Thursday, August 26, 2004
(10:20 AM) | Anonymous:
My Bicycle Trip Across Iowa
You’re probably wondering where I’ve been. Well, I can give account for one week of my absence from The Weblog.Let me tell you about my bicycle trip across Iowa. In 7 days I spent 40 hours on my bike and rode 509 miles as part of an annual bicycle tour called RAGBRAI (The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa). Here’s a look at my diary….
DAY 1: Missouri River (Onawa) to Lake View
I'm grumpy and antisocial due to lack of sleep, and I'm annoyed by everything. I bike well and it seems not too hard, despite the fact that it's officially a difficult day, with long, steep hills after the first 20 miles. I am constantly filled with resentment of humanity’s inane projects, large and small. I begrudgingly meet a couple of interesting people in line at the only stand that offers vegetarian food. There are two bicycle accidents and everyone gets held in Mapleton, listening to a teenage cover band and "Nuns on the Run" for over an hour.
In the afternoon my mood is slightly improved by a rotund priest playing accordion at a roadside refreshment stand.
I get to Lake View in good time, set up my tent, locate a shower, stand around naked in front of six other women, find a meat-free spaghetti dinner, eat ravenously, and get to bed by 10:00 but can't sleep because of the cold and the cover band that’s playing “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
DAY 2: Lake View to Fort Dodge
Officially an easy day, this day is very hard for me, probably because I haven't slept. I leave Lake View at 8:00 a.m., stomach sloshing with soymilk, which I’m surprised to find at a local grocery store. I have to buy a half-gallon, though, and I can't carry it with me, so after offering it to the campers around me (who react as though I've offered them kitten's blood), I drink as much as I can and leave the carton, hoping a homeless vegan will discover it in delight.
All day I really, really, really want to quit. I’m tired. My legs weigh 100 pounds each.
The day ends well, though, with a delicious veggie burger made by Seventh-Day Adventists. I go back for a second and this time get the combo: veggie burger, ear of sweet corn, strawberry shortcake, and Gatorade (which I save for the next day). Some funny guy who has been running around enthusiastically trying all the desserts approaches the same seat I’m heading for. It’s a light pole anchored in a 6-inch wide border of cement. We laugh and both sit. I sit in the front, facing the stage where 10 conservatively dressed white people called “The Du Wopps” are singing “popular hits” to backup tracks. Cheng from Austin sits on the opposite side but also watches the show. He lets me try his rhubarb crisp, and after my strawberry shortcake, I buy a piece of that, too.
DAY 3: Fort Dodge to Iowa Falls
I rise well after sunrise, having been allowed better sleep because of an extra shirt Cheng gave me. I find a door that’s been left ajar at the high school, so I sneak into the boys’ locker room and shower by myself, locking the door behind me. I get a late start—10:20—but the riding is pretty good because I’ve slept. I meet a few people while biking, and in order to keep up with their lightweight road bikes I ride faster than I should. Conversing while biking is a welcome distraction from the pain, though, and it’s fun to meet a couple people who are also carrying all their stuff.
When I’m riding by myself, my mind is occupied, more often than with meaningful meditations, with mantras like “lip balm, bathroom, Gatorade, energy bar… lip balm, bathroom, Gatorade, energy bar…” or “ibuprofen, sunblock on ears, air in tires… ibuprofen, sunblock on ears, air in tires…” to remind myself what I need to do the next time I stop.
I stop and take a nap at Tom’s Turkey, a roadside food stand that travels with RAGBRAI. This stand has port-a-potties, which is a bonus, but I’m sick of port-a-potties because my legs are already tired and then I have to squat over the seat (I won’t actually sit down in a port-a-potty), and those chambers are so cramped it’s hard to stay balanced without leaning my head against the door, and I don’t want to do that because all surfaces in a port-a-potty are nasty by virtue of being in a port-a-potty.
When I get to Iowa Falls, I set up my tent under the goalpost on a high school football field. Group showers again, and I discover that I’ve lost my towel, which was hanging from my bags to dry while I rode.
DAY 4: Iowa Falls to Marshalltown
Today I meet Bésame Mucho, a team of four from San Antonio. Their name hints at greater-than-average imagination among RAGBRAI teams: The first word in their name is not “Team,” as in, for example, “Team Skunk,” “Team Dawg,” “Team Butt Ice,” “Team Stiff,” “Team Gold Bond,” “Team Spin,” “Team Ride to the Right.” They give me a Bésame Mucho (BM [not to be confused with B.M., or bowel movement]) beer cozy and invite me to their RV campsite for fajitas and margaritas, but I won’t end up going because one of them latches on to me and tries to help me do everything, which makes me feel… er… icky.
I feel like celebrating the fact that I’m approaching the halfway mark, so around 250 miles I stop and listen, prostrate, to a banjo player in Eldora.
The biking is hard. It’s getting hillier and I’ve battled strong headwinds all day. I’m still sleep-deprived and I wish this BM person would just let me suffer the route in peace. The land is beautiful, though, and he appreciates it as deeply as I do.
After eating the best cantaloupe imaginable at a roadside stand and then locating the only bathroom in the following town (there aren’t any port-a-potties there)—in a hardware store, a horrible, horrible bathroom where someone has pooped on top of the toilet—I finally ditch the BM guy.
