Jen and Rebecca Rejoice in a Blessedly Short Day of Relatively Hill-less Biking, AKA Day 4 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: Woo-hoo! Only 44 miles! And the elevation chart didn't look too bad, with only a little stretch of hills toward the middle/end. (Jen can provide better analysis of this, as she was a very diligent studier of the elevation charts.) I don't think I had to bump down to the granny gear until at least half-way into the day's ride. (Granted, I'm writing this two weeks later, and I could be confusing this with Day 5's route...) Jen's Day 3 break/long nap seems to have done her some good as she was up and ready to go again this morning. Sadly, however, the same could not be said for Matt. He had taken a fall a few weeks before the ride began and re-injured a knee that he'd had surgery on previously. Thus far on the ride, the knee hadn't bothered him at all, and, in fact, we stopped trying to ride with him because he felt the need for greater speed than our pace was averaging on the mass quantity of hills. But Tuesday night, while stepping into his tent, the knee popped out of place briefly, though went back in immediately. But it was a sufficient enough scare to make him want to use caution. He chose to sag on this short day of all days, poor guy.

J: After sagging a day, I understood how upset Matt was at having to skip the ride for the day. It really is a hard choice to make, even when you know it’s the best thing for you. Although Rebecca and Aaron kept mocking me, I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing the elevation chart and route maps for each day (and looking back on Wednesday’s elevation chart, I’m guessing there was some granny gear usage). I liked to know what to expect and what to prepare for each day. It made me a happier rider. And I was a much happier rider on Wednesday than on Tuesday. But when we stopped for one of my favorite breakfast foods (French toast) in Sandyville and I had to force myself to eat and then when Rebecca was listing off all of the fabulous foods that we’d eaten so far and I had to make her stop, I realized that I wasn’t quite up to par yet.

French toast.

Foggy morning bikers.

J (continued): And, I’m glad I did, because our next stop was Milo. And they had the best (and possibly only) theme of the week. The entire town took on a M*A*S*H theme. We hung out with Radar, Hot Lips, Klinger, and the largest Army man I will probably ever meet while enjoying our first lunch of the day.

R: I loved Milo! I recall from past RAGBRAIs that more towns had themes, which really made them more fun and more interesting. Sadly Milo was pretty much the only ultra-organized town like that all week. They even had people saying funny things out of the loudspeaker, announcing the onslaught of cyclists and such. We also were serenaded by some karaoke—some actually not too painful to listen to—as we waited in line for the kybos. We managed to make it to Lacona before 11, leaving us only 15 miles to go for the day. Given the good time we were making, plus the relative ease of the ride, Aaron and I indulged in a mid-ride beer. Hey, they had an option better than Bud or Miller Lite—Fat Tire—so how could anyone pass that up? And they made a great complement to the world’s best taco from Rudy’s. I may go back to Lacona some day, just for another taco.

Beer before noon.

Super heroes in Lacona.

J: One of the things that I was sad about missing on Tuesday was the homemade ice cream at Beekman’s, so I got Rebecca and Aaron to agree to stop again on Wednesday. Not that it required much, if any, begging. As we were pulling off the road, an 84-year-old man fell over right in front of us. Luckily, an E.R. nurse had pulled over at the same time. We provided some assistance, mostly in the form of shade. The nurse determined that the man would be okay with some water and some ice cream (and it must have been true, because he was gone by the time we got back to our bikes). Once we were no longer needed, we took our places in line. The wait was about 30-40 minutes, but it was well worth it for my cup of chocolate and raspberry goodness. As we were enjoying our ice cream, Rebecca’s eyes started bothering her again. It made the last 8 miles to Chariton less enjoyable for her, but fortunately medical services were set up right next door to our campsite.

