Two years later

I just watched some videos of the current RAGBRAI 09 riders...and was jealous. We were even IN IOWA this weekend, for a family wedding. I saw one RAGBRAI bus go past us on the highway on Saturday, a lovely pink number, and it brought back such great memories.

Another year...all three kids say they are up for this adventure, so training needs to start. And maybe we start by buying them bikes for Christmas!

Home Sweet Home

10:00 pm...safely home with the car unloaded. That is is not sorted, just dumped in the hallway with the bike back on the front porch. Today's adrenaline rush from descending the last BIG hill leading into Bellevue and then on to the river was quite something. I wrote earlier about "scary-fast" and have a new definition. We were flying down. Steve braked the first part of the hill, but our 18-wheel tandem still hit 47+ mph. He is not sure of the exact number since he was watching the road carefully. We were sitting upright, not crouched, to slow ourselve a bit more.

We had met up with one of our new friends about 5 miles out town, so we were able to take our "dip the wheel in the Mississippi River" photo with him. We then headed back to our car at the high school and paid for yet another shower. (Hmmm...a shower and a flush toilet without a line!!)

We are grateful for your interest in checking our progress, your prayers and concern for our safety and for all your support for our charitable causes. It was truly a fun week, one with lots of small town craziness and beautiful scenery, with an occasional bad smell thrown in.

Steve will be updating the previous blogs by supplying the visuals. It truly was one big photo-op and he really got tired of hearing me say that I wanted to stop. I have lots of great stories of people and places and things we did, but for now...heading to the shower and our own bed.

Special thanks to our creative son Andy for his faithful updates, and yes I watched the Field of Dreams video too!

Hugs to all...Mary

Old Man River

Mary & Steve @ Mississippi River

The end has been reached. After a long day of up and down-hill climbing on the approach to the Mississippi River valley, which included down-hill speeds exceeding 40mph, the tandem arrived in Bellevue and got to dip their tires in the Mississippi River. In the excitement of Friday's baseball site-seeing, the scoring of one final Dutch Bingo hit was missed. Mother met a couple from Northfield, MN (which is first of all home to two schools which I toured as a high school prospective) who had sent a daughter to Hope College, a daughter who happened to take Math for Elementary Education with Prof DeYoung a few years ago.

The parents are currently taking their internal-combustion quadcycle back to Michigan and expect to arrive late on Saturday evening. All body parts are apparently intact, though apparently a bit sensitive to the bumps in the road which hit a bit harder while riding at 75mph. For those calculating their donations to the selected charity funds, that comes out to 500X with both the parents and the bike surviving across the entire state, something many children in the back seat of their family truckster may already see as an arduous feat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnm_JED6H7Y

Hey, when did these ballplayers get here?

"We're Here Ray"

My parents yesterday were part of fulfilling Terrance Mann's vision: "People will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll watch the game and remember what it was like. It will be just like when they were kids a long time ago. " For those that are not familiar, the Friday stopping point was in Dyersville, near the site of likely the only major motion picture to take place predominantly in an Iowa corn field.

http://www.fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com/distance.html

I'm guessing that no one was asking "Is this heaven...?" as I suspect the aching in your thighs and butt go away when you reach the afterlife, but your trusty blogger is certainly jealous of this site-seeing chance. For my blogging efforts, I am apparently be rewarded with t-shirt evidence though. The biking went by quickly on Friday, which left the folks plenty of time to catch a shuttle ride to the Field of Dreams farm. The weather cooperated by staying overcast for the whole morning. And speaking of perfect days, we leave you with some deep thoughts from Darth Vader:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qXkcPQUfJM

Chain Incident...

Leaving Cedar Falls today, we lost our chain on the left (two on our tandem). We successfully got off the road and sadly another man had to exit with us, but no one fell!!! Steve got the chain back on fairly easily, happy to have the grease cleaner and baby wipes. Once we remounted, we realized that the pedals were not "in sync" and our downstrokes were not coordinated. It felt a bit like fishtailing in snow, but we adjusted our cadence eventually and we learned to go with it. In our breakfast (pecan and raspberry pie with banana and energy drink) town, Steve got us straightened up.

Good to go.

M

Thursday--Day 5 at Fairbank Library--H B-day to sister Judy

Wet Cheerleaders

"TuTu" Lady

"Too-Too" Lady

Today is a great day. Low winds and a slightly shorter course. Butts are doing well and we are in our third pass-thru town of the day. I know that it is hard to picture, but imagine towns of 89 people trying to host Tulip Time size crowds for an entire day. Every little town looks like Kollen Park on fireworks days, with the cast of characters changing all day long. At any given town, it is a mob scene where walking the bike is a necessity to get through. Amazing volunteers here in IA and we appreciate all the hard work the volunteers do. This town has free water, a cheerleader dunk tank, the usual beer tent, Amish carriage rides and a host of other amusements to help us rest our butts and have some "non-sun" time.

Our dinner tonight will be a "BYO-meat" for the grill with our host group. Pork Belly Ventures is something we can recommend to anyone.

The constant parade of bikes draws crowd along the way. So the folks are treated to an assortment of oddities. The team names are all creative--Team Cuisine, Team Too Old to Walk, Team Old Men Who Get Fat in the Winter, Team RAG-BRIDES, Team Diary Aire...too many to remember. The other standard is helmet ornaments and bike decorations to go along with the costumes. Yesterday we got a picture of Tutu Woman...will post it when we are home. There is a bike with a sail mounted. The folks along the way do some creative things as well. There are fun "people" greeting us from lawn chairs, the RAGBRAI version of scarecrows.

Libraries RULE!! Free internet, AC, and toilets that flush. I'm off to go there. It beats a KYBO any day. Not sure what KYBO stands for, but it could be Klean Your Butt Off!!

Hugs to all from Mary

Standing in the bathroom

Sunrise at the UNI-dome

Bob and Dort Kampman with Mary and Steve

The only available location for the bikers to update your blogger was from the quiet of the restroom apparently. Details may be lost in translation. They are camped out in the University of Northern Iowa (Kurt Warner fans anyone?) dome this evening and are having the nightly concert there, tonight's edition features Blues Traveler along with Lance Armstrong (you may know him from such films as Dodgeball) who will also be speaking to the lowly crew of casual bikers.

The weather has been dry for Wednesday's ride and they arrived at the site quite early in the afternoon. Another Dutch Bingo bullseye was hit today as they ran into Bob and Dort Kampman on Wednesday, who apparently were involved with a trip they took some 30 years ago, in the B.C. era of their marriage. The folks along with the Moreaus, Wickstras, and Bootes took a week long trip with the Kampmans back in the 70's, and their son is apparently a current player for the Green Bay Packers. As a true Dutch Bingo champion, Mother is able to easily reach back into her 20's to remember previous contacts.

Father's sore spot from Sunday is still festering, so hopefully the end of the week will be coming without further incident, at least during the riding portion.