Ragbrai Greenfield to Indiaola Iowa

The Ragbrai takes riders thru a series of small Iowa towns and each one is unique and very interesting. Yesterday was no exception. Among several other things,this town was very key in the migration of the Mormons from the Mississippi River town of Nuavo where Joseph Smith was murdered to Utah.

The stop in Macksburg was a hoot. Besides a great town square with all the food and displays there was this set up for skillet tossing, which is a very big deal around here. For $2 you got to throw 2 skillets at a target that consisted of a basketball sitting on top of couple of dummies (these were real dummies, not olf fat bikers) --one was standing , the other sitting. If you knocked the head (basketball) off you got a free entry in t5he Skillet throwing World Championships which are held right here in Macksburg http://books.google.com/books?id=VJaK08Z-6d0C&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=skillet+throwing+macksburg+iowa&source=bl&ots=HtIDmFFYV4&sig=kb7mCtAVthxtx1DOmU5rDnjiQTU&hl=en&ei=UP9mSrv_GoWqsgOD_ITmDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3

There was a huge crowd of hooters (yellers) and hollarers who cheered or booed every toss. One lady really cranked up and threw a skillet over the 10 foot high fence about 4 feet in front of her and almost hit some spectators. The crowd went nuts .

The volunteer fire dept of Truro Ia. set up a free concert and beerfest out in the middle of nowhere and it was a hoot. This was the entrance to the area and if you look closely you will see the sign in the in the middle pointing the way to the "restrooms". There were a lot of wobbly riders leaving this event, but everyone was smiling so much it looked like they had just discovered teeth.

This was one of the displays at the Truro. It is a mobile hot tub. That is water filling it to the edge.

There is just something about fire men --they always seem to come up with the finer things in life. I expect Steve Hemmelgarn and his firemen associates to come up with something like this real soon.

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The ride yesterday was 78 miles , a lot of hills and into a head wind for about 3/4 of it. Lots of bitching from riders but personally I liked all of it. The last 20 miles was my strongest. I was rolling into Indianola.

This is so much different than riding solo across the country in that there is still a lot to see but there just does not seem to be time to check it all out. The time goes by so quickly because of the 10,000 other riders you are constanting seeing, hearing or talking to. What a traveling circus. At the end of the day it is tough to sort out all the stuff and then write about it.