R: Yeah, riding with one eye closed isn’t necessarily the safest riding habit, so after our evening shower, I really wanted to visit the first aid tent, which was particularly convenient because the first aid “tent” was located in the middle school mere feet from our evening’s camp site! The doc there confirmed that it was an allergy issue, and told me to go get drops and allergy meds. We took the shuttle to Chariton’s town square only to discover that there was no pharmacy or drug store downtown. We had to get on the shuttle again to head out to the Hy-Vee on the edge of town. Fortunately, Jen got her first walking taco of the week as a pre-dinner snack to hold her over, which ended up being a good thing as our trip to Hy-Vee took well over an hour. Little did we realize that Chariton had a complex shuttle system—we got on the wrong one! We toured the lovely outskirts of Chariton before finding the right shuttle and finally getting my eye drops (which, fortunately, provided relief immediately.) We rounded out the evening by watching the band Hairball with whom my brother was a little obsessed. Admittedly, they put on a rousing good show!

Jen and Rebecca Have a Parting of the Ways, AKA Day 3 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: As we packed away the Tent-Mahal in Greenfield, it was cloudy, but not actually raining. We were thankful for this, but we weren't overly optimistic about the day continuing rain-free for long. It was a relatively pleasant ride to the first town of Orient, 9 miles in, where we stopped for breakfast. We both got big cinnamon rolls and juice and then happened to run into Janelle's parents finishing up their pancakes. Still no baby at this time, as we confirmed with the grandparents-to-be (technically, their 4th grandchild). I wasn't sure we'd ever run into them while on the ride, knowing them to be early-risers and not town-lingerers, but I guess we were prompt that morning in our own departure time or something. It was fun to chat with them briefly. Sadly, as we left the high school gym to get back on our bikes, the rain had already begun...with 68 miles left to go for the day.

J: The next town was 12.7 miles away and it was possibly the longest 12.7 miles I’ve ever ridden in my life. That’s because weather changes and I don’t always play well together. And today was no exception. The migraine was slowly building before Orient and by the time I got to Macksburg, I wanted to cry (oh wait, I did). So, I made the tough decision to give up the ride for the day and take the SAG wagon into Indianola. For those unfamiliar with RAGBRAI and other long organized bike rides, the SAG wagon is essentially a van with a trailer that takes riders into the next town with a repair shop (for those with mechanical issues) or into the finish town (for those who are physically or mentally unable to ride the rest of the day).

But before Aaron and Rebecca left me to continue on with the day’s ride, we saw the most awesome of small town Iowa games – the skillet toss!

R: Yes, folks, that’s right. Macksburg featured a rousing skillet toss game. The object: knock the basketball head off of a stuffed dummy using an iron skillet from 10 (maybe more) yards away. As we walked up, one skillet came flying out of the enclosed cage in which the competition was happening—no top to the cage, It was quite a crowd-pleasing event! Plus we got to see the Bananaman toss a skillet.

R (continued): Aaron and I proceeded without Jen. It was still cold and still rainy, though not raining nearly as much as before. We stopped next in East Peru. Even though it is apparently home of the original delicious apple, I didn’t have an apple. I did, however, have a pork tenderloin sandwich. And, it may (or may not) be interesting to note, that the town is pronounced “Pee-roo” so I took the opportunity of peeing there.

R (continued): Our day’s ride also took us through Madison County, famed for its covered bridges. St. Charles had a fake bridge on the street, and I was feeling a little disillusioned that they were just taunting us with a fake one and we wouldn’t be seeing a real covered bridge on our RAGBRAI route. But there was one waiting for us just outside of St. Charles. We didn’t stay longer than a photo op, though, since we still had 30 miles to go. I didn’t even walk all the way across!

R (continued): The sun finally came out and I finally took off my jacket in time for our last 15-mile push into Indianola. The route planners saw it fit to have us enter Indianola by climbing the steepest two (or maybe three?) hills we’d yet seen. And then my campsite was on the complete other end of town. But fortunately Jen already had the tent put up when I arrived! One of the benefits of sagging--at least it benefited me.

