July 21, 2009
Day Three: Greenfield to Indianola
There was apparently some heavy drinking last night.... Samantha said that when she was getting out of her tent this morning, a guy stuck his head out of his tent door, vomited, then disappeared. The Puking Turtle. Apparently, he didn't drink enough during his RAGBRAI training.
A car alarm went off intermittently all night long. Fortunately, Heather and I used earplugs so it didn't bother us. There were, however, some pretty irate bikers the next morning. Imagine riding almost 80 miles, drinking heavily until the wee hours, then listening to a car alarm when you have a hangover.
There was also some pea-sized hail last night, but we both slept through that as well.
Today was the first day we saw Carolyn from Hawaii. She's about eight, and I believe she pedaled the entire distance because we saw her on several subsequent days as she passed us.
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Macksburg (pop 142) was our second pass-through town for today. It's the home of the National Skillet Throw. Yes, you read that correctly... not just that STATE Skillet Throw, but the NATIONAL skillet throw.
There's a human-shaped object with a basketball for a head sitting in a chair. For a dollar, you get two tries to knock the basketball off with a skillet. Although it doesn't look like it in the pictures, the crowds were going wild.
It rained some more today, and a lot of people took the sag wagon.
East Peru (pop 153), our third pass-through town for the day, is the home of the original Delicious Apple.
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A few miles later we came to the town of St. Charles (pop 619). It's best known as the setting for the book The Bridges of Madison County. I didn't realize it until recently that it's one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century. Obviously, there are a number of bridges around the county. This one, the Imes Bridge, was built in 1870.
We stopped just before the town of St. Mary's (pop 134) when we saw a sign for pie, and a little old lady (whom we correctly assumed was a Church Lady) selling them. I heard the chug-chug-chug of a motor and thought it was a tractor on display, but when I looked closer I saw it was a couple of guys making homemade ice cream. We bought some to go with our Church Lady pie, then I bought a brownie to top it all off. I have to tell you... the hype wasn't inflated: all of it was REALLY good.
Some pictures taken along the way today:
The writing on his back says, "Why Look When You Can Touch?" and there are bills tucked into his speedo.
Just another friendly reminder: Iowa is NOT flat.
The town of Prole only has 33 residents, but they made everyone feel welcome. It was a point of pride for the tiny town, and just about every biker stopped in for some food and fun. Among the many festivities offered was an Elvis impersonator.
All along the route there were a lot of locals watching and waving to all of the bikers. This guy is a farmer, and not someone you'd expect to wearing a phallic balloon on his head.
Little kids in every town stood by the side of the road to give us high fives.
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When several bikers ride together, there are certain signals used to let each other know what's going on. For example, if there's a car coming from the opposite lane the first one to see it yells, "Car up!" If the car is coming up from behind, the call is "Car back!" The roads were blocked off but we did hear it on occasion during the week.
At one point, there was a little girl blowing bubbles, some of which were floating across the road. In good humor, one guy yelled "Bubbles up!" and the call was picked up and carried. At another point later in the week, a cat had parked itself on the side of the road and was considering an attempt to cross. "Cat up!" was the cry by one guy, which was again seconded.
Another common warning was for the "rumble strips" you see (and feel) as you approach a stop sign in a rural area. They're placed to let an unaware driver know that he's going to have to stop soon. As bicyclists go on either side of them, they hold their hand out horizontally over the corrugated section of road, wiggle their fingers, and yell, "Rumble Strips!" Some guys, instead of avoiding them, would ride over them intentionally while trying to hold a note in a high falsetto voice. It makes them sound like opera singers. Bad opera singers, but opera singers.
One guy sounded out a terrible, gut-wrenching sound of "Rumble Strips!" as if he were Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes. From that point, a competition popped up to see who could give the most anguishing cry warning about the rumble strips... "No, please God, NO... RUMBLE STRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSS (insert horrible panicked scream here).
We stopped briefly for some fresh-squeezed lemonade, then continued on to Indianola, our destination for the day. Samantha arrived before we did and had already found a good place to pitch our tents and carried their bags from the truck to the campsite. Showers were available at the high school gym.
Indianola (pop 12,998) is the hometown of Clarence Pickard, a very interesting gentleman.
In 1972, two feature writers from the Des Moines Register, John Karras and Donald Kaul, decided to go on a bicycle ride across Iowa and invited the public to accompany them. About 300 bicyclists began the ride in Sioux City. 114 of them rode the entire route. This was the first RAGBRAI.
One of the people who completed it was an 83-year-old gentleman named Clarence Pickard, who was from Indianola. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, woolen long underwear and a silver pith helmet covered with duct tape. When asked him how many miles he had put in on the green and white woman’s Schwinn Varsity he’d purchased only a few weeks before, he said, “I went around the block a few times.” In fact, he hadn't ridden a bike since he was a boy.
Yet, he rode every mile, including the 80-mile days and the 100-mile day.
Indianola is also the home of the National Hot Air Balloon Classic, and there are a lot of balloon enthusiasts there. At any given time, we would see 7-8 balloons floating across the sky.
Samantha and I had a Guinea Grinder and an A&W Root Beer float for dinner. I'd never heard of a grinder... it's a sandwich consisting of ground hamburger, Italian sausage, green peppers, and pizza sauce served on a hoagie bun. We also went to a bakery and had some still-warm chocolate chip cookies. The baker's apron was... um... somewhat unusual.
Distance 78.58
Average speed 11.4
Maximum speed 33.8
Time 6:51.51
Cumulative 209.79
Climbed 4470 feet
Today's ride: 79 miles (127 km)
Total: 211 miles (340 km)
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