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| Sept. 24--Cedar Lake reflects cloudy, cool September sky. |
September has been a mixed month for riding a bike or trike in Iowa. The month started very summer hot, but several weeks in the switch was thrown. It’s still not all that cool for fall, which officially began last Monday, but it’s no longer summer hot.
And it’s been very wet. It seems like rain has been an almost nightly visitor to this corner of the planet. In fact, early this week we got 4.5 inches of rain in 24 hours—rain that fell on saturated ground which could not absorb it, so suddenly Dry Creek, a small waterway behind my property, became briefly a raging river. The bike trail I ride on most often—the Boyson Trail—runs along Indian Creek and Dry Creek, and was flooded Monday. It has been closed for most of the week, and the paved sections of the trail opened for the first time today (I’m writing this Sept. 25, 2026).
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| Sept. 20--Looking down from Lindale Trail bridge at flooded Boyson Trail. |
My riding has thus been a bit disjointed this month. In August, it was summer business and travel that limited my rides. The limit in September was usually simpler—rain.
With the fall equinox having been Monday of this week, the nature of my rides is shifting. I’m wearing long pants and socks a lot more, these days. I charged up the main rear light on my trike, the battery of which had lost power due to more use as dense clouds and earlier twilights cause more need for running with lights during rides. More of my recent rides have ended in twilight as the fall sun falls below the horizon earlier.
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| Sept. 15--New season, new look. Long pants, leg bands, socks. September trike rides. |
There have also been some other common experiences during my September rides. Monarchs are migrating this month from the center of North America, headed for their winter refuges in Mexico. It’s been fun to see them—Noelridge Park and Cedar Lake, in particular, have been good places to catch sight of these stately insects during my rides.
And the mating season for White Tail Deer is approaching—I don’t if that’s why they’ve been a little weird lately. Not weird in a scary way, just more visible and distracted and not that concerned with hairless apes passing them by. Somehow, urban deer seem to know that it’s not hunting season now—and even if it were, nobody is gunning for them in the middle of a city bike trail.
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| Sept. 9--Deer on Lindale Trail. |
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| Sept. 22--Bucks moving through Oak Shade Cemetery. |
Anyway, this month has featured more walking for me, too—a hobby driven by health advice from my cardiologist as well as my competitive instincts. My brother-in-law Eldon from Des Moines suggested that he, my youngest sister who is also his spouse, my wife and I report our steps and distance walked via Facebook Messenger each day. The steps challenge has been a good motivator for me.
Nobody in our group can touch Audrey, my wife, who is an avid walker—but I’ve been walking more than a mile pretty much every day, even if some days that walking is indoors due to the unexpected monsoon season we’ve had.
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| Sept. 18--I have parked my trike and walked around Cedar Lake. Nearing the trike after my slow circuit. |
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| Sept. 18--Walking around Cedar Lake after riding trike there. I like how the lake sparkles in the background. |
Anyway, dear reader, you may be tapping your foot and wondering. Isn’t this a biking blog? Why do I care about the step challenge? Well, it’s had an impact on my bike and trike journeys. Now, I will often choose a location for a ride based on the existence of a place to ramble on foot for a time. I’ve walked around Cedar Lake after riding there, for instance.
And just yesterday, to have a new place to walk, I decided the day’s trike ride would take me to the Prairie Park Fishery. It’s a pleasant city park next to the Cedar River—it’s an old quarry site, which features a pretty, small lake and a walking trail that surrounds it. The lake, the old quarry pit, is also just a few yards from the river on its south side, so the trail goes pleasantly between the two bodies of water.
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| Sept. 24--Monarch fueling up for flight to Mexico, seen during walk around the lake at the Prairie Park Fishery. |
I first rode down to Cedar Lake and circled it, pausing to make some images there. I went for a short walk on the fishing levee, but mostly this circuit of Cedar Lake was via trike. Then, I continued on the Cedar River Trail through downtown Cedar Rapids. My plan was to ride to near the Lion Bridge, where, instead of crossing the river, I would veer north through the New Bo neighborhood to reach Otis Road, which would take me to the fishery.
It didn’t work out that way. There is a lot of street construction in downtown Cedar Rapids, and the normal route that goes beside the Federal Courthouse was not available.
I don’t like to do much street riding on my trike—if a ride involves streets, I’ll usually choose a bicycle. Still, I was familiar with an alternate street route that would lead to Otis Road, and the streets weren’t busy, so I decided to go ahead and take that route.
When I reached Otis Road, I felt it was very lucky that I could even get to the Prairie Park Fishery. Otis Road runs directly adjacent to the Cedar River, and if the river overspills its banks, that street is one of the first to be closed by the high water. Well, what with the local creek flooding this week, the river was running high, although, happily, not quite high enough to cover the road.
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| Sept. 24--Riding to Prairie Park Fishery along Otis Road. Note how Cedar River is close to level of road. |
The cloudy, cool day warmed just a bit as I neared the fishery. I circled the lake there on my trike, then parked, locked the trike, ate a small snack, and went for the hike. The sun had been flashing through the clouds, but the sky again closed in and it cooled as I ambled—I didn’t mind, it was nice to have it pleasantly chilly for the walk. “Chilly” might even be over stating it, a bit. It was in the 60s and humid.
Anyway, I spotted a Monarch and made some images of it and some other things as I walked. For photo purposes, a bit of a walk is a nice change from riding a trike or bike. It’s much easier to use a camera when on foot.
I’m getting up there in age, and trotting for almost two miles on top of what was already a 12-mile trike ride did concern me a little. What would my knees make of this adventure? Well, they were fine while I was moving, although when I stopped at the end of the hike to change from walking shoes to triking sandals, they lodged their painful complaints. Still, the ride back home was OK—I knew I didn’t have any strenuous hills on my planned route, and I just took the pace nice and easy. Again, when I got into motion, my knees complained less, which was nice of them.
Well, while September has been a bit mixed. Yet, when I have been able to ride, the rides have been extremely nice. Fall in Iowa is not usually this damp, and it is normally one of the best seasons to roll across this tiny patch of the planet. As of Sept. 25, I’ve rolled 2,298.33 miles in 2026, which 163.23 of those miles being in the ninth month of the year. The longest September ride was the sojourn to reach the Prairie Park Fishery, clocking in at 23.84 miles. No 40-mile rides yet this month, but if we get a fully dry day, maybe there will be such a ride through the pleasant fall air.