J: That’s right, I was Rebecca’s tent girl on Tuesday. Although, really, I just wanted a place to sleep off my headache while I waited for my friends to ride in. I had an excellent two-hour nap and woke up feeling significantly better. After Rebecca got in and cleaned up, we headed into town to find Simpson College (Grinnell had kindly sponsored the night’s dinner at the college. Thanks Grinnell!). While be both knew that our campsite was on the edge of town, I don’t think either of us realized that it would take us so long to actually get back to the center of it. And we were under a deadline! We had 30 minutes to get to the dining hall and well over a mile to walk. Never fear, we made it – and each managed to consume the equivalent of two dinners and desert! After dinner, we met up with Aaron and Matt, sent out our last timely blog entry and then went to enjoy the beer garden.

R: As a side-note, in true Grinnell fashion, while walking down the streets of Indianola trying to get to the dining hall by the 6:30 closing time, I ran into an alum with whom I’d been in Grinnell Singers who was not riding with our team (and in fact was not riding RAGBRAI at all. He’s living in Des Moines and had come down to see other friends who were riding. Oh, writing this up reminds me to look him up on Facebook!) Not sure he would have recognized me if I’d not been wearing a Grinnell t-shirt. Glad I have a ton of them in my wardrobe to create more random Grinnell run-ins on the street. Oh, and the dining hall decided to stay open as long as they had food left, so our rushing wasn’t even necessary, though we slipped in under the wire at 6:29!

Jen and Rebecca Make Excuses for Not Blogging

R: Turns out we didn't really keep up on the travel blog throughout RAGBRAI. In our defense, biking is hard work! Plus Matt was getting really whiny about how he had to wait around for us to blog when he wanted to be out on the town. (Yes, it's our blog, so we can blame others for our lack of follow-through. If Matt really feels the need to defend himself, he can post a comment!) We're hoping to pick up the pieces and get all of our eager blog-fans up-to-date on the rest of the trip in some subsequent posts. For those who can't stand the suspense (spoiler alert: neither of us died from too much biking as we're still here to update you after-the-fact), check my brother's blog starting with this post: http://mathman72.blogspot.com/2009/07/ragbrai-xxxvii-trip-to-council-bluffs.html. He made the time to blog most days (or was at least able to get himself caught up through the rest of the ride unlike me and Jen.) As we pretty much hung out with him the entire time, his blog tells you a lot about our week from his perspective.

But keep checking back here in the coming week(s) for more on our RAGBRAI experience, and exciting plans for our upcoming vacations!

Admittedly, the lack of blogging probably wasn't just Matt's fault. Here, I enumerate other scapegoats for our blog-slacking:

1) Lack of available power-sources to recharge the laptop. All these greedy, power-hungry people seemed to think they needed to charge their phones every night and with a limited number of outlets, we were lucky to find spots for our phones to charge before they died, let alone for the laptop. And the phones were important because if we got separated during the ride, we could best find each other by calling. Plus we were waiting for Janelle baby news.

2) Free wireless was not easy to come by in small-town Iowa, so even when our computer had enough juice, we had no convenient way to upload anything we may have had time to write at the camp site. And dragging the laptop into town to the Iowa Telecom booth just to get the internet soon wearied me, the pack mule carrying the computer in a backpack for the rest of the evening we spent in town. And I'm just not economical enough in my word use (Exhibit A: this blog post) to be able to write up something quickly (and cleverly) while standing at a computer set up in the Iowa Telecom booth. Next time, we'll bring a jump drive.

3) By the time you bike all day, get in, get your camp site situated (okay, I admit we had a tent boy to do some of the dirty work for us for a few days later in the week...more on that in subsequent posts), relax with a frosty beverage and rehash the day's ride with your teammates, find the showers, wait in line for the shower, take the shower, dry off from the shower, decide on a place for dinner, walk/shuttle to said place for dinner, wait in line for said dinner, eat said dinner...well, after all that, you maybe have time for one other evening activity. Some days, finding the beer garden was the one preferred evening activity.

