My brother Dan drove from St. Paul to join me today.  He parked his car in the town of Montevideo, then rode his bike toward me until we met up, and then he turned around and we rode back to Montevideo together.  He effortlessly kept up high speeds on the outbound part of his ride--thanks to a 20 mile-per-hour thing that I can no longer mention--but when he had to turn around and face the brutality coming from the east, he blamed ME.  "I was doing just fine until I started riding with you," he said.

Usually my preference is to be a loner, riding at my own pace and doing exactly what I want to do when I want to do it, but I have to admit that the time and difficulty of today's ride were alleviated by having somebody to talk to.  

Scenic highlights were scarce today.  Early on, while I was still riding alone, I took Highway 7 which is known as the "Sioux Trail Scenic Byway."  Despite a couple nice stretches of undeveloped native prairie and several uninterrupted miles of cattails, I wouldn't be inclined to call the route "scenic."  

While riding with Dan, the scenery consisted of corn.  Just corn.  The most interesting thing we saw all afternoon were two stray cornstalks growing tall at the edge of the highway shoulder.  I'm not sure if they were planted there by nature or by a corn farmer with a sense of humor.