I’m exhausted when I make it to Marshalltown. I find that I’ve lost a flip-flop, so I take a cold group shower hopping around on one foot at a foul swimming pool shower. For dinner I settle for a piece of cheese pizza and some trail mix I bought earlier from some boy scouts. Then I watch part of a pirate show for kids. It’s supposed to rain tonight, so I put the rain covers on my panniers and fall asleep to the sound of a cover band playing “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
DAY 5: Marshalltown to Hiawatha
It’s drizzling when I get up, so I have to pack my tent wet. I’ve had some decent sleep, though, because the night, though rainy, was almost warm. I ride strong through the morning rain and stop in Elderon. I’ve decided I prefer cornfields to port-a-potties, but my favorite is still non-shitty restrooms with running water, especially since my period started yesterday. The extra mile or so off the main route is worth the trouble for what’s being advertised: “FREE RESTROOM WITH FLUSH TOILET.”
I find the building with the restroom. It’s some sort of community building that serves several functions, including being the town library, which consists of a meager collection of paperbacks and children’s books sitting on a table. An elderly local tells me that Elderon’s 215 residents will give me a plot of land if I will build a house on it.
After washing my hands, face, and contacts; changing my tampon; brushing my teeth; and reapplying sunblock, I can face the rest of the day, and I press on. I meet more people who want to take care of me, and they’re nice but really a hassle, so I shake them off and reach Hiawatha in time to see half a dozen hot-air balloons aloft before sunset. The sight has a mythical quality for me because it reminds me of a childhood experience, something in the early 1980s involving rainbow-striped hot-air balloons.
It’s a good night. By now I’ve forgotten what it’s like to shower without several strangers (although now I’ve lost both flip-flops so I have to shower with bare feet), and the water at the car wash is warm. For an extra 50¢ I even get a blue paper towel out of a machine. Hiawatha must be a thriving metropolis because among three of the food stands there I find non-porkified beans, which I’ve been craving all week, plain rice, and a spicy fresh ginger/fruit juice drink. I also eat a homemade ice cream sundae-sandwich. By a great coincidence I meet Erik, a hand cycler from Boston, for the second time this week. We share my first RAGBRAI beer at the beer tent while a cover band plays “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
DAY 6: Hiawatha to Maquoketa
I get up at 5:00 a.m. because someone in the next tent is shuffling a deck of cards over and over. Trying to sleep is useless. Because I’ve gotten up so early, I can have the official RAGBRAI truck carry my panniers for the day. In place of my panniers, today I carry a portable CD player and speakers. The CD player goes in the pocket of my rain jacket and I rig up the speakers to the handlebars with bungee cords. This makes me very happy, even though my music selection is limited to what is available at the store at which I will never shop except when I’m on RAGBRAI and dying to listen to something—anything—non-ipecacious.
It rains all morning but I don’t care because I have music. The lyrics “I’m a wheel” take on profound new meaning today.
There are a few miles of dirt road, which the rain has turned to a strange fine, clay-colored, slippery muck. The people around me riding delicate little road/racing bikes are having a lot of trouble. ha-HA, suckas! Shoulda brought a touring bike! I emerge from the dirt roads free of all tag-alongs, glorified with a fresh coat of mud. The rain has stopped, so at the next town I clean and grease my chain.
Today I relax my strict no-sweets-while-riding policy (I’m afraid of a sugar crash slowing me way down and causing me to end up biking alone after dark on the highways, thirty miles from town) and I finally buy one of those Amish-made pies someone keeps advertising. Actually, I buy one and Tim from the Ozarks buys another one, and we share: strawberry-rhubarb and boysenberry. They are entirely worth the risk of a sugar crash.
When I get to town I am so tired that I don’t bother to set up my tent before 1:00 a.m. Same old story in the high school shower: buncha naked women, me with bare feet and no towel. There’s the new element, though, of being tortured by the smell of warm cinnamon rolls* that I cannot get (I later learn that they are being baked and held for tomorrow’s breakfast). I get a ride downtown in the bed of a pickup truck and am happy to discover an “ethnic” food stand. I eat a full plate of vegetable curry and rice, a big falafel sandwich, a piece of homemade peach pie, and a funnel cake while listening to a cover band play “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
* I once read somewhere that, according to scientific research, the aroma of warm cinnamon rolls is the smell most likely to trigger an erection.
DAY 7: Maquoketa to Mississippi River (Clinton)
Last day, and the shortest one. I overhear someone saying that most people dropped out with the rain on day 5. I practically have the road to myself, so I’m free all day to bask in the loveliness of the Iowa countryside and to absorb myself in imponderables.
I see signs announcing the approach of homemade whoopee pies—“First Prize Winner”—and although I’m not sure what a whoopee pie is, I know I want one. When I finally get to the whoopee pie stand, I learn that a whoopee pie is a soft sandwich made of chocolate cakey rounds with a fluffy, creamy filling. The two daughters and their mother tell me that they were up until 2:00 a.m. last night making these award-winning whoopee pies. They are GOOD.
It’s HOT, and there are not many roadside sellers of Gatorade, water, and other provisions today. Desperate for Gatorade, I stop at a town just in time to see a mess of local musicians playing marching tunes. They note my interest—I’m their only audience member—and order themselves to play a “good one,” so they end with “God Bless America.”
It’s getting close to the end and even though I have harshly mistreated my body all week and I’m developing a terrible pain in my left Achilles’ tendon, I don’t want it to be over. I don’t want to go back to living indoors and hiding my body and being clean. I feel magnanimous and grateful to everyone associated with RAGBRAI.
I reach the Mississippi River and when I descend the loading dock to dip my front tire in the river it’s hard to recognize what I’ve accomplished. I just want to drink, eat, ice my ankle, get a back massage, and sleep for a long time in a big, comfortable bed. But I can tell this trip has been an important part of a gradual change in me: a shift toward being less disconnected from my “gut.”
And I have the greatest tan line in the world.
* * *
And now, for my next long absence, I leave tomorrow to tour the Midwest and the East Coast with Tingle Showcase + Fash Attack.
