I arrived in Onawa, IA on Thursday morning, stopped for breaky at the Diner and quickly met up with Jerry, a local, who shared with me the history of Onawa, and wanted to hear my stories of traveling the last month. To top it off he bought me breakfast, and did again on Friday, he is a regular. Hunted down the campground, in the middle of setting up my tent and another rider comes rolling in. Jim, from Seattle - go figure. He had ridden his bike from Seattle, oh no he sheepishly admits, from Tacoma, over Chinook Pass, Idaho, Montana, wandered around a bit with some fellow bicyclists he met, ended up hitching across one of the Dakotas to make up time and showed up in Onawa (I have never heard anyone recommend to actually ride across the Dakotas). Jim and I finished setting up camp, cleaned up and went out on the town. Having showed, laundered, shaved and a quick hair trim we were looking spiffy I am sure. We soon met EJ the owner of the Fort Onawa Pub - better known for the weekend as "Party HQ" When we saw two fellow bikers across the road we yelled 'em in. Met up with Gerry and Keith, they had ridden the course backwards and had just gotten in. Now Gerry had the best tattoo ever! A chain ring mark on his right calf, hmmm thought to ponder.
The next morning, woke up to a lovely day, headed out to Lewis and Clark State Park to get the next stage of their journey had a lovely visit with Buffalo Bob - They are really Bison - NOT Buffalo when will people figure that one out? Hooked up with a crowd at the campground to go find the pre-party. Riding through town a guy jumps out of the doorway of THE bar and shouts, "I know you." So Sharon and her comrades head over. It was Mark. I had met him last year when we all rode out and met up on Friday night. I was to hook up again with Mark, and others that I can't remember names - and finally meet up with Dave & Andy my first two Ragbrai mentors from last year. Had a great evening sharing stories of the year, and the ride out.
Now really, I am not going to go through day by day the happenings of Ragbrai. Suffice it to say it is summer camp for adults - although there are many families along. You get out of it what you want. You can go for a great workout, get into town each day by 2:00pm take a nap, have some food, go to bed early and start all over again in the morning. Or, you can sleep in a bit every morning (unless it is hot then I highly recommend an early start), stop for Bloody Mary's with breakfast, maybe a second - if not a second with breakfast then maybe a second at the second bar. When you are ready to eat I highly recommend an alcoholic beverage of your choice, this year it became JD & Coke's (avoiding beer burps was lovely), continue the ride stopping at each town to contribute to the fund raising efforts of the locals, stop at the last town out to appreciate the effort put into establishing the beer tent, DJ's, and the efforts of the Iowa State Troopers to kick everyone out of town and onto the road. Hey, if we didn't hang out there then they wouldn't have anything to do. Get to the overnight town just as all the hot water is back on-line. Have a lovely shower, find some food - of course accompanied by your favorite alcohol beverage. Note: it is helpful to have your own alcohol with you at all times. If the Iowa State Troopers decide to close down the last-town-out around 5:00pm then it is essential to be able to manifest your own party and perhaps "buy" a round for everyone else who is lucky enough to know you. A second "water" bottle on the bike will come in handy for this purpose.
