Aug 10, Ferret, Frustrations & Windmills

We stayed at a hotel in Pontiac (IL) last night, and were frustrated as the clerk didn't seem to know how to use the computer.  We were quite sure there was a first floor room available, but he didn't seem to be able to give us one and said that could only give us one on the 2nd floor. Then he gave us key cards for the wrong room but he realized that as we headed towards it, and told us that he thought he had given us the wrong room.  We did carry Kay's bike up the stairway with a sharp turn.  Jim's bike was locked up outside after taking all the gear off.  This morning, Jim went down to get breakfast before Kay, and came up saying, "there's only coffee," so Kay didn't go down. When we were almost ready to go, Jim found out that it was in a room down the hall and he had only seen the coffee in the lobby, but too late! they were closing it up.  

  Earlier, Jim had seen a couple of creatures rolling around and fighting in the parking lot,  then one dragged the other under a car.  Jim got down on his knees from about 20 ft away to look and see what was happening, and a ferret dropped whatever it had and went running across the parking lot.  Later, we looked under the car and saw that the dead creature was still there--a rat.  Jim felt bad that he had scared the ferret who then had missed out on eating his successful hunt.  Kay pointed out that maybe he'd catch another one since he had abandoned that one and then there would be one less rat!

  After going through town, which included a section of Historic Route 66, we started off across the countryside.  Kay was puzzled as there was lots of red clover along the road, but didn't see any yellow sulphur butterflies.  Then she wondered if it was a little cool for them to be up and about.  That seemed to be the case, as later in the day we again had lots of them flying around us.  

  Again we had a very pleasant day:  sunny, not too warm, a mild breeze from the north, while our route was mainly east today.  Two features of our route today--windmills and quiet roads.  Most of the time, electricity-generating windmills were along our route to our left.  At first only a few were turning but the wind gradually picked up and then most were turning.  We traveled on a number of roads where traffic was very rare; we would go sometimes for 30-45 minutes before we would see a vehicle. 

  We were also blessed by an abandoned corn crib as it offered both shade for a break and a snack and a grass latrine behind it. Grain bins also were handy places to stop when there was not a lot of shade along the route. 

  We are staying at the cottage of a Warm Showers host on the Iroquois River.   It is a warm, quiet river that we swam across a couple of times and we also took a fun canoe ride.