Hog feed lot near Charleston, Illinois.
Hog feed lot near Charleston, Illinois.
Storm drain near Villa Grove, IL. These gratings are found everywhere, not just near Villa Grove.
Last Modified on 8/30/97 at 21:44:01
Day's Narrative: Schedule Aug. 29, Friday --Vincennes, Indiana. The restaurant near the motel didn't open until 7 am, so I ate the free breakfast donuts at the motel and rode to Urbana, IL, 2 hours down the road, and had a McDonald's Big Breakfast. There was a patchwise continuous fog (that's for the mathematicians among us) this morning, but it wasn't as bad as yesterday. I only had to turn on my blinking red tail light once. This was a short 60 mile (100 km) day, with field after field of corn and soybeans, followed by fields of soybeans and corn. There's only so much I can talk about corn and soybeans, and I've run out. I did pass a hog feed lot (see photo). The hogs went berserk, and ran around the pen and in and out of the house when I stopped. I guess they don't see too many bicycles out here. Connie claims it smelled worse than chickens. I still think chickens smell worse. Perils of the Pavement I've been thinking about the pavement perils for several days now. In the photo above you will see illustrated one of the more deadly objects planted in the pavement by road engineers. These things are everywhere, and you really have to pay attention in the cities. Jonathan, my son, can tell you about the one he hit in Atlanta. It destroyed his rear wheel. In some cases these things are square, and if prodded the city can simply turn them 90 degrees to almost eliminate the danger. However, most of the time that can't be done, and they have to be completely replaced. If there's a paved shoulder that's where I will ride. A few days ago I was riding with a tailwind at about 20 mph (33 km/hr) along the shoulder, and suddenly came upon a ditch that highway crews had dug across the shoulder, probably to drain water from the road. I was lucky. It wasn't too wide and I went over it ok. In the eastern US there are a lot of old concrete roads. Most of them have no paved shoulder, so you have to ride in the traffic lane. Over the years each of the slabs of concrete have settled differently, leaving the joints between them at different levels. These joints occur about every 60 feet (20 m). In Iowa I rode for 150 miles (240 km) on one of these roads. I was very glad to get out of Iowa. I thought my brain had been jarred loose. Although, you certainly can hear the cars coming up behind you. There are lots of other obstacles on the pavement and paved shoulder, such as broken bottles, old wooden planks, diseased mufflers, pieces of truck tires and loose gravel where roads enter the main highway. In the Midwest at this time of year there are a lot of grasshoppers on the road. If you hit these things sometimes they will stick to the wheel and be carried up to the brake pads where they get stuck. Then, of course, you have to clean off the carcasses. Sometime in the early 1970's a law was passed requiring all new roads in the US to have 8 foot (2.5 m) wide paved shoulders. Slowly over the years, more and more roads now have paved shoulders. Unfortunately, repaving a road does not make it a "new" road. To be new it has to be re-engineered. I have discovered that a type of pavement rarely lasts more than for about 15 miles (25 km), before the highway department has repaved it in with a completely different type of material, and usually with a completely different shoulder. The only exception I have found to this was that old concrete road in Iowa. [Connie] I thought cow feed lots smelled bad--I don't mind the smell of cow manure--it's just that quantity doesn't improve quality. Chickens are just terrible, but hogs are, by far, the worst. This lot seemed to have less than 100 piggies in it and, still, it stunk for quite a distance. Do we really want to eat things that smell so bad? I met Ray at our usual 40 mile--11:00 banana rendezvous next to a (what else?) corn field. As I stopped the truck, we heard a cat mewing loudly. A calico kitten came out of the corn field to us. It wasn't clear if she was hungry (a potato chip didn't appeal-we had no cat-type food) or just frantic for human company. She did some leg rubbing, but not enough to show that she really needed us. She was sort of near a farm house and may have wandered across the highway from there. She wasn't feral. She was friendly. Ray rode on toward Charleston and I drove down the side road I was on to a building with enough space around it to turn around. A corn field --so I got out and looked at it up close. These bezillions of corn plants seem to have 1 or 2 , sometimes 3 ears to a plant. Many of these ears are already partially eaten by insects. We are so close to the huge Agribiz end of our food sources here that we'll probably look at corn, soy, other plants, and meat products a little differently from now on. Charleston is the home of Eastern Illinois University, whose main building looks like a Medieval castle, with towers and crenelations. It is only missing the vats of boiling oil behind the uprights on the roof to be a real castle. Every food industry establishment seems to have a sign out in front advertising jobs. The student body, which has just returned to school, must make up almost the entire staff of these establishments. © Ray & Connie Poore, 1997
Aug. 30, Saturday -- layover in Vincennes.
Aug. 31, Sunday -- Owensboro, Kentucky.
Sep. 1, Labor Day Monday -- layover in Owensboro.
Sep. 2, Tuesday -- arrive Munfordville, Kentucky.
Sep. 3-7, layover in Munfordville, Kentucky.
Sep. 8, Monday -- leave for North Carolina.Return