The Great Western Trail

Kathryn Holding Lynnea on  the bike

So we probably shouldn't even count this as biking the trail because we only biked 4 miles out and back of the 16.5 miles of the trail but we'll post about it for now.  I'm sure we will do the entire trail another time. To be honest we also really wanted to record another trail/entry, so here it is!

The Great Western Trail is a portion of what once was an old railroad built in 1899 that connected Kansas City, Chicago and St. Paul.  The portion of the trail that we went on was still within the Des Moines perimeter but we shortly left that and found ourselves in farm country, then a golf course and then back into the farmland/ prairie.  If we had gone further then we would have found ourselves in the wooded valley of North River.  From this trail you can also hook up onto the Lake Maffit Picnic Loop which is roughly 22 miles.  We hope to do that one soon.

The portion that we went on was very flat yet had a slight upgrade the entire way out making it necessary to pedal the entire time without coasting (that was tiring!).  The views were pleasant though with the forested portions next to the trail and the farmland and prairie just past that.  After we snapped a pic of our friend Lynnea (in gazelle form) we turned around and headed back to our Jeep.  The way back went faster because of the slight downgrade in elevation.  Sadly because we were going to fast I was unable to stop in time before a little squinny ran into my front tire, flipped, rolled and then ran away.  It was terrifying!  I'm not sure what became of that poor little chipmunk, but we both hope its ok.  Kathryn thinks that he ended up not getting hurt but of course I think that I killed him. RIP baby squinny :(  On a happier note though we saw a distant cousin of Lynnea's out on the trail; a cute doe.  She totally was unafraid of us while she stood there grazing.  Super cute! Then after she ran away we finished our short journey, went home and died because the sun was beating down on us the entire time.

Lynnea's distant cousin

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