The ACA route seems hell-bent on taking me up every bluff that provides backdrop to the river plain. Official reason being to keep me away from traffic and provide occasional views. After doing the first bluff I vowed to avoid the rest: They were tiring and anyway the views were almost always obscured by trees or private residences; whereas the 'busy' highways were actually pretty quiet and what's more, provided endlessly fascinating views of the river and the habitation alongside. Still, the one view that sticks in my mind was a beautiful deer lying dead in the middle of the road, knocked over by an early-morning truck. Not the first dead animal I've seen on this trip, but the starkness of it’s richly textured colour against the hard and smooth grey tarmac made the death seem vividly heartless. What a world we live in that beauty can be so casually destroyed in the quest for efficiency and speed.
Today it just rained. Not thrilling thunder-and-lightening-rain, just steady, summer-holiday-in-the-UK rain. I should've stayed in and done a jigsaw. Worse than getting wet, my bike & I got covered in grit which my wheels managed to spray just about everywhere. Not nice for gears and bike chains, or toes. I arrived at the Sugar Loaf motel in Winona and had to wash everything, including the bike.
