Today is college spirit day. Today’s ride ends in Coralville, right next to Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. The idea is to get everyone to wear his or her school colors. Each school has a bike Jersey, and many riders took advantage of the day to promote their school. Before leaving home I had checked on a UNM Lobo jersey. They are available, but the price is around 80 bucks. We decided we would just wear lobo wear we already possessed. I wore the cotton New Mexico shirt for about 15 minutes this morning while getting ready to ride before I took it off and said, “this shirt is too hot.” I put one of my Under Armor hiking shirts back on. I did choose a red one.
Lobo Bike Shirt
There isn’t a lot you can say that is different about the sixth day on the road. We pedaled. We pedaled uphill, we pedaled on the level places, we coasted downhill, rising to get our hinders off the seat. We looked for food, water, Gatorade, and shade. The ride was the longest of the week, but by now, given enough time, we know we can do the miles.
A few days back I promised to comment on the headphones rule. It makes sense that putting earbuds in and turning the music up would hinder one’s ability to be aware of what is around them. We accepted the rule graciously, though a lot of the time when we ride, we use one earphone. Usually the right ear is the one away from traffic. On the ride though a lot of people have music. Some are pulling trailers with sound systems blasting their music that everyone around them hears. Called spoolers, they attract their own crowd of bikers who follow them just to listen to the music. Then there are individual speaker systems set up on bikes. You can hear them coming, hear them as you pass, and then as they fade in the distance. In my opinion they cause more distraction than if you were to just use an earbud in one ear. I used my iPod on the two big hills, and then for one other stretch, the day I was having trouble staying awake. Jen decided to use hers a little too.
On the route of the ride there are a number of historical places. Every town would like you to visit their museum, or their historical site but for slow riders like us, we have to keep pedaling. Some of the sites we passed this week were Mamie Eisenhower’s childhood home, Herbert Hoover’s Library and Museum, and John Wayne’s childhood home. So guess, which one of these we did visit.
John Wayne’s family lived for a short time in Brooklyn, Iowa. If you guessed this historical site as the one we visited, you were right. We have a picture of the Duke standing between us in front of the home.
Click on any photo to see it full size.
In the meeting town of Marengo, they had a park full of vendors, both food and merchandise, the Gazebo had a DJ playing music on a big sound system. There was a lot of free water and shade and it came at the perfect time for a break. We purchased some lunch and sat on a park bench to eat, rest, and listen to the music. I noticed a non-riding couple sitting on another bench just watching people. They were probably 10-15 years older than we are and I wondered what they were thinking about the music and the weirdness of the people. I got up and went over to visit. “Are you ready for us to get out of town so the politicians can come back?” was my great conversation starter. The man, grinned and said, “Heck, we would rather have bikers here any day than politicians.” Then the woman began to give me a lecture on their political positions on everything from the debt ceiling to abortion. Since their, rather her, opinions differed from mine in almost every respect, I just listened quietly and determined I would use a different conversation starter next time.
One very interesting rider passed today. He was in his mid to late 50’s, long gray hair pulled into a pony tail. He was buck naked, except for a leather loincloth. I said to Jennifer, “Don’t look Ethel,” but it was too late, she already had a biking moment. A few hours later we came upon a giant water slide. It was a long sheet of white plastic on a hillside. They were pumping water from a pool at the bottom making the biggest slide we saw all week. Just as we were riding past three young girls, about college age or late high school were riding to my left. “Oh look!” one of them said. “That is a big slide. Let’s stop and ride it.” The other two were enthusiastic, thinking that would be a good thing to do. Just then, the old naked hippy went sliding down the slide, now minus even the loin cloth.
“Ewww, gross, disgusting,” were some of the comments from the young lasses. They changed their mind about wanting to stop, and just rode on. But before they were out of earshot one of them made the comment of the day, maybe of the week. She said, “I don’t want to see that, but I just keep looking.” It brought to mind the apostle Paul, “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)
This young girl, if she stops and thinks about it, just discovered one of the mysteries of life, that we give in to sin, even when we don’t want to. I am not saying it was a sin for her to look. The distance was such that no detail was available. But the truth that we find ourselves doing the very thing we don’t want to do. All of us have had her experience in one way or another. We give thanks for Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
The day ended in Coralville. As we rode down a frontage road there were little signs posted, Coralville and the University of Iowa welcome (place name of school here with logo.) The little signs were on both sides of the road. Most of them were on a downhill and it was impossible to read them all. I missed the one that said UNM Lobos although I saw NMSU, Wyoming, UNLV, and many of our surrounding schools. I did see Utah, and stopped and took a picture for all my Ute buds.
When we turned the corner into the camping space, they had built a façade over the road with two entrances. It looked like you were riding in to one of the Midwest football stadiums. When you went through the opening the road was painted green, with white stripes, like a football field and you rode right through the endzone painted with a hawkeye and the U of Iowa colors. On both sides of the road there were bleacher sat up and people sitting in the bleachers waving pennants and cheering us on to the finish. It was quite a moment.
Replica of U of Iowa Stadium
We visited another HyVee supermarked for the grand buffet, spent another evening in a rec center until they closed at 10 pm. Then we crashed in our tent, anticipating the big ride to the Mississippi tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment