September 6, 2016 – Sunny, 95 degrees

Miles Today: 68

Miles to Date: 15,795

States to Date: 43

Let the corn begin! I am so fascinated by these top-heavy plants standing tall on their spiky toes, lined in such perfect rows. Every five minutes I want to stop and take yet another photo of how they flow in the breeze. Enough already – each photo looks pretty much like the last one. But in my eye they appear as an ever-changing sea. Good thing I enjoy them so much – I’ll have plenty of corn for companionship over the next few weeks.

My warmshowers host Bill rode me out of Santa Claus and past Lincoln’s Boyhood home, then let me loose to pedal along Indiana 62 to Evansville, where I took a writing break before pedaling on to New Harmony. Although the day was hot, I made a good breeze and the light filtering through the trees was sublime.

I first visited New Harmony, the Rappist / Robert Owen nineteenth century Utopian community, on my cycling tour in 2011. It is the first place I am returning to on this trip as well. In part, because the town is so lovely, but mostly because in the interim I became Internet chums with Docey Lewis. Docey’s an artist and philanthropist whose work in developing countries, most recently Nepal, dovetails with things I did in Haiti. Her invitation to visit New Harmony was a highlight of my trip.

Docey arranged for me to stay in ‘The Poet’s House,’ one of the nineteenth century post and beam cottages now used as guest accommodations. She invited more than a dozen locals to her home to share food and talk about tomorrow, a subject that people drawn to live in a rural Utopian community expound upon with gusto.