A few notes:
On Saturday the rest of the world showed up. 10,000+ people descend on Onawa - pop city (tents) takes over and will continue to jump from town to town throughout the week. I am supposed to hook up with the Team Elmo dudes but unfortunately miss the phone call from Ned telling me where they are. Fortunately I hook up with Dawn, Dave, and Andy with the Quad Cities Bike Club (QCBC) and throw my stuff on their truck for the remainder of the week. Unfortunately I hadn't paid for this service. Fortunately Matt and the boys are not above bribery - better known as tipping. One group that saggs with QCBC is the Donner Party. Now a moment of historical importance. The founders of the Ragbrai Donner Party are originally from Iowa, they moved to Truckee, CA. Apparently one evening they were sitting by the lake in Truckee, Donner Lake that would be, and discussed names for a team (drinking teams - not competitive teams - well then again, it may get competitive with the drinking) for Ragbrai. They quickly realized they had the perfect name, not for a team but for a party - thus the Donner Party was born, or re-born. The tag line here ----- the back of the team jersey says, "We eat the slow ones." Now these jerseys are by far the best jerseys on Ragbrai. Highly sought after and very noticeable. Dave and Andy took me over to introduce me to the Donner's. The conversation quickly turned to where they boys rode in from, they shared their stories and then suddenly turned towards me and said, "But hell, Sharon rode in from Atlanta." Steve, the head Donner responded with, "Pull up a chair." And the interview commenced to determine if I would be Donner worthy. By 11:00pm I had failed the interview with the following question, "Is Ragbrai a way of life or a passing fancy." I failed on the grounds that there were many interesting things to do in the summer and I didn't know if I could commit to Ragbrai every year for all eternity. However, the next day upon learning that I needed tattoos (check the photos on the internet) I was quickly afforded a jersey - Dave was given one too, Andy had gotten his jersey last year.
Now, the fun really begins. Riding, and or walking around with a Donner Jersey on is a whole new Ragbrai experience - immediate celebrity status. Oh the ego. One morning the jerseys were still wet from washing so Dave and I started the day with regular shirts. After breakfast it has warmed up enough that putting on a wet shirt was refreshing. The moment the Donner jerseys went on over our heads we started hearing, "Hey Donner." And we were once again "the party." I must pass on that the members of the Donner Party are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Being part of a group was especially nice when you rode into town and people were looking for you to call you over to the bar, or when gravel was up ahead and someone knew an alternate path, or when the-last-town-out didn't have a bar and everyone who knew better re-routed to a different town who was more that happy to take our $$.
The terrain was fairly easy going this year with loping hills, nothing like southern Iowa and the continuous up and down. The weather was great - hovered in the 70's/80's on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Alas, the magic was a bit interrupted on Wednesday. After a beautiful start to the morning and finding a scrumptious breakfast with great Bloody Mary's the wind kicked up. Now the wind. It was a bit more than a kick. It was more like a constant rabbit punch with an occasional quick right thrown in (gusts). Dave and I took turns breaking wind with our twosome pace line, but the fun was slowing draining out of the day. Running a pace line you can't really talk, especially when the wind is blowing the words out of your mouth. At some point, sore butts, tired legs, and crappy attitudes took over. We finally stopped on the side of the road to figure out what we wanted to do with the rest of the day. Make a list of 10 fun things to do today, where does riding into the wind fall? We figured about #8. We also figured that #3 setting up our tents to dry out, #4 setting up our friend's tents to dry out, #5 JD & coke, #6 a nap. We really didn't need to spend much time trying to fill in the missing numbers, we figured it wouldn't be that hard to come up with #1 and #2. So the decision was made to hitch a ride to town. Within 10 minutes we came across a lovely F150 on its way to Mapletown with a little $$ thrown in the idea of giving us a ride was enthusiastically received by the driver, so we skipped about 30 miles. We had a lovely drive to town, found the campground, set up tents and watched everyone come in bloody. There had been gravel on the road in two places and many went down. Now, wearing the Donner Jersey - the smell of blood..... comments: "I'm okay really," "I got up right away I can still keep up," "No really you go I wouldn't want to get in your way."
In conclusion:
So, once again I will say, "Ragbrai is what you want it to be." Proving that I could ride every mile was not important to me - I know I can, but what are other options for the day. Meeting new people and having new experiences, that's what it was about - but really - at the end of the day as long as you have a good story to tell - that's what is truly important. And, there are many, many more stories to tell but to truly understand - I think you need to join in the fun, Ragbrai is only 331 days away.
Photos on line from Ragbrai 2004
Donner Party Home Page
Ragbrai Home Page
Post Ragbrai: Drove to Minneapolis to meet up with friends and went camping in Voyageurs NP, hopped a plane to Pittsburg and white water rafting with friends, rode bike to Philadelphia, hopped a plane to Houston to meet up with friends once again. As of August 26th - still thinking....