25-Oct-2025 -- Needing to get out of town and scratch the “exploring itch” during an exhausting October of work, I figured a free Saturday would be a great time to take a quick drive and visit a somewhat little-seen area of Central Illinois. As I do with many of my exploring adventures nowadays, I decided to plan my day around a confluence, and 40°N, 89°W was today’s lucky winner. Like most confluences in this region of the US, this one lies in the heart of the Corn Belt, surrounded by miles of flat, mostly featureless terrain predominantly used by agriculture and a handful of farming towns. This specific point lies in a field on the northern edge of Macon County, which is anchored by Decatur, one of the 8 small agricultural cities that define Central Illinois (and roughly in the middle, I’d say, in terms of regional importance) and about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southwest of Maroa, a fairly unremarkable small town home to about 1600 people. Assuming these fields were harvested just as the fields one degree east were three weeks prior, there would hopefully be no confluence frights on this spooky final Saturday of October.

Working the confluence into a series of menial Saturday tasks I had to undertake, I approached it from the east, perhaps not the most intuitive choice, as US Highway 51, a major four-lane expressway, passes about 2.3 miles (3.7 km) east of the confluence on a perfectly north-south axis. However, I was on Interstate 74 this Saturday afternoon, and the shortest route from the freeway followed a standard county grid road, the somewhat generically named School Road. Traveling on School Rd for 13 miles (21 km) and passing zero schools, anticipation built as the most defining feature of this confluence came closer and closer into view–towering wind turbines that stand out very clearly from the pancake-flat central Illinois terrain. This confluence lies amidst the Radford’s Run Wind Farm, a wind farm of roughly 140 turbines that supposedly generates 1 terawatt-hour of power a year for Central Illinoisans. The farm began operation in September 2017, which aligns with photos of the confluence during previous visits (the 2018 and 2025 ventures featured the turbines, while the 2001 venture did not). Always happy to see renewable energy generation at work, I was in high spirits crossing US-51, which marks the farm’s eastern border. From this point, it was only two more blocks west on school-less School Rd followed by a half block south on Janvrin Rd (on which I passed zero Janvrins). It was one of the turbines off the west side of Janvrin where I parked–specifically, turbine F-8, located at 11893 Janvrin Rd. This address had no Halloween decorations and its porch light off, but nonetheless I was met with a trick AND a treat. On the bright side, the fields were completely harvested, but as crappy luck would have it, the moment I turned down the driveway, a passing shower ensued, enough that I felt the need to use my wipers. This confluence being in the middle of the recently harvested field, I was not looking to trudge to it while wet and muddy, so once parking my car behind the wind turbine (somewhat out of view of Janvrin), I paused and waited, hoping this shower would be quick and barely dampen the dirt around me. Unfortunately, my radar app (RadarScope) was not of too much help, as Radford’s Run Wind Farm is the perfect distance from the Lincoln, IL radar to where shallow precip events like this are interfered with by the tops of the windmills, creating what looks like a permanent shower over the region (in fact, this specific wind farm has caused issues with tornado forecasting in the past).

Whether on the radar or not, the rain cleared within 10 minutes, short and light enough to prevent any major mud in the fields. I hopped out of the car and was immediately taken aback by the noise. These windmills, while not terribly loud, have such a distinct whooshing noise when standing right under one! As I started my trek northwest to the confluence, I immediately noticed commotion to my left–at the next turbine to the southwest, a couple large trucks were parked, one of them with its headlights shining right toward me. I have no idea if it was farming equipment putting some finishing touches on this year’s harvest or maintenance equipment servicing the turbine, but I wasn’t loving the idea of being watched by a stationary viewer as I walked across some farm fields. It’s not like they were particularly close (the vehicles were roughly 0.56 miles [900 m] away), but it still gave a slight sense of unease. With a keen eye to my left to ensure they weren’t coming to talk to me, I pushed on. It was an otherwise very uneventful walk to my destination–a crossing of a narrow farm track marking the boundary between two fields was the only notable feature of the jaunt. 10 quick minutes passed and I was centered at the holy grail of Macon County: 40°N, 89°W. It only took me a moment to achieve all zeroes on this flat treeless landscape (interestingly, the first time I had successfully achieved that mark in my terrible GPS app). After taking the required screenshots and pictures, I took a moment to take it all in–the time was about 2:45PM, and I was at my 22nd confluence, my second in Illinois, my third on the 40th North parallel (the others being my last two one and three degrees east of here–a natural hat trick of 40°N confluences!), and my first on the 89th West meridian. Standing on the remnants of cornstalks from a hopefully fruitful harvest, I relished in the success of the journey.

This confluence, despite being much farther from busy roads, was actually a fair bit louder than my first Illinois confluence, owing to the whooshing in all directions from the wind farm that I stood amidst. Aside from that noise, however, it was quite a peaceful scene, pretty typical I’d say of a mid-autumn day in this part of the world. The temperature hovered in the mid-50s F (~12°C) with a light breeze under overcast skies with the subtlest of sprinkles dotting the otherwise dry freshly harvested dirt. A couple minutes went by with no change to the landscape, and before long, I was making the return trip to my car. The whole way back, the shining headlights of the equipment at the neighboring turbine were pointing at me, but I never had any issues. I returned to my car, quickly departed, and headed 45 minutes up to Bloomington-Normal to run a few errands, including dinner at a taco place called La Patrona located in the city’s somewhat dead Eastland Mall. The tacos were decent, among the better of the Mexican food I’ve had in this part of the country so far. After dinner was wrapped up, the early Illinois sunset had already commenced, and I drove home in the dark, satisfied with a wonderful day of exploring (and of course, checking some things off the to-do list). With fields now bare, my confluencing future in the Lower Midwest looks bright! Let’s just hope this isn’t a brutal winter…