In Which I Take One Post-Derecho Ride

My granddaughter, riding on the back of a tandem bike, made this image early in the ride.

Have you heard that we had a storm in Iowa? Not just any storm—a “derecho.” An inland category 2 hurricane.

My lovely city, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is devastated. About 1,000 buildings are too damaged to be habitable. In the sister city of Marion (don’t dare call it a suburb), the public library will never open again in its present building due to the harm done by the storm.

A biker died in the storm on a trail that bikers in our area love. He was struck by a tree.

Right now, all bike trails in the metro area are closed. City and county crews won’t get to clearing trees from them for quite some time because there are other urgent needs. Like the fact that all of the streets were blocked by fallen trees. Half of the tree canopy in this town whose symbol is a tree is gone with the wind.

Two more images made by granddaughter. Trees by street (above) and fallen street light (below) among the tree remains.

Anyway, on Saturday, the day was too pretty to resist. I suggested to a granddaughter that we go for a bike ride, and she agreed. It had to be on quiet streets—busy ones would be too narrow and dangerous due to fallen trees. Every street in this town right now is constricted by fallen trees. Thus, we rode just about a mile from home and back. We used the tandem bike, and she’s a good partner on such rides.

Communication is important in tandem biking.

This granddaughter’s aunt, another daughter of mine, plans to buy a house not too far away, so I gook this 11-year-old on a ride to see it and then return home.

The ride went well, as far as it went. It was a beautiful day to be out on a bicycle. But the destruction of so much of what we are familiar with could not be ignored. We had to take it easy on quiet streets lined with heaps of what used to be the pretty trees of the neighborhood.

It was my first bike ride in a week. I didn’t expect to take a week off of the saddle, but then again, nobody expected the derecho.

Normal doesn’t exist here anymore and won’t for a while. But at least this ride went well.