Roadside Mysteries

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!

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.