The 2020 ‘Virtual Ragbrai’ committee has decided to award me with one of those directional signs that is signed by one of the original founders of the ride across Iowa, Mr. John Karras. The award was given for the rider with the “Most Comic Relief” which was what I was going for. I think the picture of the dead raccoon really made it. In the picture is also another signature of a famous Ragbrai name: Mr. Pork Chop, or Mr. Paul Bernhard. He signed the inside of my banjo about four years ago.
Remember camping? It should have been in Le Mars, Iowa but today was at a local school’s athletic field . As a possible product placement I have included a tub of Blue Bunny “Rocking Rocky Road” ice cream made in Le Mars.
As part of the scene some sort of entertainment is usually found on the route. Here this banjo player does his best to play for the “crowds”.
Lookie here! I was not sure I would find stuff on a virtual route, but I came across this little “House of Pies” on my journey.
Don’t do this much. But for a photo op we have a custom made Black Sheep bike being dipped in an irrigation ditch instead of the Missouri River.
In Colorado, Fort Collins to be exact, we have Colorado State University.
Out on the “Gravel Loop” toward the Soapstone prairie where it’s right on the Wyoming boarder and windy as hell.
OK, not this guy. But he was on the roadside, I had some beads available. Also I had my virtual Ragbrai shirt and there was a crushed beer can nearby. If you know Ragbrai, you know what this means.
Who really knows what’s next. As of this writing there were reported over 150,000 Americans dead from the virus. We can only hope that our nation and the world gets it together so we can get back on the road again soon.
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!
Sue’s great, great, great grandfather lived near Salem, he was a Quaker and had a role in setting up this station on the “Underground Railroad” .
We made a special trip out to Salem BEFORE the hoards of bicycles came through the next day. We warned them! There would be over 20,000 riders coming through your town eating and drinking everything in sight!
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.
We were at an Air B&B near Des Moines for two days so this allowed me to take a bike trip into town…
Oh, yes, we must visit the shrine of the Ragbrai Banjo. Because it’s there!
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.
