The girls rode their bikes right by our house, Carpenter said. We see them practically all the time ride their bikes right past our house, but they come down and turn around in the street. - Robert Carpenter
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/ar...tigators-bring-dogs-search-missing-Iowa-girls
This just bugs me, tbh. Apparently he lives in the 1000 block of Lake Ave, which would be within a block of the police station. Standing in his street, looking north you'd see the police station, looking south you'd see the woods by the pump house. One block east of there would be the trail, which goes all the way north up to Lafayette (couple blocks from Collins' home), and south one block, the trail turns and heads to where the bikes were found. The next block over (opposite the direction of the trail) would be Evans, the main N-S road thru town, again with the PD on it. What is considered the "main" entrance to the lake, where the playground, docks, parking area is, would be just a couple blocks to the west.
So for the girls to be consistently and repeatedly riding up and down this street, turning around on this block, is just odd. You are a block from the trail in two different directions, and a few blocks from the park. Those locations seem to be natural bike-riding, traveling, stopping, turning-around points. To get to this block from the Collins' home, most efficiently, would require biking down one of the busiest roads in town (with sidewalks, btw), then to cross thru one of the busiest intersections, right in front of the PD, only to turn around within the next block. If you came that far, seems you'd just continue to the trail. I suppose if you were coming from the trail, you might turn before you had to cross Gilbert (busy-ish), but why would anyone, riding the trail, choose to get off, ride a block, turn, ride a block, then turn around, all when staying on the trail keeps you off the road, leads around the lake, etc. I know kids can't be assumed to do what's logical, but living right here, that just doesn't make sense to me. Unless, perhaps, they know someone on that block.
But again, from what we've heard from family, getting this far away - repeatedly and consistently - wasn't happening.
I guess I'm saying, for kids riding to/from the lake, the Lake Ave is like the least likely route to take, or even to turn off onto, much less do it all the time and turn around there.
