Farm Country Galore

We’ve been riding through farm country and rural America for quite awhile now, but over the past two days the fields have gotten bigger as the land has flattened out the views are amazing. Most of the fields look really good, full of soybeans and corn, which is already far above my grandfather’s rule of knee high by the fourth of July. I talked to a farmer’s wife in Saymour, yesterday and she told me they were a little short on water, but things are still looking very good. The real benefit to riding through farm land besides the open spaces is the general lack of traffic. As it says in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” its better to take a road that parallels a bigger route as there is less traffic and the scenery is improved. The people are getting increasingly friendly, we’re in that part of the country where people wave when you ride by and say hi and ask questions when you stop.
Justine being a little scared of the wide open spaces.



David riding past corn and soybeans.

The above part of the blog was written a few days ago before we rode into Paris, IL. Yesterday we rode from Paris into Taylorville, where I'm currently enjoying my first day off. It was a beautiful ride across country roads, quite a bit of it in Amish country. There was virtually no traffic, but the going was still slow as we faced a stiff headwind all day and got caught in the rain both early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Final mileage for the day was 97.5 on my computer, which was the closing day on a 550+ mile week, my longest ever.

Here in Taylorville we are staying at the Christian County YMCA, which is a great place with plenty of space for us to spread out and wonderful warm showers. We unfortunately missed the fireworks last night, but a few of us spent a few hours with the townies singing karaoke, which was a lot of fun and a nice break from riding. Today is our first official day off, so most people are sleeping in, but Rebecca and I were up early so came to town to find free wi-fi and get breakfast at a great little coffee/pastry shop off the square here. The rest of the day promises to be relaxing and give us some time to catch up on sleep, swim, read and just hang out. Hopefully I'll have a little more to share about our rest day tomorrow.