Rolling Past the Corn Fields

I really have no good excuse for not mowing the lawn this weekend. I know why I didn’t mow the lawn. It was because I was out bicycling with my baby all weekend, but that’s not a good excuse. The weather has been so cool and comfortable that I can’t claim that it was too hot to mow the lawn and then go out and ride all day. If it had been hot, then that would have been fine. You can’t mow the lawn when it’s too hot. It’s just not healthy. Now I’ll have to find time after work this week to mow the lawn. Otherwise, I’ll be the shame of the block, the guy with a biker’s lawn.

There we are the two of us, unabashedly biking down the road and we’re happy too. Today we were in Illinois, rehearsing for our auditions in Sauget as Chip and Seal Dancers. At times some quick footwork was called for as we danced along the rough farm roads on our pedals. What drew us across the Father of Waters into the Land of Lincoln? Why the 30th annual Saint Jacob’s Strawberry Festival and its complementary Trailnet Berry Ride. Après ride Anne and I was wondering if we could have been at the first Strawberry Festival. Any ride then would have been organized by Touring Cyclist and not Trailnet. In May of 1984 Anne would have still been without child and we were doing a lot of the Touring Cyclist rides then. We were biking a lot with Bob and Nink then. We’ll have to ask them if they remember any better than us.

According to a farm report that I heard last week 70% of the Illinois corn crop has been planted. You couldn’t tell that looking at the background fields in the above photo. In-between corn fields, planted or not, we rode past the occasional palatial estate. There was one that was by far the most ostentatious. It had a cobblestone (not cut) gate house, a roadside decorative pond, with accompanying cobblestone cabana. But what really set the place off I could only glimpse through the shielding trees. At first I thought that it was a lighthouse, but what purpose a lighthouse could serve in central Illinois I would not dare to venture. Rounding the corner, we got a better view of the back of the property, which included a cobblestone control tower. Notice below the landing lights in the photograph. However, this ‘runway’ was rather narrow and had a rather close tree line along one side, not ideal landing conditions. I suspect that this estate is the dream of some retired air force general, from Scott AFB.

Stone-Ground Corn Field Control Tower