The little pig I'm holding? (see pic below)

We are lined up to eat its mama.

1 million calories

I bet I ate that much today. It was a rough day.

That's some big ass tires

A $260,000 bike rack

Greeters

Had several folks ask me if people greet us when come into town.

Yep.

This scene is repeated dozens of times in every town we ride into.

Got to meet a celebrity

50 miles

Other than just surviving the ride my only goal is to do 50 miles by
noon each day.

Today was kind of neat because at 50 miles into the ride today we
crossed the 1/2 way point of the ride.

Cold neck wraps

The first time I saw a sign for one I thought it was some crazy Iowa
pork product to eat.

It's just a wet towel.

Albion Iowa

He squealed a little more ...

... Than my chihuahua but other that there was no difference.

This sign was on the booth

From the picture above.

Roses and goofy fat geeks

What more could a state ask for?

Roses R Us

Rose capital of iowa

The city. Her name isn't Rose Capital.

Pizza

A scrambled egg and cheese pizza thank you very much.

Those descriptive iowans

This town is called State Center because it's in the center of the
state.

I understand there are also towns named Southeast Corner, Next To The
Big Ass River, and the old Indian named place, Wherethafukkarwee?

Some things just defy explanation

A 60 year old corn farmer from Illinois was wearing one. It was a guy.

The first 4 person tandem

Interesting. A whole nutty family coming in from Nebraska to ride.

Toledo iowa

I think that's where we are headed. (see post below)

Accident

No not to me.

I'm sitting about 30 miles from our destination city. Over the
emergency radio they're talking about a casino bus that crashed
hurting over 50 people.

So if you hear that on the news that's where I'm headed. Some
gambling town about 40 miles west of Albion Iowa.

The least attractive ISU coeds

Mandi, Tiffani, and Gertrude.

Ryan the ISU electrical engineering major

Been here for the better part of a decade he said. He makes tacos in
the street. 3 for $5.

The tacos Ryan made

While I'm on the subject of food I've seen three different vendors do
the same thing.

The take a small bag of Dorito's cut a slit down the side and then
pour in chili and cheese and some sour cream. Like a poor man's taco
salad.

Ames IA

Ok Ames has been a good town.

It's most definitely the biggest town on the list for us. Not even
sure where I'll be tomorrow.

Did the entire ride today in just a shade under 4 hours averaging
slightly under 15 mph. I think tomorrow we ride 70+ miles.

The hills have pretty much disappeared but they've been replaced with
some major headwinds. Sure would be nice to get about 30 miles of
tailwinds for a change. I know I know I'm whining again.

The day was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies. Wispy clouds. Not hot.
No humidity to speak of. Friendly crowds the whole way.

Got in right before noon. Set up my tent and decided to splurge on a
massage. $90 it cost me with a tip. And it wasn't all that good. Trust
me. I'm in the massage biz. I know good. We wouldn't have hired this
guy. Oh well it was fine to just lie there and get my muscles
stretched for an hour.

Hung out in downtown Ames all night. Ate too much. Forgot I paid for
dinner back at the camp and I missed giving them my laundry to do too.
Sigh. It wouldn't be so bad except I paid for both services. $20
total. Oh well.

I probably wouldn't have done the massage if I had known I was going
to have to replace my pedals. One broke completely and it cost $85 to
buy a new pair. Ouch. But they're like the tires. The bike ain't going
anywhere without them.

For anyone familiar with Columbus. Ames is like a huge version of
Columbus's Short North. It's a big college town just like cowtown.

The sun has gone down and now I'm facing a 30 minute ride home in the
dark. I don't have lights on the bike so n need to make sure to watch
fir folks who won't be able to see me.

All right all 4 of you reading this thing. I'm gonna pray my shoulders
let me sleep tonight. No trains but the loudest human being I've ever
encountered is in the next tent to me. Sigh.

Any duo ...

... That can nail a johnny cash song and then follow it up with a spot
on cover of chris Isaac is worth $4 don't you think? (it's all I had
except for a $20)

As opposed ...

... To those clowns who just dick around with their deliveries ...

When you absolutely ..

... Positively need new pedals in a town you've never been in before
and the ride is only 8 hours from now.

Purty water

Iowa state university

If Iowa and Ohio ever joint ran a university would it be called IOU?

Some random fat geeky guy

Iowa state univ

Well what do you know. They invented my livlihood here.

I know what you're thinking

That Ray is just taking another pretty girl's picture. In this case it
wasn't her front that first got my attention ...

... It was her back

I told here she must have started riding while she was the womb. She
just didn't look old enough to ride 33 years of this thing.

Not as many as blondie ...

But still a respectable number.

