What a great morning for a bike ride! Beginning at the Council Bluffs trailhead near Lewis Central High School, I rode south on the Wabash Trace Nature Trail. It’s a converted rail bed that runs from Council Bluffs, IA, south about 63 miles to Blanchard, on the Iowa-Missouri border. The crushed limestone surface makes for a fairly smooth ride and since it is a former railway, the grades are no more than 3%. I went to investigate and found the jail open and a friendly gentleman inside working. He was doing some restoration work on the old jail which will someday become part of a city park and tourist attraction. The jail has one room, one door and three barred windows. He pointed out where the single bunk was supposed to go and I could see the flue in the wall where the pot-bellied stove used to connect to. In the corner was a concrete latrine. This place was definitely not built for comfort. 
I took a short break at Mineola, at the 9.6 mile marker. 
At Silver City, my GPS indicated 14.0 miles. This was my turn-around point for today’s ride. As I began to head back north, I noticed a small sign pointing toward the “Silver City Jail – 1911.” 
On the way back, I stopped near Dumfries for a photo op of some wildflowers.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Biking the Wabash Trace
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