Wind!

It was a windy evening and night last night.  This morning I awoke and looked up through the mosquito net roof of our tent and one tree was swaying back and forth - not any of the other trees - just a single one.  Go figger.  Wind is a strange beast.  It helps us generate clean power without emitting greenhouse gasses.  But it can also be quite destructive.  We passed several downed trees from the windstorm last night.  This one had been knocked down and was completely across the road before a path was cut through it.

Another had crushed the guardrail next to the road! 
 

 

There was tree debris, pine cones, branches, and leaves all over the ground and the roads that we were pedaling along.

Today we headed north along the west shore of Lake Pend Orielle with a strong headwind.  It was one of the more difficult mornings we've had so far.  But then the route turned east and south as we came around the lake and headed towards Clark Fork, ID.  The wind that we'd been fighting suddenly became a blessing as we cruised along the lakeshore.

Most things in life have their good and bad aspects.  Cars get us around quickly, but they also emit greenhouse gasses, enable injurious and fatal accidents, and take people where they shouldn't go.  In the medical field, drugs treat pain, reduce inflammation, kill parasites, and supplement deficiencies, but they also can be addictive, become ineffective, or have dangerous side effects.  Agriculture provides the food that our planet needs for nourishment, but it can pollute rivers, deplete underground aquifers, or erode the soil. 

So like so many other things, we welcome the winds at our back and hope that we can overcome the ones in our face.