Day 23 Gee Brief: People

July 13
Estherville, IA to Grand Falls Casino, IA

To be honest, when I fall behind in my entries (right now it is July 15th) the days start to blur. But I can't just put in a quick pic or log entry - ate food today, here's a pic of a cow. Where's the humanity in that???? Anyway, this disclaimer is to let you know that all of the events that you are about to read about are true....more or less,... at least within my head. And they happened some time within the past two or three days SOMEWHERE in the midwest.

My theme for this entry is: PEOPLE. It has occurred to me lately, that the full expression of an experience is the act of COMMUNICATING that experience with other people, and if possible sharing it. So I'd like to focus on the people whom I've directly met in the past few days.

First, I'd like to introduce you to this seriously interesting fellow who was hanging out at the local Micky D's when I went to get my breakfast. His color choice is a bit bright, but it kind of grows on you and his attitude was fairly upbeat. He actually took the first bite out of my eggaMcmuffin.

A butterfly, a windmill blade and Ben

Later that day, came a series of events, which I've titled above. Pictured above you see the butterfly that started the sequence.

I was tooling down a fairly busy and not so friendly road in Iowa (not many of them ARE friendly), and I saw this butterfly hanging out on the shoulder. So I decided to stop and take a pic. As I did so, I noticed that the butterfly was wounded. Although he couldn't fly, he was still alive. I'm not a butterfly expert, but it seemed pretty obvious that he wasn't having that good a time, so I helped him pass on to the other side. I did it as quickly as I could to minimize his/her pain, then gave him/her a burial by the side of the road.

At this point, a passing car took issue with my simply existing by the side of the road and gave me an angry honk.  I looked up to smile back at the aggressor, but my attention was immediately drawn to a different vehicle, a pick up truck that had a "wide load" sign on it. After the pick up passed by, I saw what it was warning me about. A tractor-trailer rig was approaching, and the thing it was carrying actually the WIDEST load I had ever seen. It was hanging out almost past the shoulder on which I was standing! As it passed by, I thought I was looking at the base of a windmill, but it turned out to only be the blade! These things can be half a football field in length and this one definitely was. I didn't have time to pull out my camera, so I took a few pics from the internet which do NOT convey the feeling of having one of these monsters pass within inches of your face!

As it passed, my jaw dropped and I just STARED at the graceful magnitude of this thing. They are designed in a corkscrew type shape to catch the wind, but as they pass by you on a flatbed truck, they look like some incredibly graceful whale swimming through the air.

After the truck had passed, my jaw was still wide open and I was mouthing some amazed curse word. When I came out of my bewildered stupor, I noticed that a small truck, coming from the opposite direction had pulled off to the shoulder directly across from me. The fellow you see in the pic below got out of the truck and was looking at me in a concerned way. The windmill blade itself hadn't really phased him. What he was concerned about was the biker guy, standing by the side of the road with his jaw dropped, and his bike laying on it's side with the front and back safety lights still flashing.

Ben

He thought I was hurt or dazed or something. I quickly tried to recap the entire story of burying the butterfly and being overwhelmed by the windmill blade. I could tell by the look in his faced that he was a little amused, but he was seemed very kind. I mean, he had just pulled over on a busy road to see if a fellow cyclist (he rides a bike himself) was OK. In my book that gets a lot of credit.  Thank you Ben for checking on a biking brother!

This leads me to the people of Iowa as a whole. I've mentioned the angry Iowa drivers (mostly the grain truck guys), and I've talked about the awful Iowa roads. But please don't confuse this with my take on the Iowa PEOPLE. Iowans, from my observation are a hardworking, mostly working class people, that are often thinking and talking about...well...WORK!  I even saw a lady at a convenience store, who had just won $200 unexpectedly. She thought the ticket was only for $20 and in her surprised glee, she shouted, "I"m gonna go to Kohls!"  Nice I thought, you deserve to treat yourself.  But then she added, "And I'm gonna get me some new WORK outfits!"

That pretty much sums up the Iowans I met. My hat is off to you, Iowa people, for putting up with your crappy Iowa roads, but still being nice!

Next comes Jerry Love. With a name like that, how can you be anything BUT nice!!? Jerry talked to me for a long time about his wicked cool Honda Gold wing. He mentioned that in the past, he used to ride his bicycle 30 or 40 miles a day! My advice to Jerry: get back out there and ride brother!!!!


Cody Denne is next on my list of nice people I've met. He runs Ron's Bicycle and Locksmith Shop in Mitchell, South Dakota. He did a wonderful tune-up job on Jenard (Domane 6.2) and saved me a LOT of headache by noticing a nasty slash in Jenard's rear tire that I must have picked up during the 10 mile dirt road detour I took the other day. Cody's work and his overall friendliness is top notch. Plus, Cody share's my disdain of camping, so that alone makes him way cool. Thanks for the good work Cody!


Second to last is a guy named Ken who is cycling cross country from Seattle to New Jersey. I ran across him and his friends on my last leg as I was gratefully leaving Iowa.

The scenario was bizarre.  I noticed a single cyclist, no panniers or lights pulling up to a van that was parked. Two guys got out of the van to greet the cyclist. It looked like a sag wagon situation, but it also seemed to be over-kill for one lone rider. Than I see a SECOND cyclist pulling up with a full set of back panniers. He pulls up to the van too. This piqued my interest, so I struck up a conversation with him and his friends.  Turned out he was doing the trip solo, but his friends had flown out from their respective homes in order to each ride with him for about an hour. These four amigos: Ken, Ken, Mike and Stephen, apparently do lots of outdoor type stuff together. I thought it was awesome that they came out to the Iowa territory to support their friend. Our meeting inspired a poem from me. I've put it below the pics.

Me & Ken

 Two travelers crossed paths
On the Iowa plains,
For a moment in time, they both pulled in the reins.
One was traveling east, the other going west,
Each felt that his own way, was definitely the best.
One slept in a sleeping bag in at night in a tent,
The other in a motel with his wife as he went,
They shared a few laughs, some talk and some smiles,
Then pushed on their way to conquer more miles.

Ken's friend Mike

The one thing I learned from my encounter with Ken was that each of us has his/her own particular path and dream to follow. Sometimes we must go it alone, but in the end it's always nice to have someone to share that journey with. It's actually more than nice. It's almost required in order to make us more fully human. The thing that Ken's friends did: flying out to the middle of NOWHERE, to share his ride with him for a few miles. That was SOOOO cool! The thing that my wife is doing for me....sharing the entire experience, PARTAKING in the actual experience...makes this for me a cycling dream come true.

My BEST friend....FOREVAHHH!