Ya know I'm starting to get a little paranoid

It's like I've got thousands of people following me. Some right
behind me. Some at a more discreet distance. Can't shake them ...

Fair fare

Peach pie. Apple pie. Corn on the cob. Dill pickles. Umm mm. Breakfast
of champions. :)

Jefferson IA statue of Lincoln

Look close at the top of old Abe's head.

Ogden IA

Hizzoner da mayor. The highest office in town. :)

Trains

If they're not waking us up they're holding us up.

Whining 101

I promise I'll keep the whining to a minimum.

Last night was TOUGH. That sunburn I have on my shoulders meant I got maybe an hour's sleep last night. I couldn't lie on either shoulder, couldn't sleep on my stomach, and I just tossed and turned all night long.

Plus, the tour group that has reserved all the campgrounds has a contract, obviously, with all of the train companies. They keep putting us next to the railroad tracks. Now, I live next to train tracks (a lot closer than we are now), but, damn, these are some "whistle-y" trains. There's a law here in Iowa that they have to honk their horns for every street crossing. Well, through Jefferson the trains had to cross 4 or 5 streets. Which meant for almost 5 minutes straight, the trains are blowing their horns. Sometimes there were two trains going through town. It was like a contest to see which one could pump out more decibles. Yeesh.
In lots of pain because of the damned sunburn and then got to listen to trains run every 10 minutes.

Ok, end of whining. :) It's a gorgeous day. It's 64 degrees out side and simply beautiful. I'm headed to the fire department to load up on pancakes and then off to Ames which is only about 50 miles from here. It'll be a nice easy day today.

Thanks for reading -- I'll catch up with y'all later!

Maybe The Office ...

... Actually takes place in Scranton Iowa.

Cute dumbasses

Getting married next month.

I'm gonna talk them out of that dumbass idea. That is if I can catch
them. They're fast ....

Iowans for Obama

More coon road kill

There was actually a guy in this damned hot costume lying on the road.

See why Coon Rapids was so neat?

You'll be happy to know ...

Elvis is not flipping burgers in Michigan as rumored.

He's alive and well and doing a daily show in Coon Rapids.

Monday's ride

Well all in all it a long day. But we all made it.

A note before I go on about these damned typos. I've got the iPhone's
light down low to conserve battery power. The phone also attempts to
spell the word I'm typing and I don't always catch that. For
example the o and I are right next to each other. On a 1.5 inch
keyboard that's not a lot of space to make a mistake especially since
in and on are both valid words. I'll fix the typos of I ever get in
front of a real keyboard again.

Oh yeah. I can barely see what I'm typing.

I'm not being very verbose because I'm typing with 1 finger. Y'all may
actually appreciate that.

Finally AT&T has no signal in the whole damned state obviously. Thanks
to everyone who's called and im'd me but I can't call or IM you back.
I'm writing this at 10 pm but I have no signal at all so I don't know
when I can send it.

All right. As I said earlier the hills were every hit as bad as
everyone said they'd be. There's nothing like them in Ohio so I
couldn't have trained on them if I'd wanted to. Every time I thought
the next hill couldn't be worse by god it was.

I took my sweet time about riding today. Left at 615 am and got to
camp at 345 pm. The funnest town of them all was Coon Rapids. They
really appreciated us being there. I'll post more pix when I can.

I was on the seat for a little over 6.5 hours today. My feet had
gotten pretty sore, my butt was feeling no love, and I missed putting
sun tan lotion on my shoulder this morning. Had to find some aloe vera
lotion to ease the fire.

We're in Jefferson tonight. Went to a bar with a few new friends. Met
a 55 year old farmer dude who could have easily passed for 35. He was
saying the whole county only has 15000 people so this is a huge deal
for them. That seems to be true for any little town we're in. We're
in Ames tomorrow and that might be the biggest - by far - town on the
way. I think Jefferson has less than 6000 people

We really thought it was gonna be more thunderstorms tonight but the
front went on by. It was pretty bad looking.

Several places along the way had got clobbered by high winds last
night. Trees were broke in half, corn stalks had been badly destroyed.
One guy with us tonight was a farmer himself and estimated this one
farm's damage at over a million. For one storm.

There was a huge metal silo that got knocked down. It actually got
blown down and the wreckage got tossed 200 yards or more. Wasn't a
pretty site.

Ok I am beat. It's taken almost 40 minutes to peck out this letter.
I'm going to sleep. More posts as I can get the time and signal.

'Nut sed

Glad to see...

... Political correctness didn't make 'em change their name.

Welcome to Coon Rapids IA

Is this a great country or what?

A first

Normally we have to stand in line for a potty break. However there was
no wait at the tower.

We went ahead and just all hopped on one leg for 10 minutes just to
stay in practice.