In Which Birds are Seen on a Final Ride

A pair of geese form a heart on the pond at Collins Aerospace on C Avenue.

Iowa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a bit confusing. The state was divided into zones and the governor uses unexplained matrices to assign a risk score to each zone, and the level of state-mandated isolation varies as a result.

I live in Cedar Rapids, the city in Iowa most hard hit by the virus. And this week, we reached 10 on the mysterious state matrix, which promoted today the ordering of new restrictions.

In Linn County, popular walking/bike trails are going to become one-way routes, to facilitate easier social distance. Well fine—except that another new rule is that any person over the age of 60 is not supposed to be on those trails at all.

Well, darn. I am not sure about street bicycle riding; I’ll spend part of tomorrow reading the new directive in more detail. But CR Biker may not be doing much biking for a while.

I did not know this was coming today when I went on a very short ride with a very short co-rider. A 4-year-old grandson, a refugee from a closed daycare, was with me today, and we took advantage of a comparatively nice day.

Although the temperature was in the upper 30s and then lower 40s, there was limited wind and some sun, so it was OK to be outside if one dressed for the weather. The grandson and I went in back to hang a swing that replaces one which broke this winter. We played for a while in the sandbox, and I offered to take him on a bicycle ride.

Two views of the hybrid bike. My wife walked up to the pond and met us there, she and my co-rider along with the bike, above, bike portrait, below.

I got the hybrid bike out, and attached the Tag-A-Long trailer. We spent a few minutes finding a child’s helmet that would fit over a thin hat, since it would have been too cold without a hat.

We cycled up to a pond south of my house on C Avenue. At the pond, the grandson had a snack, and we watched some geese and a cute group of baby ducks with their mom.

Two views of duck family we watched at the pond.

The pond is just over a half mile from my house. On the way home, we rode for a little while on the paved part of the Lindale Trail (the trail closing order had not been issued and did not go into effect until midnight tonight anyway).

On the way home, we approached the C Avenue bridge over Dry Creek (badly named, it’s almost never dry, it’s just a creek). As we approached the bridge, a big tom turkey strutted out from under the bridge and walked along the edge of the wooded creek bed. We paused and enjoyed watching it.

It was a short ride. I didn’t even bother with a computer, knowing we weren’t going very far—we probably rode only about 3 miles. That was enough of a journey for the 4-year-old. It may be my last bike ride for a fortnight. If so, I’m glad I had a pleasant companion for this ride.

April 17 update: Here is the notice from the City of Cedar Rapids that I was writing about.

The turkey near the creek.