Pontiaccc

So last night in Gilman I learned plenty about corn. We had a great dinner and then hosted a bike clinic for local kids...wear your helmets, seriously, all of you! We all fall a lot more than you'd think...

So about the corn. Well each piece of corn silk has to get pollinated by other corn pollen, and pollinated corn silk connects to a kernel and creates the kernel. So there are a lot of signs by the side of the road, next to corn, with what looks like license-plate codes - DX528h, or similar things like that, and these are actually the names of different strains of genetically modified (or just specifically bred in general) corn. Sometimes, there is a sign next to every row of corn, and this is because they are testing how a different kind of fertilizer impacts a lot of different types of corn. Also, most corn out here is 'field corn' which is not sweet corn, ie is not for humans. It is for animal feed, ethanol, corn syrup, cornmeal, and lots of other corn products. Because there is a govt subsidy on corn, people grow more corn than is needed, and thus try to invent uses for the corn, ie ethanol, or whatever the 22 corn-based ingredients in chicken mcnuggets are. You learn a lotta corn facts in Illinois... Also the low flying planes are to cropdust the corn, so they spray pesticides on it. The spray is not supposed to get blown away to people...

So today, we only had a 45 mile ride to Pontiac, and we got on the road decently early, andthe roads were pretty flat - big shoutout to Cameron for riding with me - we had the best ride ever! Went super fast - we had a ten mile stretch of going over 20 mph while still having a conversation that was superinteresting about engineering stuff and design and lots of things. And the rest of the ride was really fast as well - we hit lunch at 9:30 am and left pretty quickly, got into the host before 11, had a great lunch with the group at Delong's in town, then everyone went to go shower and watch the world cup and nap. Awesome awesome ride, we were booking it - jealous of Cameron's aerobar handlebars though. We also passed a tractortrailer semi truck hauling one huge windmill propellor blade, and the blade was way longer than the truck bed, it was huge. Tons of windmills out here - duh -tons of wind, mmm headwind, funnnn, Not. But I did figure out why the wind is always in our faces.

Wind goes from west to east because the sun rises in the east, so it heats the air in the east up first, making it hotter and lower pressure, so the colder air in the west is higher pressure and blows to the east. This is also why the wind isn't bad in the early morning but hugely picks up a bit later.

Also during the ride, Cameron and I were almost cropdusted quite a few times - that plane was swooping back and forth over us and could not have been more than thirty feet above us, probably less since it was so low to the corn. Best quote from a Pontiac local: "well, you're about to hit Iowa, and that's really all flat and corn"... Yea I'm not sure it gets more like that than it is already here.

Other things about Pontiac - it is a town of 12000, it is the county seat, so those not involved in agribusiness (farming, equipment, fertilizer, grain elevators and storage, etc) often have county administrative jobs. There is also a maximum security state prison that employs a lot of people. Rod Blagojevich (sp?) was previously in a political feud with a state senator from near Pontiac, and Blagojevich wanted to make the senator look bad by increasing unemployment in his area, so he tried to shut down the prison but failed. So the prison is still in operation. About to go watch a movie complete with bnb cuddlefest. Ps, Mary, if you're readingthis and you ever steal my sleeping bag againnnn....watch out.

Location:W Lincoln Ave,Pontiac,United States