4) But really, it's all Matt's fault. I hate accepting blame.

Jen and Rebecca Bike Up a Lot of Hills in the Rain

R: One of the guys in our group told us as we were setting out on Monday that there was a chance of rain. Yeah, there were a few clouds, but they didn’t look too ominous. Turns out they were indeed rain clouds. Sigh. But it didn’t start raining on us until about halfway through the day. Up to that point, we were able to see Swedish dancing in Stanton, plus Stanton’s famed water towers shaped like a coffee pot and a tea pot!

Hills

J: Then it was on to Villisca - home of the Murder House. We were too cheap to take the $5, 5 minute tour, so we don’t have all of the details, but we did learn that several members of one family plus some friends were axe-murdered in 1912. My bike and I got into several spats yesterday as well. It almost got axed. But, after fixing my chain five times, I’m very good at putting it back on. Plus, I got to meet some very nice bike mechanics on the road who adjusted the cables for me. It appears to have to worked.

The Villisca Murder House

R: Because Jen’s bike pedal bit her and I had some sort of allergy-eye itch issue, we also took a pit stop at the first aid bus (provided by the U of I, thanks Jen’s alma mater) which made our stop in Corning a bit longer than anticipated. We did have yummy sloppy joes AND we got to use the indoor toilet which had a museum/old fashioned bank safe in it. Sadly, the line behind me was too long to spend much time in the museum after doing my business.

J: The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I guess that’s not entirely true. While I was at the bike repair stop to get my chain checked, Rebecca and Aaron 3,050 pound bull headed to the Iowa State Fair. The rain wasn’t much fun, but we survived. I did make a new friend. He kept offering to race me up hills, and then he’d let me win. Hmmm….. But, he was funny and distracted me the pain of climbing.

Rebecca and the bull.

Jen and her repaired bike.

R: He was funny because he said he’d rather Jen won the race because he’s get a better view. Tee hee. The last few “towns” of the ride were those fake towns where it’s pretty much a beer tent and nothing else. But we survived that too. Once we set up our tent in the rain, we headed to the nearby high school for showers, and made it one-stop shopping and had lasagna dinner there too. Where we saw Miss Iowa giving autographs. Sadly I hadn’t brought my camera. (Afterall, I thought we were just going to take showers.) We also wandered around the town square with Aaron where we finally got pie! Jen and Aaron chose rhubarb and I went cherry.

J: Yep, I can go home happy. I had some homemade rhubarb pie. Once I have walking tacos my trip will be complete.

R: More riding set for Tuesday, and we hope the forecasted “intermittent thunderstorms” don’t
come to pass…

Jen and Rebecca Start Biking

R: We made it through day 1! (Sorry for the posting delay. Apparently free wi-fi access isn't abundant in small-town Iowa and we've lacked the energy to get ourselves downtown to the Iowa Telecom booth where internet is free.)

R, still :We had another night of not great sleep in part because of the loud music/party we could hear nearby (sadly for Aaron, it was right by his campground, though down the road from ours.) Plus we could hear trains and it was chilly overnight. Turns out a sleeping bag wouldn’t have been overkill in this weather, and I should have brought one as the blanket didn’t quite cover it. We didn’t get started as early as anticipated either because I hadn’t recalled how long the lines to the kybos are at the main campground--I was spoiled riding with the Hawgs with their attached kybo on the back of the bus. Then I discovered my rear tire wasn’t holding air, so some of the bike shop guys at our campsite fixed it for me. We joined up with Aaron and got on the road at 7:00. We passed grandma’s condo on the way out of town, so I guess Aaron and I took a partial Eilers memorial tour of Council Bluffs

J: I am too dazed by day 1 to write anything! Overall, it was an okay day. I think I started out a little dehydrated and exhausted from 2 nights of bad sleep and it hit me on the first set of hills out of Council Bluffs. Once we finally made it to the top, I chugged a bottle of Nuun and inhaled a quick snack and the situation was drastically improved. On to the first town! We stopped in Mineola for Chris Cakes - my first pancakes of the week! Yummy!

