Brownsville Opera House.

PROBLEM WITH GOOGLE/Xmas Holiday

2013 edition of the
Connie Tree. What
a spectular creative
display!

Post Santa Visit:
2012 was our first Iowa Christmas in the past two years. Connie liked escaping the Iowa winter so we had an unchristmas-like festivity in Augusta. This year was very Christmas-like in that it snowed five inches and the temperature dropped from a forty-five degree high, six days before Santa arrived, to a blizzard five days later. The night before the blizzard, Tommy aka Vincent Van Gogh, one of our four cats, decided to bust out in the dark and chase an annoying neighbor cat. As Connie feared, Van Gogh decided to hang out in the freezing temperatures rather than return to a warm bed with plenty to eat---and they say cats have some smarts???  Being the animal lover she is, Connie stewed endlessly over Van Gogh's welfare. After two weeks of no Tommy sightings, the feline came crawling up to a food dish I put out next to the sliding glass door. With a fresh pack of Fansy Feast and bundles of patience, I was able to coax him inside, making for a much happier holiday.  It was so nice to celebrate with Chris and the kids.   Grandmuffins, Ian and Alex got some nice things including clothes and a trip to horse camp for Alex and season golf pass for Ian. He will be able to habitate Copper Creek Golf Course most of the summer. Guess who will be playing with him?

Santa biked into
Coralville a few days
late due to Chris' work
schedule.

 

 Alex and her

dad Chris with

Grandmom

 cropped out due

to major eye

closure

 

 

Alex takes a picture of Chris, Ian
and Connie and Me in front of a
very beautiful tree with 99%
Connie made ornanments

Now that Google has made some changes, I think my Blog at www.http://traverseusa.blogspot.com is alive and well. I hope so. I have been busy planning rides that will give me the north to south latitudes to achieve the goal of crossing America by riding bike trails only. Crossing the USA by trail lengthwise is impossible currently and likely will not be possible for a additional fifty years. There just aren't nearly enough trails to cover all the degrees of longitude. Probably less than half the needed trails exist today to make an east-west journey. Someday the American Discovery Trail http://www.discoverytrail.org/ will be built. When it is finished, bicyclists, trekkers and other non-motor adventurists, including equestrines, will be able to go from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean   So, to date, the only border to border crossing this boy will  accomplish, is riding the width of America, traversing trail by trail, state by state until I have ridden all north south latitudes from the Canadian Border to the Mexican Border. From researching Google Maps and Google Earth it appears I will need to ride some city streets and sidewalks But I hope to never have to ride a highway with traffic going over 35 miles per hour. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Grandfather (Gf) and Planned (P) Rail-Trail Rides





Winter Time in Iowa: Winter was warm until
December 21, when a Blizzard hit and made it
tough on the cardinals and chickedees. We had
17 cardinals eating at one time---pretty but cold

  I decided it is necessary for me to include past Rail Trail rides aka Grand-fathered  Rides (Gf) to  accomlish my goal of traversing America from border to border.  So while the snow is a fly'n and thermometer readings hover below where water ices up, I will park my gluts on this chair and scribe my recollection of Gf Rides and plan trail rides for 2013.  So far it has been doable to locate bicycle trails latitude by latitude to get me to America's north and south borders. If you are interested in images of trails ridden or planned, let me know and I will send you the information.Keep checking back for Gf reports and plans for next year.