Kevin Berger

Owner of Easterday Construction Co., Inc. in Culver, IN.

RAGBRAI ’23

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My wife, Becky, is off on RAGBRAI this week. This is 50th year they’ve had the event and the 19th year Becky has done it. Only skipping 2020 when they only had a virtual ride (lame) because of the pandemic.

RAGBRAI stands for Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It was started by the Register newspaper in Des Moines and has grown to a huge event with international participation.

The year before she started riding RAGBRAI, Becky did the Heartland AIDSRide, which was a fundraiser. She got sponsors and then road from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Chicago across Wisconsin. That was the last year for that ride. It wasn’t raising enough money to make it worthwhile. She started looking for something similar and ended up settling on RAGBRAI. She’s gone every year they’ve had it since.

She drove to the east side of Iowa, to the ending town, last Friday and camped that night. She got up Saturday morning and got on a bus at 6:00am that took her to the starting town on the west side of Iowa. Sunday was the first day of the ride and this Saturday will be the last. There’s usually a big party the night of the last day, but Becky isn’t interested. She’ll get off the bike, load her stuff in her car, and head home… a 5-6 hour drive…

Yesterday was particular brutal for her, since it was the longest day of this year’s ride, at 86 miles, and the hottest so far, at 98 degrees. Some of you know that I’m also on Twitter, so I had to jump into this climate alarmist’s response thread with Becky’s “vacation”. If you can’t open the link, the original post said sitting outside in the shade when it is over 90 degrees is deadly. The first response was, “Arizonians say, ‘Hold my beer.’ ” My response to that is to the right.

She also sent me this picture, which I used to follow up the first one.

She does meet up with a lot of interesting characters! The event is known as the biggest party on two wheels, but the range of riders is huge. There is generally a beer garden set up in the first town each morning and for some, that sets the tone for the day. There are all ages and in some cases whole families. Some people ride a little and then take the SAG wagon. Some persevere (Like Becky) and ride the whole thing no matter how long it takes. (She’s gotten in close to dark a few times.) Then she’s talked about a few hard core bikers that get up in the morning, ride to the end town, back to the beginning town, and then back to the end town each day, riding each day’s route three times!

I am often asked why I don’t do this with her, and my two standard responses are either, “Because I’m not Crazy!” or “Pigs haven’t flown yet…”. While I could maybe, potentially, possibly, see myself getting into shape for the ride, I’ve never been a camper. After a day of that much exertion, I can’t imagine sleeping on the ground that night. Which is pretty much the standard option. On average, they expect around 30,000+ riders and since they try to stay off the main roads, that’s like 30,000 people descending on small towns like Plymouth for a night. Kind of like one night of the Blueberry Festival. Those towns mostly have to shut down, but on the bright side, all of the service groups get their fundraising covered for the year, by selling pies (RAGBRAI is known for pies) and having Church suppers with lasagna or chicken & noodles or some other high carb, easy to make in mass meal. Becky says sleeping on the ground is never a problem for her, because she’s tired enough to sleep anywhere. The biggest issue for her is setting up the tent at night when she’s tired, and breaking camp in the morning… when she’s still tired…

Four more days of this and she’ll head home. She’ll sleep most of Sunday and be up and off to work Monday morning, with a few sore muscles and some interesting tan lines.

If you’re interested in daily reports, I have an email chain I send out with pictures and updates. Just send me your address and I’ll add you there. Be sure to congratulate Becky if you see her. Or confirm that you agree she’s crazy! Ha!

10 Years

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Mary Ellen Rudisel Jordan

I’ve been thinking about a good friend, Mary Ellen Rudisel Jordan. Yesterday was her Birthday She would have been 72.

She died in a car crash 10 years ago. It doesn’t seem like it can be that long ago. She often comes to mind since I continue to work with the reincarnation of her firm, SRKM Architecture. The R remains as a tribute to Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen was always my go-to when I needed a quick sketch or an elegant, but simple, solution to a minor design problem. We completed more than a few projects together, many of those for Richard Ford, another departed friend. Mary Ellen was returning from a meeting with Richard when she was struck by an oncoming car, in the wrong lane, on a blind hill, in a no passing zone. I can’t drive that section of road without thinking of her. Rest in Peace, Mary Ellen.