Jen's first bite of pancakes.

Fortunately, no one was thrown into the hoosegow in Mineola during our brief stay.

R: The day was overall a short one, only 53 miles, but there were plenty of hills to keep up occupied. The just kept coming and became very tiresome. We learned that Matt rides faster than us, but Aaron, Jen, and I were able to stay together okay. Matt met us in the towns and at Pastafari for lunch, then rode ahead without us.

Matt being anointed a RAGBRAI virgin by some folks we met in the Pastafari line.

Jen bikes by, looking pretty happy!

Rebecca naps in Henderson.

R: The charter company tortured us with our campsite tonight--we had to climb several more hills in town to get to it. It’s fairly out of the way, and we were pretty tired, so we had dinner at the closest place to us, a church serving ham balls and baked potatoes. I’m wondering how I’m going to manage to stay up until a more reasonable bed time, like 9:00. Hopefully I’m tired enough to actually get a good night’s sleep, and if we go to bed early, we can get on the road earlier for a 70+ mile day tomorrow!

J: I had originally mocked Rebecca for wanting to go to bed at 7:30, but now it sounds like a fantastic idea! Here’s hoping for a slightly flatter day tomorrow!

Jen and Rebecca Get on the Bus

R: The day has dawned to get on the bus for RAGBRAI’s starting location! I don’t think any of us slept very well, being in different surroundings and being on edge about the adventure to come. But we still managed to haul ourselves out of bed at 6:00.

J: That’s sleeping in!

R: After dropping our stuff off at the charter bus and Penske trucks, Matt ditched us for the Lion’s Club pancake breakfast while Jen and I dropped our cars off at long-term parking. Jen and I made due with sweet rolls and fancy coffees from Saint’s Rest (we have to give a shout out to Paul and Janelle’s old bathroom - Saint’s Rest had the same walls) next to the bike store, but I think Jen was disappointed that she was denied her pancakes.

J: I’ll admit it, I was a little sad to miss out on the pancakes and sausage this morning. But, I think I’ll have several more opportunities this week. And my sweet roll was really good. After we loaded the busses, took roll call and got the standard safety speeches, we were finally off! And we got to see one of the most quintessential Iowa events – the antique tractor parade!

R: Granted, the tractors slowed us down, but as Grinnell is conveniently located next to I-80, and from there it’s a straight shot to Council Bluffs, we didn’t lose too much time. We frankly thought they were a little crazy thinking we wouldn’t arrive in CB until 1:00 or 2:00 with a scheduled departure of 8:00.

J: They weren’t too far off with the arrival time - we pulled into the campground at 12:00. We re-enacted the Oklahoma land run and picked the patch of land that would house our Taj Majal of tents for the night.

The land grab.

[Photo coming soon]
The Taj Mahal.

R: After exploring the bike Expo, where we bought some souvenirs (I learned on my last RAGBRAI not to wait until the end of week sales because the cute stuff is all gone) we biked over to the Bob Kerry Bridge to dip our tires in the Missouri River, as per RAGBRAI tradition. The ride was longer than I expected, but it was maybe necessary training. The bridge is pretty new and interesting looking and they had pumped water up to the bridge for tire dipping purposes. We also scuttled down to the banks for an official river dip, but on the Nebraska side, as it wasn’t really accessible on the Iowa side.

Bob Kerry Bridge

Dipping our tires on the bridge

Dipping our tires in the river

Nebraska-born Jen in Nebraska with Iowa-born Rebecca in Iowa.

