RAGBRAI XLI 2013 - Knoxville to Oskaloosa, 52 miles and 2,808 feet of climb

This is from later in the week.  I set my pack on a banana from the Iowa Conservation folks and, not wanting to eat a banana that had been mashed into my tent, decided to draw a face on it.  I surprised Adam in his tent with Banana Man and then mashed him over a sharp edge inside the trash can so that whomever opened the trash next would see him staring up, a look of surprise on his face at being trepanned by a trash can.  I have edited it down and added some music for Adam.


The windmill in Pella, Iowa.  The largest in-use windmill (of its sort) in the United States.  The thing is massive.  Shortly before the windmill we had pancakes at Central College.  At the other end of our table, and Adam missed this whole event, were two young guys and a woman having pancakes.  At one point one guy starts telling this story.  It seems he's sharing a tent with someone on RAGBRAI.  So he woke up touching his wiener (his word).  But it turns out it was the other guys wiener.  And that guy woke up, and he was touching his wiener. That was their homoerotic moment for RAGBRAI.  The woman starts laughing so hard I thought she was going to choke on her pancakes.  And the other guy, who's not wiener guy number two, looks absolutely shocked that anyone would admit to that story.  Laughs uncontrollably.  Is shocked again.  And then the three of them are laughing so hard for minutes they can't eat.  It was pretty funny.



The home of Banana Man, the Iowa Conservation free banana and postcard stand. It's somewhere along the route every day.  I sent Eryn a cow postcard and an owl postcard one stressing Whoo and one stressing Moooost proclaiming me to be the best dad.  She's still my little girl.

A very attractive picture of Adam with his camelpack on his front and applying sunblock.


Mr. Banana Man's family.  Bananas!  Bananas everywhere!


There were a couple signs like this on the ride, including one that warned that the road ahead was in no way built with bicycles in mind.

Oskaloosa's literature claimed they'd won a prize as one of the 15 most picturesque town squares in the Untied States.  Nothing adds to that beauty like dropping an orange safety fence and a giant, inflatable Budweiser bottle in the mix.


In Oskaloosa there was a cool book store called the Book Vault that used to be a bank and had a safe on each floor that was now a book closet.  Unfortunately, I needed a break from the book of plays I was reading, so I went searching for a horror or sci fi book.  There was a dubious looking book called Cryonic: A Zombie Novel on the shelf, but a search on the in-house computer told me it was about a 4.75/5 on Amazon.  These reviewers are friends of the author.  I can think of no other reason for a 4.75/5.  It is a bad book.  Sorry Travis Bradberry, but your book is one of the worst zombie books I've ever read.  Your main character is a Mary Sue of the most obvious sort and no one does anything particularly clever and your loose ends are blatantly tied up and the writing...well, at least it matches the plot.  I think I'm going to send it to Klund to read.

 

Next door to the Book Vault was an enormous coffee shop that looked like it had once been the movie theater.  For the first time since we had left Minnesota we managed to charge our phones to almost 100%.


For a while it looked like rain.  This was our tent neighbor's attempt to ensure his/her bike stayed as dry as possible.  I think it looks like a way to torture a bicycle.


The second picture of No Parking bicycle humor from the ride.


Mixed berry pie.  Excellent crust.  Delicious, even without the ala mode.


A pair of very wide photos of our Oskaloosa campsite.  The two of them together comprise about a 360 degree view.  There was a little girl near us who couldn't pronounce Oskaloosa.  I asked her if that was her name.  It was also near here that the Heather stretching discussion took place.

Through those tents lies a water hose that I used to fill my bottles.  The guy before me set it down and started walking away and when I picked it up I activated the hair trigger on the nozzle.  Shot him square in the back.  He took it with a good nature as I was obviously almost as startled as he was.

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Team Fur Bandit.  They covered their bikes in fur and what seemed to be carpet.

Unfortunately, it was near here that we saw Grown Ups 2.  Our selection of movies was incredibly limited and, in order to take advantage of the air conditioning, we were willing to see whatever was playing at the time we were available.  That included Sandra Bullock's The Heat and Grown Ups 2.  Grown Ups 2 made The Heat seem like an absolute masterpiece.  Wow was it bad.  At first we couldn't find the theater, but a very friendly woman gave Adam a hug, copped a feel, and personally escorted us to the theater.  I thought she might come in to canoodle with Adam.

A number of Iowa towns didn't have a theater, or had a theater that was undergoing a major overhaul but had stalled for lack of money.  The new digital technologies seemed to be expensive enough that revamping to support what had become standard was incredibly prohibitive.  It was hard to believe downs of 6-8,000 people didn't have a single screen unless you drove 16 miles down the road.

