I Have Nothing Left

 The title doesn't tell anything about my current state. I just had a very familiar song come across my feed and it brought up a whole lot of feels. 

The song was by Evanescence and I obsessed over their first two albums. It was such a great band and Amy Lee is a fantastic singer. Their third album, self-titled, was released when I was going through an emotional tsunami. I was coming to terms with my depression on my mission. Before then, I didn't really classify it as depression. I didn't know what it was. So I was dealing with that and finally telling Tracy about it. I didn't really say anything about my mission and Tracy respected that. 

Facebook was reintroducing me to friends I never thought I would meet / talk to again. It started creating webs of connection in my mind. Things were getting sorted out but it was still difficult. It forced me to look at some thing in my life and re-evaluate. The biggest? The church. I identified by my membership and the things I lived by. Now I felt free to question it. It was a very twisted path that got me to feel free to question it and I won't go into it here. But I was going through mental exercises and reading like crazy trying to make sense out of it all. I eventually became verbal with Tracy about my struggles and conclusions. That just fired disagreements and we had started fighting about, well, everything. I'm so conflict-averse that it was taking more of a mental toll on me than I could truly handle. 

So in this year(s) of trying to figure it all out, there came this Evanescence album. And I had finally given myself permission to feel the full range of emotions again. I hadn't done that since I was a teenager. I've always known I was highly emotional but I tried to keep it under control. I don't know if served me well or not.

I don't think it was the first time I listened to the album on the ride home one day. I feel I was quite acquainted with the songs. But this day, I couldn't keep my emotions under control. I was sitting, waiting for the light at Golf and Barrington and I started to cry. Not much at first, but it eventually led to sobbing. I felt as if my world was falling apart, and this song was playing. It spoke to me so much. I eventually had to find a spot to pull over because I couldn't drive any longer. Later, I pulled myself together and drove myself home. I still listened to this album on my drive home for the rest of 2011, I think. I needed a lot of time to cry and the privacy of my car gave me the opportunity.

So I think Amy Lee wrote the song with a TV show in mind. "Being Human", I believe. Aside from maybe the first clause, I could put my own life in the lyrics. Goll, what a mess I was that year.

Cedar River Nature Trail

After more time than I care to think about, Tracy and I hit the trail again. I've wanted to hit the trail again and this was the farthest I've gone to do this. Iowa. Essentially, between Iowa City and Waterloo, Iowa.

So we travelled to a small town called Solon to start the trek. We made a quick stop to Casey's to calorie up and I noticed a huge display of Fireball whiskey. I gave Tracy the side eye. I think I knew what it was about what it was about, but it also looked like the people of Solon had a problem.

After making a quick tour of a catholic church parking lot, I finally got to the right parking lot and geared up for the short ride to Cedar Rapids. Unfortunately, that short distance, 20 miles, was also against a 10 mph headwind. I wasn't looking forward to that.

It was a nice ride. All paved path. Shortly after leaving Ely, I stopped to check the path and someone had passed by telling me that in a forested area up ahead, he had seen coyotes and to be aware of it. Tracy also called me telling me that she couldn't see my location on her phone. I restarted my app and off I was again.

In short order, I came out of the forested area without seeing any wildlife and entered the suburbs of Cedar Rapids. The path started following the river so I went past some industrial areas as well as recreational open spaces and sports fields. With a crossing of the river, I entered downtown. I was immediately met with bars and BBQ joints and the associated smells of smoked meats. I had also started following a group of bikers that had passed me earlier. I knew that I was going to be on the streets of the city and I didn't know where I was going to go. 

Cedar Rapids downtown was quite a spot. For this part of the street, cars and bikes had full use of the street. That was kind of offputting but also, there weren't any cars to speak of so I didn't sweat it too much. I had then passed an open air theater that was packed with people with some band playing. Now I had to avoid all the pedestrians. 

I dropped a bit too far behind the bikers I was following and I noticed that they took a left back toward the river, and I was sure that wasn't where I wanted to go. So, without any signs to guide me, I took a left turn and found myself in Greene Square. I discovered I had passed the trail and got back on it. Aside from some detours, I finally found myself at the motel. Tracy had booked a motel right off the trail.

It was a nice room. I put my bike off to the side of the bed and tried to relax. I normally do 20 mile rides so I'm not sure why I felt so beat. I took a shower while Tracy was off to pick up dinner from a local Indian place. Last time she was in Cedar Rapids with Madsen's robotics stuff, she ate some good Indian food and was looking forward to having some more.

