Day 184, more or less & April Fool's Day +6

Traveling West Towards Home

Heading west from Chicago in I90 was just as interesting as the inbound trip.  Freeways speeds were about 85 in 55MPH zones and about 75 in 45MPH zones.  The traffic was light but one certainly became a slow-moving hazard and target at anything close to the speed limit.  One does have to travel with the faster crowd to avoid being overrun.  Picking your peers both challenge and support you.  You don't become competent driving at 85 anywhere if you are at the posted limit and you don't create well if you only copy.

Politics

Everything west of Rockford on US 20 is big agriculture, exclusively corn.  Not a fence line or head of livestock was to be seen.  The barns were gone or collapsing and the shortage of machine sheds and outside storage of equipment identified this as an area of big, big fields and contract planting and harvesting.  In another web presence I follow a guy who writes under the moniker of Independently Speaking.  He, too, was this kind of farmer, and now, renting out his land, does not consider this farming at all but simply a step in the process of agriculture defined by corn for feed lot beef and high fructose corn sugar; it has little to do with feeding the world.

Political History

Yesterday I passed through Freeport, Illinois, which became the capital of Stephenson County in 1838.  The second Lincoln Douglas debate occurred here in 1858.  Stephen Douglas won the debate and retained his Senate seat.  One of his answers on slavery became known as the Freeport Heresy and alienated the South splitting the Democratic Party and leading to Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860.

Personal Activity

Working the craft.