july 6
day 58
27 miles
total 1,514
last night was about as good as a night can get.
the long drive to lodging had me starting an hour later than i prefer,
but the shrinking moon rises later every night
so we had several hours of moonless sky overhead.
the further west i go
the better the nighttime show.
it is not yet the spectacle i expect to see in the desert during a new moon,
but last night was pretty special.
the sky filled with stars
venus and mars (i think)
and the milky way like a light cloud of fog.
there was a lot of time to drink in the magnificence of the cosmos and consider the insignificant speck our planet is in the universe.
from high points along the way
i could see a vast expanse of iowa around me, dots of white light marking the scattered human habitations
and great arrays of simultaneously blinking red lights revealing the locations of the arrays of wind turbines.
with no traffic
and the inspiration of the night
we made fast progress….
until sunrise.
with the return of traffic
all the same issues returned too.
except with more traffic than in several days.
along with the frustration of too many north/south miles.
hope for a 30 mile day evaporated
even the 27 i put down was probably “optimistic “
scott and david did everything possible to get more out of the day.
but jumping on and off the road is time consuming.
i feel like i am letting my crews down.
but i cannot squeeze any more hours out of a day.
and my old legs don’t seem to have anything left in them.
i just hope that there will be more open roads after fort dodge…
and that nebraska has shoulders on their roads!
laz