We were coming down from the high point on Trail Ridge Road and came upon this elk on the road. We wanted to get to Bear Lake, but the parking lot was full so we just went to our usual stand-by- Sprauge lake.
So, we took a little vacation down to Florida. Of course, Mr. Duncan Madog acted up because he didn’t get to come so he threw up all over the rug in the front room and worried our dog sitters when he refused to eat. It was a bad start but soon he got better (he really was not sick, right?) and we did the normal tourist thing, St. Augustine, Disney World, Cape Canaveral and some goofy dinner show called “Capone’s”.
So, if you are reading this blog, the posting order is correct, but you see everything in reverse order, so you see the last day first, and the first day last. Get it? Anyhow, it seemed that there were plenty of raccoons out on the streets. Good for “Team Roadkill” , a bike team who likes to prop up roadkill with beer cans, beads, lip stick for the enjoyment of the other riders on the route. This looks like a young raccoon who obviously had a fake ID if you can notice it has an “Over 21” wrist band and a Ragbrai rider bracelet!
I always fear the last town because I operate the sag wagon for our team on the last day and I never know what the traffic will be like leaving town. Turns out, Keokuk had a good exit road out of town. I had plenty of time to entertain the riders coming in to town.
Charlotte Moorman. That’s who I thought of when I put my banjo next to the deep sea diver. Who’s Moorman? Someone wrote a book about her. See here to learn more. I actually knew Charlotte in the early ’70’s and played on stage with her at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. Those were weird times indeed!
In the town of Houghton, Iowa (fun fact: The locals pronounce the town as “HUFF-ton”) they had an attraction called a “Redneck Pool”. It seemed appropriate to join in as the only banjar player to play in something called a redneck pool, so I did. Near by a local group was serving ice cream with a home-made chocolate sauce. It was damn good!
We did the pass-through in Salem and I played banjo on the porch of the museum. One of the docents there named Mike said I should stop by the next town of Houghton and play some banjo for Betty Jo. It took a while, as I was in the redneck pool and broke a string on the banjo, but I got it back together and headed off to the John Deer dealer where Betty Jo worked. The dealership was off the route about three blocks and as I approached, I can see this woman standing outside wait to hear a banjo! Mike was not sure it was going to happen but then there I was. Some people have to work in these towns and miss out. Not Betty Jo!
A wonderful stop on the route was called the Geode State Park. It was a beautiful park and worth visiting again. At the park I met the woman (A music teacher named Jenny Peters ) who brought here ukulele with her on her bike. Here we are jammin’ some tunes.
Now this is redneck swimmin’ ! This mud beach was still a ways from the final town, yet there were still people out in the river and maybe 300 more in Geode park. just chillin’. I left the park and wondered how late the rest of the pack was going to hang?
I’m sure that there were still 200 people back at Geode Park when I arrived in Middleton. In fact, I was late getting into this town, so the rest of route had NO SERVICES from the Ragbrai crews or the Iowa State Patrol ! No sense hanging around here, I headed out to Burlington with the rest of the pack (what was left of them) to have dinner with my crew at 8:10 PM!
When I travel with the banjo attached to my hydrator pack and someone sees it and says “Hey Mister, can you play us a tune”, I always stop and play something. It seems to make their day. It is also the reason why I’m so late coming in at the end of the day. Fun Fact: I didn’t drink any beer while on ragbrai. Sure, if it was 103 degrees out, I might, but we had unusually cool (for Iowa) weather. The people in Lacona were very nice, and offered me some beer, but I said “No Thanks, I only drink vodka”. The next thing I know, this guy goes back to a freezer and brings out a fifth of nicely chilled locally made vodka! Swell Vodka was the brand! Swell Vodka: “Drink to your wealth, Toast to your health. Drink SWELL straight from the well.”
So I had to stick around Lacona for a while so I could pass around some Swell vodka with some new found friends. A passerby thought the bottle label said “SWILL” : “Drink SWILL straight from hell”.
Stopped at the Pork Chop man’s location after Lacona, but I can’t recall what happened next. I vaguely remember dragging my ass into the last town.
Played some banjo near a veterinary clinic, met some nice people and learned that the next town on the route had a Bonnie and Clyde history.
It seemed appropriate to visit the local museum and play some Foggy Mountain Breakdown for the locals. Some of the Bonnie and Clyde gang were captured in Dexter, Iowa.
So, I met Sherry from Oxnard in Walnut the day before, and now John Condon of the Buck Hollow Band today! So far, so good!
OK, now we will start the ride, well rested and dry because we spent the night at a hotel in Walnut, Iowa. Who could blame us?
Is this a carousel or a merry-go-round? Actually, there’s really no difference between the names although a merry–go–round is simply that spinning playground fixture for kids.
The new bike trail is finally completed!
The tunnel under the train tracks
This is a nice curvy path that now links the Fossil Creek / Mason bike trails to the new Long View trail. It’s just another way to get from FoCo to Loveland, although I prefer the Power Trail to the Front Range trail because it rides along parts of Boyd Lake.
Solar panel for something?
Duncan it someplace on this ride. Waiting for warmer weather to get out and prepare for the great feast of the Ragbrai coming the last week of July, 2019.
Hey, this is year 10 for us!
These girls were playing the Surdos
And here is a sample of the bike riders
This year’s pirate ship is bigger!
And there were some interesting out of this world costumes
Of course BLOCO EM FOCO was there!