Today, I should be in Iowa. Instead, I’m in Puyallup, waiting for our house to clear after some work was done on our floors and getting ready to work Oregon Trail Days in Tenino this weekend. Monday, Jeffrey Cook and I leave for our leisurely drive to Indianapolis for GenCon.
But I should be in Iowa. I knew I would miss not doing Ragbrai this year, but I didn’t realize until this week that I would miss it this much. It feels like I’m letting my bicycle down. Since I knew I wasn’t going, I haven’t been riding. I’ve been working instead.
(See: Backyard Dragons, Ethereal Entanglements, Illusive Echoes, Merely This and Nothing More, and Unnatural Dragons, all released this year already. )
Corn isn’t the same without Iowa. Neither is bacon. I’m not saying bacon tastes like sawdust or anything, it’s just not the same as when it’s mixed into the chicken gyro for no reason other than Iowa, which you’re eating because you just biked 75 miles in 100 degree heat and brutal humidity after not really sleeping in 80 degree heat and even more brutal humidity plus a thunderstorm at midnight that almost destroyed your tent.
Muscle aches, saddle sores, grit, grime, sunburn, poor phone service, food poisoning, heat stroke, hypothermia, exhaustion, hail, thunderstorms, fatigue, store-made pie…these are only some of the myriad hardships we all willingly inflict on ourselves for one week. And I’m really quite upset to miss out on it this year.
Because I’ve made dozens of new friends, even if most of them were fleeting. I’ve had the best pie in the known universe. I’ve hit the groove on day 4 and reached the point where I could just ride and camp forever. I’ve laughed with strangers and gotten pictures of myself with people in bacon and cow suits. I’ve picked up souvenirs I could never get anywhere else. I’ve seen chocolate covered frozen cheesecake on a stick (didn’t get to eat it, but I saw it, which is a lot like seeing Bigfoot).
Most of all, it’s so damned uplifting to be surrounded by thousands of people united by one unimpeachably positive thing: a love of bicycling and/or bicycles.
The Adaptive Sports folks are awesome. So are the Air Force folks. The costumes make you smile even in the darkest, deepest pit of despair that comes at the bottom of the umpteenth hill to climb when it’s too hot and you’re too tired, and &^%* that hill, I want ice cream.
Stay cool, Ragbrai. I hope to see you next year.
Reblogged this on Edgewise Words Inn and commented:
Lee French discussed NOT participating in the quintessential bicycle marathon through the heart of America.