Country Roads

Summer vacation is around two months long. Two months is quite a long time, and I definitely didn't have enough scheduled activities to make me busy even half the time. One day, after realizing I was watching a YouTube video I'd seen a dozen times before, I decided that I needed to get off my butt and do something. I just wasn't sure what. I needed something that would make me feel accomplished. After a bit of thinking, I remember what I'd done in the previous spring break when I was faced with the same situation- biking to Royal with my younger brother Charlie.

It might seem a bit random and pointless, but I think this activity was perfect. Royal is around eleven miles away from my St. Joseph, where I live. Eleven miles is pretty far away, but it's close enough to see the Royal's grain elevators. Long story short, my brother and I biked there and back that day. 

With summer break, I had a lot more time. So, I decided that I would bike to every small town around St. Joseph. There are plenty of these small towns- Ogden, Sidney, Philo, Homer, and Royal are the closest ones. I made it to most of them by the end of the summer.

There are a few things that made each trip fun. Firstly, my brother and I had to plan out a route. It might sound simple, but we had a problem. We couldn't ride our bikes on the various county and state highways that were the most direct paths to each town. So, we had to find more complicated paths ourselves. Some of these roundabout ways added a lot of distance; in one case, our trip's length doubled from ten miles to twenty miles (screw you, Homer Lake Road, for not having any convenient 4-way intersections every mile). Planning out these routes made us feel almost professional in a way.

Once we had a route planned, and found a time that worked for both of us, my brother and I hopped on our bikes and began the journey. Our trips mostly went like this: we would first head directly for the Kickapoo rail trail, a ten mile gravel bike and walking path connecting St. Joseph and Urbana. We'd ride on that for a few miles, then turn onto some unused country road.

Country roads are actually very enjoyable to ride on, which even I found surprising. Every time my family goes on a long road trip, my Dad takes the "scenic" route- basically just going on slow country roads instead of the interstate. As a passenger in a car, this is frustrating, as it's just more time where I'm either extremely bored or half-sleeping uncomfortably. My dad always says "look out the window. It's very interesting". I personally don't find endless rows of corn and soybean fields interesting.

However, something about those boring country roads changed when I rode on them with my bike instead. I could actually feel the environment around me: the scorching summer sun, the heat coming from the bubbling tar roads, but also the occasional refreshing breeze and the pure smell of country air. And for some reason I can't explain, endless rows of corn and soybeans began to look sort of cool. Maybe it's just the sheer scale of it all. On top of that, I felt that I was actually accomplishing something. Sitting in the car makes me feel extremely unproductive. 

Most importantly though, there is something really satisfying about seeing a familiar landmark from far away. For instance, when I went to Royal, I remember being a few miles out and looking back at St. Joseph's water tower. I could barely see it, and just thinking of how far away I was from home made me go "wow". It's hard to get the same feeling biking or running around in a city, as you can't see where you started.
While it may sound boring or pointless, biking on country to roads to a no-name small town in the middle of nowhere can be quite fun.