J: The Bob Kerry Bridge is the second suspension bridge that I’ve been on this year. And, my fear of heights still has not subsided. I was doing okay until Matt got a flat in the middle of the bridge and we had to stop and I could feel the bridge swaying. I only freaked out a little bit…. On the bright side, a very nice man taught Matt how to change a flat.

R: I admit, I am the cause of Jen being on both suspension bridges this year. Sorry, Jen.

J: Apology accepted…unless you drag me onto a 3rd bridge.

R: Matt and Jen ditched me to go take naps back at camp and I met up with my brother where we made a valiant attempt to go see my grandparents’ old house on Commercial Street. I knew Council Bluffs got its name for a reason, but I’m pretty sure most of the bluffs are located all in the area of grandma’s old house. Once we hit the first giant hill, we decided we still had too far to go, and we gave up. The condo by Lake Manawa would have been a lot easier to access!

Aaron at the base of the hill at Pearl and 5th.

Waiting for the train to get back to the campsite.

J: It’s now dinner time and we’re about to head over to Ribfest (for ….well….ribs) and the Barenaked Ladies concert later tonight.

At the Expo. This just made us giggle.

Jen and Rebecca Embark on a Big Bike Ride

Another reason Jen and I started this blog now is because we have just departed on our next adventure—the 37th Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. What better way to see the world than on a bike? And what better place in the world is there to see on a bike than America’s heartland, and Jen’s and my homeland, Iowa?

I wrote the first blog entry on my own because Jen was already in a car on the way to our Iowa meeting point in Iowa. Now that we’re together, Jen is accusing me of being a control freak and wanting to write the whole blog, so I think we’re going to need to move on to a more conversational format (if for no other reason than she will only call me a control freak once for every two times she would otherwise.

R: I got us signed up with a Grinnell College alumni RAGBRAI team (the first year they’ve had one) when I convinced Jen to do the ride with me back in February. So on Friday we each departed our separate homes to meet up in Grinnell. I fortunately got to leave significantly later than Jen as my drive was fewer than half the miles. I had also convinced my Grinnell friend Matt to do the ride with us, so I had human company on my drive whereas Jen’s company was a book on tape.

Matt enjoying a quiet Grinnell evening at our host’s home as we wait for Jen’s arrival.

J: I’m not sure what possessed me to agree to sign up for RAGBRAI – maybe it was the allure of the pancake breakfasts and homemade rhubarb pie that both Janelle and Rebecca promised me would be available each day. Or maybe it was because I thought it would force me to get in shape so that I could ride my bike 442 miles. The second thing didn’t happen, so I’m still holding out hope for the first. Either way, I loaded up the car and headed out of Denver at 7am and arrived in Grinnell a little over 11 hours later.

R: Janelle and I rode RAGBRAI 35 in 2007 and she and her husband had intended to join us this year until she got pregnant. Oh well-maybe next time! (Still no baby, BTW, for anyone who’s counting.) Matt and I drug Jen on a brief walking tour of the Grinnell campus on our way to dinner at Jimbo’s, my favorite pizza place in Grinnell.

Jen and Rebecca about to enjoy their Wrigley Pizza. Rebecca was bummed that they no longer serve the Berkeley Nachos.

At Jimbo’s we ran into Team Evil Eye loading up on carbs. Who knew multiple RAGBRAI teams depart from Grinnell? I guess it’s a nice central Iowa location.

J: I had forgotten about the dangers of living in a small town after living in Denver for the past 9 years. As we were walking back to the house from the restaurant we were bombarded (by fireflies), nearly ambushed (by people walking out of bushes), attacked (by a child’s toy in the sidewalk) and blinded (by the lack of streetlights). We had to navigate our way around town using the stars—and fortunately the cloud cover had dispersed enough by this point to allow that.

R: The morning when we left home seemed really far away by bed time. I guess that means we’re already removed enough from the real world to begin enjoying vacation. Saturday, we’ll be off to the ride’s start in Council Bluffs!