RAGBRAI XLI 2013 -Des Moines to Knoxville, 49.9 miles and 2,920 feet of climb

Wednesday.  Des Moines to Adelphi to Runnells to Monroe to Knoxville.

The ride had a beautiful start, routing past the Capitol.  The building is enormous and beautiful.  It certainly seems to outsize our St. Paul version.


I like this picture.  I thought about photoshopping the cyclist onto the pillar where the two men on horses are hanging out, but it looks good as is.


I didn't take pictures, but after Capitol hill the ride meandered through the state fair grounds.  The food stands were open for breakfast and although they weren't running when we went through, the skycars/gondalas opened for rides later.  We didn't eat at t he fairgrounds.  To me, it conjured the idea of eating cheese curds and corn dogs for breakfast.

Instead, we ate in Runnells.  Adam found the equivalent of a McMuffin down the street, and I stopped at the church for a Christmas breakfast of biscuits and gravy.  The whole of Runnells was done up with a Christmas theme and Santa Claus - a living one, not an animatronic sort - sang me a carol as we rolled into town.


When you run out of Christmas ornaments, improvise.  In this case, a festively decorated banana tree.


Here's the historical society.  I couldn't quite figure out why the LDS no longer had their church.  It seemed like it probably had something to do with the Mormon Trail (alt link to a free online book at the National Park Service), but it wasn't obvious.  Google street view for the Mormon Church in Runnells shows the historical society, so it's not like it just moved down the street.


I liked the local color on their timeline which included phrases like "torned down".  Very rural Iowa and Minnesota.


Cyclists and the back side of the historical society.  An old townsguy told Adam we could get water if we just walked around to the door on the back.  We walked in and I tried the second door and it wouldn't open.  So I went up here near the tractor to the water fountain and Adam went to tell the old guy.  He led Adam to the back door at a glacial pace, telling him there was no way the door was locked, and then simply opened it with a some sort of magical old guy wrist action.


Crowds!


Rhubarb Strawberry ala mode.  A very good piece of pie even with the flatter crust instead of the flakey crust.


On Wednesday they routed us over the river.  We were required to stay on the right to avoid the separation gaps and told, "Do not stop!"  There were three cops there to ensure we kept moving.  Halfway across there were two cyclists pressed up against the side replacing a flat tire, so there were exceptions to the rule.


Live motion river action.


In Knoxville we ate at the church.  I'm not sure whether to title this picture, "Go home bench.  You're not a gate.  You're drunk."  or "Bench, stop hanging out in Gate's friend zone.  She's making you carry her saying while she hooks up with Jesus."  In the end, it's a mean trick by Jesus and/or the bench.  There's literally no way to be saved in this context.


Although I don't drink and bike, or even drink at the end of a bike day or before a bike day, drinking is a big part of RAGBRAI for some people.  You can get an idea of how much alcohol is expected to be consumed by counting the trash cans in the beer garden.  Unlike previous years, this year there were a few microbreweries selling beer on the side of the ride and even a few stands for Templeton Rye.


The advantage of having a bus.  Portatoilets and shade.


Team Mayhem.  It seemed to have a number of Minnesotans on the team.


This guy rode his Fat Tire facsimile all the way across Iowa.  Looked like a lot of work and it made a lot of creaky/squeaky noise.


Keep Calm and Chive On!  These were not the drunk guys.  Or at least not the same drunk guys we encountered yelling for Heather in Des Moines.


The Cutters bus.  That's a good name for a team, ala Breaking Away.


By the way, this was our entry into Knoxville.  Definitely different than our entrance anywhere else.


A day four crowd.


Back to Knoxville.  If you can't see it accurately, go to the very large version of this photo and check out that charging station for the team next to the Budget truck.  I'm surprised it doesn't just explode or melt.


Bikes, bikes, bikes in our sleeping field.


This guy, who Adam called Pinky, set up next to him with the exact same tent.  Adam asked him if he had custom poles and he said yes, he had indeed replaced them, because the poles that came with the tent were total crap and constantly broke.  You can see the dent from Adam's broken pole in the picture.  That's a good picture of our luggage semi behind Adam.  From where we were camped we could enjoy the nearby karaoke which included an awful rendition of Sweet Caroline, which we heard at least five times during the ride.  It must be the Ring of Fire of Iowa.


Later in the day I walked across the road and discovered that there was a historic town, cheap pancakes in the morning, free water, and a beautifully laid out camping area.  The grass is greener on the other side of the road.  We never wandered too far from the luggage trailer, but apparently sometimes it's worth a short excursion before setting up tents.


And more random cyclists.  Find yourself!