RAGBRAI Ride Across Iowa

Caption: This blogger riding on a bicycle taxi in New York City (expensive!). It's much cheaper to ride across Iowa under your own power if you can afford the sleeping accommodations at night. We used to camp on RAGBRAI.

The first two nights of RAGBRAI we got ripped off big time on our motel accommodations. We could have slept at a nice motel in New York City for $10 shy of the same amount. I now understand the millenials' preference for airBNBs. Motels in Iowa have become the Oriental bizarres that car dealers are known to be. I keep the agreed-upon prices with me before I leave so I don't get ripped off even worse once I arrive. Sometimes I do anyway if it's a real fleabag in western Iowa that flatly ups the price regardless and doesn't care if we never return.

Early in our travels, we saw Team Fly's bus, which had a moving propeller on the front. The side and back said, "Riding in the upright and locked position since 1990."

I didn't know if they were locked and loaded (with loaded weapons), very stiff, or partially paralyzed... Just now, Jim explained to me that they were pilots, locked and loaded for take-off (seats upright).

Jim and I arranged rendez-vous with old friends, besides running into two of our team members, the MelonHeads, and Jim's new friends from Atlantic.

The first night in LeMars, Iowa, we dined at Four Brothers Restaurant with Brad and Mary Milder. Mary and I, both social workers, were both coworkers at the Hawkeye Area Communication Action Program (HACAP). Mary went from there to the STAR Program at Shelter House, and from there to northwest Iowa. We've known each other for years. We used to walk together along the Iowa River during our lunch hours.

Jim and I also arranged to meet with and dine with Jim's old friend Tom Scanlin, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot. Jim and Tom have known each other since they were both 17 years old as freshmen at the University of Iowa. They talked about their adventures. At a Best Western bar, we made the acquaintance of another Air Force officer, Col. Ron Phipps, who said he started the guardian angel program for Air Force participants on RAGBRAI.

Instead of just riding hard and fast, Col. Phipps encouraged the now 131 Air Force RAGBRAI riders to help people on the ride. Jim said his chain fell off of his bike during RAGBRAI 2017. He was putting it back on when two Air Force riders swooped in and offered to help. Jim had the matter in hand, but he sure thought it was nice of them to offer their assistance. They can be seen all over RAGBRAI helping riders out and offering medical aid when needed. (Some are medical officers.)

An RV full of pediatric physicians from the University of Iowa Children's Hospital were the first to arrive on the scene of a bad motorcycle accident during RAGBRAI. The victim would have been better off if he'd been wearing a helmet, the physicians said, but he wasn't. They patched him up the best they could until an ambulance arrived. He had at least six broken ribs and other serious injuries. Hope he's recovering!

We didn't hear of any fatalities during RAGBRAI, but we heard a lot of sirens. The Des Moines Register doesn't cover injuries like they used to.

In the Cresco Library, where I waited for Jim to arrive from his leg of RAGBRAI, I waited for someone to finish with the day's edition of the Register. I'd already driven to Postville to meet with Jim, our fellow MelonHeads, and Jim's new friends from Atlantic, the fire chief (Mark) and two teachers, Jody and Maisie. Unfortunately, I found myself driving against RAGBRAI on the way to Postville, which surprised me. It was the only road I knew of to get to Postville, and Jim was most anxious for me to meet him and his friends there.

Unfortunately, once I got to Postville, neither he nor Dave Bender answered their phones. Probably it was too loud and raucous for them to hear their phones ring, even if Jim knew how to answer his new smartphone. So I drove back amongst RAGBRAI. Although I knew what I was doing, had done it before, and hurt no one, a couple of RAGBRAI-ers passed me and yelled something. If I was a hazardous driver, would they have passed me and yelled something? I think not. Most riders either drafted me or left me alone.

Still, I was loath to take the same trip again to Postville, but Jim insisted. Finally, after telling me for the hundredth time that everyone wanted to meet me, he played the ultimate card:

"I can't mack [sic] it back. You'll have to come and get me."

Oh boy. I'd finally gotten my turn with the day's Register and did not want to drive back against RAGBRAI. However, I knew when my hand had been forced by my spelling-impaired, beer-happy husband. I reluctantly relinquished the Register, the nice men I'd met in the library, and went off to enrage RAGBRAI riders by driving against them again.

The minute I got to Postville, of course, to meet my husband and all of his Ankeny friends, and after I'd embraced the MelonHeads, a state trooper showed up and told us we all had to leave immediately.

At this juncture, knowing me as he does, tall and engaging engineer Dave Bender (known as Dave or "Bendar" to fellow MelonHeads), put his arm around me as I faced the state trooper. (Why was I talking to the state trooper? What was there to talk about?)

Bendar knows when he's beat and when to be polite and mindful. I don't always know, and I was mighty irritated with my husband and anyone else who happened to be around. I was glad he was with me as I faced the state trooper. We left.

Jim's happy, annoying day on Thursday was paid for with two happy days for me. I got to visit Decorah's Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, where I fell in love with the Norwegian costumes, the tiny sailboat, the Trade Wind, that was the smallest boat ever to cross the Atlantic, and the Norwegian-American secret Norse ski patrol, the 99th Battalion. The 99th Battalion trained in 1943 in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, at 10,000-14,000 feet to become a Norse ski patrol that would help liberate Norway from the Nazis. One Norwegian-American soldier met both of his grandmothers in Norway during the mission. There are photographs of both grandmothers with the soldier in the museum.

The 99th Battalion wore white ski patrol snowsuits to blend in with the snow so they wouldn't be easily seen. Their hoods were white with white fur. After liberating Norway from the Nazis, they went to the Ardennes in France and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Fifteen of the 99th Battalion won Silver Stars for courage and gallantry under fire; others won Bronze Stars.

I fell in love with the museum and visited it the next day with Jim in tow. He discovered a bike trail to ride that took him to Calmar. We are anxious to return to beautiful Allamakee County, which is hilly, forested, and has a Bear Creek in it, possibly with a real bear in it besides the wooden painted bear in front of the Sportsman's Club where we stayed. It's so pretty and woodsy it's different from any other county in Iowa. We were practically in Minnesota! We found a new place to visit, and we plan to.