Back in college, my dorm used to have a "mexican" bar and my favorite dish was some enchaladas with rice and salsa poured over the top. The rice made it for me. It was dry and loose. I loved that rice. Since then, I've fallen in love with Basmati rice. It is so good and this meal came with so much of it. I ate my fill and then some. So now Tracy and I have Cedar Rapids burned into our minds as a place with great Indian food.

In the morning I set off again. Tracy was still in the room but I didn't need her for some time. I had miles to go. And I immediately got lost, right out of the motel. I couldn't find the stupid path. I eventually backtracked a bit and saw a small sign outside of the motel parking lot pointing to where to go. So off I went. It followed the main road for a mile or so and then angled off to the north and I was on the trail proper. Nothing of note. The path looked like so many of the others, but it was paved and straight. I eventurally started following a group of bikers and I was having trouble keeping up with them. Even on an incline...oh. Stupid eBikes. That's cheating. Another two that I switched position with were some guys about my own age. One of them kept a pretty frantic pace and I wondered if he was going to have a heart-attack with all the effort he was putting into it. The dude needed to go up a gear, or maybe buy a better bike.

Tracy met me at Center Point and the eBikers stopped there too. "Pickelball and eBikers Club" and they had their own t-shirts. I rested until they all kept going and I thought that I was going to be behind them for the rest of the way. Nope. A few of the women were more interested in talking to each other and I had trouble passing them. I finally did and so now I was between the women and the men in that group. eBikes annoy me and I kept bumping up with this group enough to keep the tradition. Seriously, I don't have this problem with bikers. They are either faster or slower, not constantly bumping into me like these guys.

I went thru Urbana and lost them at a cyclist hangout there. (Yes, they exist all along the trails.) Then the next adventure began. I became an outlaw. I was confronted with a "Trail Closed" barricade. I had read up on this and was told to just go around them. So I did. There were a few others breaking the law too but this seemed to be a very quiet part of the trail, in any case. I went along several miles of repaved trail until it eventually went to a closed, unpaved path. I later found out that this was a county line and the county intended to pave the trail but wasn't past just blocking the trail. 

I met Tracy at Brandon. Somehow I missed the big tourist attraction, Iowa's largest frying pan.

Tracy and I talked a bit there, but off I was again. This time, I would be heading through a swamp for 10 miles. And I heard my first cicadas of the summer. It was loud. But that wasn't the loudest. There was an lower tone, kind of like a jet engine, beneath it all. Frogs. The frogs were so loud. Anyway, I passed the small park seen in the top picture not so long along the path. But I wasn't expecting what I encountered next. 

This is an old coal tower from the days of the coal-fired trains. That also explains the open space as this was an old rail yard. This thing was gigantic. I assume it was remote enough that storage was kept above the rails instead of the only other one I've seen where it was fed with a conveyor belt. This was something I wish I had time to investigate. Alas, I wanted to keep moving and avoid all the mosquitos that saw an opportunity for a meal. 

A little further on I found some cows relaxing in a creek. We had a short conversation. 

The bridge over the Cedar River was long and narrow but seemed a lot better constructed than others that I've taken. This was build for bikes, not a repurposed train bridge. No pics, sorry.

I stopped for lunch at La Porte City with a sandwich from the ubiquitous Casey's gas station. A small rain shower went over too. Off again. I had to stop at the next station, Gilbertville, to sort out something from work. I was getting pretty tired. Tracy called to tell me that much of the path was flooded in Waterloo so I couldn't finish were I was planning. So I told her that somewhere in the south of Town was a Kwik Trip gas station and to meet me there. And I did. 

It was a nice ride. 75 or so miles total. My phone kept going in and out of coverage so my tracking app only had 30 or so miles logged. It lost contact around Brandon. ATT coverage of that portion of the country isn't very good. We traveled home without issue and met our oldest who had a few days off and was home for the duration.

Spite

 This is a personal opinion. 

Spite of old men. I think that is what we are seeing. Well, at least the spite of one man. Russel Nelson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I think we first saw it when he became president, he went and made sure Pres. Hinkley's use of "Mormon" and all the money used on the "I'm a Mormon" campaign went to naught.

Now you are seeing him negate Hinkley's other innovation, small mormon temples. Now they have to be more numerous and larger than what Hinkley brought about.

 

 Spite.