As is the norm, the human rolled me out to the bike racks before breakfast. Nothing unusual until we stepped out the door. Eeeeyeeeww….the my tubes were immediately covered with a fog as well as the GPS; the human’s glasses also fogged up. The other humans chuckled as we walked past, enjoying the looks on riders faces as they stepped outside for the first time of the day. Yuck. At 5:45AM it was already 77 degrees and 200% humidity. What? You cannot have 200% humidity? OK, 300%? No? OK…has humid as humid gets. Not pleasant.
Regardless, even pokey, van riding riders needed to head down the road and, really, could it stay that humid? In case you’re wondering, the answer is yes. No evaporation of sweat…it either beaded up on the human or rolled off and dripped onto my tubes….yuck….knowing bike wash is coming at the end of the day is not enough to assuage the feeling of dripping, sunscreen laden sweat on my top tube. Blech.
The day had some clouds so for at least the early morning, the temperature stayed cool-ish. It could have been worse if the 90 degree temps had rolled in early. The route was, again, flat fields of corn and soybean with smaller CAFOs –no free ranging cattle here, although some of the CAFOs were pig, not cattle.
The odd thing is, the closer we get to Wisconsin, the more familiar the landscape appears. South Dakota had fields of corn and soy beans, too, but, here in Minnesota, the layout is more like Wisconsin. Taking an example, near and dear to the human’s bladder….in South Dakota the fields were contiguous and the farm equipment access areas not….uh…inducive to being discreet on the side of the road. But, here in Minnesota, like Wisconsin, large fields were divided with farm equipment roads, perfect for….well..not exactly hiding, but at least not being obvious.
But, more than that, the appearance of the buildings in the small towns are more like the small towns in Wisconsin. Gone now are the western building facades of vertical wood slats that clearly said you were in the West; now we have brick and stone and the styles more similar to those nearer to home. It shall be interesting as we travel further east to see how the image of small towns changes.
Details. 79 miles 505 feet of climbing (flat, flat farm roads). 15.5 strain
Reading List Spying on the South Tony Horowitz. Finished the book today. Well worth the 17 hours.
Travels With Edwina 