In order to meet my family in Guttenburg and drive to Houston, I started riding solo before 6 AM.
Ragbrai has some unique sights, sounds, and warnings. "On Your Left!" and "Car Up" are universal, but "rumbles" are the sound strips cut in the pavement to slow cars down before stop signs. They are not fun to hit and do cause some accidents for the unwary. On what other ride can one find "Team Roadkill?" Here is an example of their work.
They promised us hills today and they delivered! The first memorable hill was just outside of Volga. It wasn't the last. I for one was ready for this challenge and really enjoyed the satisfaction and the view once at the top. Here's the Mississippi Valley enshrouded in fog. Once we had this change in countryside, the towns and their layouts even changed. One would expect to find Tom and Huck painting fences after wandering a couple of hundred miles too far North. Here's a shot of Elkader. Here's another.
In our final pass through town was a Wurlitzer band organ. This one was dated 1927 and was quite an instrument. It was on wheels. I wonder if that was so that it's operator could get away from the noise?
It was looking darker and darker as we traveled and we feared that our last few miles would be wet ones. They were, but we didn't mind after all the cool dry ones! A few hills later we cruised down the largest downhill of the ride. Some tandems went over 50 MPH. I stayed around 30 as the road was wet and I was nursing the brakes. Then it tuned into Riverfront Drive in Guttenburg. Being a city slicker, the barges fascinated me! A Ragbrai tradition is to dip the tires in the Mississippi River. Here I Go! In Guttenburg, is lock and dam 10. I always wondered how a boat goes uphill. Here the 6 barges were too long for the lock so the tug pulled next to it. Next, it filled up with water at the upper level and opened the front gates. The barges left the lock, and continued upstream. Finally, the Hawgs found the bus, one by one and sadly said goodbye until next year.
You know, I don't mean to get too reflective, but this was my best Ragbrai ever. I think about the state of Iowa and all of those wonderful people who go so out of their way to help us feel at home. As we pedaled those last few miles this morning and the sky grew dark and the first droplets of rain clunked on our helmets I heard a voice say,
My friends, have a great year! I'll see you next summer-
Dave Plummer