Culver Elementary School Parking Lot

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CES Parking Lot Milled for Repaving

Best to start this out saying these are observations about which I’ve been too lazy to research. These are just what I’ve observed from my vantage point across the street.

Currently, Culver Community School Corporation is in the process of replacing paving at the elementary school and middle/high school. The paving is being ground off and (I assume) new asphalt will be installed. I understand that part of the paved area at the elementary school will be repurposed as playground with a new playground surface in lieu of asphalt.

When the elementary school lot was revised and repaved a couple of decades ago, it included landscape islands with small patches of grass and trees. To the school’s credit, they planted trees of significant size, but after the first year, care for these trees waned. Over the years, a few died and were left standing as skeletons. Eventually, these were cut down along with the remaining live trees, which frankly, were not doing well.

Former CES Island with curb cut flush and filled with gravel

The maintenance of the islands declined and eventually, a couple of years ago, the school cut the curbs flush with the pavement, stripped the topsoil and filled the area in with compacted limestone, effectively adding this area to the impervious surface and gaining a half dozen parking spaces.

This was sad as the islands effectively broke up the pavement and the trees would have eventually provided some respite from the hot black asphalt. It’s always interesting that during the hotter parts of the school year, some teachers will park on our side of Slate Street under the shade of our trees and walk a bit farther, rather than having their cars cooking on the CES parking lot.

Demolishing Remaining Curbs

The current project appears to be removing the islands completely. This shouldn’t be an impervious surface issue if the new playground area is a pervious surface. It is an aesthetic and functional issue. The islands broke up the expanse of asphalt. The trees looked nice and gave scale to the building. I realize that the islands hindered efficient snow removal, but it would have been nice to preserve them and to replace the trees. I’m sure the Tree Commission could have worked out something to include them in their planting plan.

Buried Catch Basin Inlet

I’m also curious what is to be done with the existing drywells. No inlet protection is being used, so they are becoming further clogged. I’m hopeful that remediation of these is part of the plan. To be effective, they need to be cleaned and I don’t believe they have been since installation.

This is an example of how my blog blathering helps me track time, since I was able to find where I had brought this up before, clear back in 2009! Ha! I recall watching the brick masons for the gym addition setting up their saw and cutting bricks directly over the drywell with no inlet protection whatsoever… Interestingly, the storm water project mentioned in the article in 2009 was completed, but it didn’t include any connections to the school’s system. Currently the drywells overflow, the parking lot fills and excess runs out the lot entrance and surface flows to the Lake Shore Drive storm water catch basins.

The two large trees at the south end of the parking lot were planted at the same time as the island trees. If they’d been nurtured, the island trees would have been similar size by now.

Culver’s Electronic Sign Spoke to Me!

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On my way into the office this morning I noticed the cute little Lakefest signs along School Street. Of course, I wondered if Lakefest was on the electronic sign, since all I had seen on my way past it was the day and date. (See right)

So I looped back to see what was on the sign:

  • Slide #1 – Monday; July 3
  • Slide #2 – 7:10am; 66 degrees
  • Slide #3 – Farmer’s Market Schedule
  • Slide #4 – Don’t Give Up

So, I was a bit upset that the biggest event on the Culver Calendar is this month and it’s not on the sign, but then wait… “Don’t Give Up”!? Was the sign speaking to me? Ha!

For my lurkers, I’ve been harping on the sign not living up to it’s charter, let alone it’s potential for months now. I’m more tactful in public as I don’t want to offend those in charge, but I still think it would be great to see Lakefest on the Culver Sign and repeated on the other Stellar signs in Argos, Bourbon, Bremen, Lapaz and Plymouth.

So, with the encouragement of the sign itself, I decided to put out another post, encouraging the Town to make better use of this asset. Lakefest is a Culver event that should be drawing visitors from around the County, so it really should be on all the signs this month.

To some extent I understand this responsibility should fall on the Visit Marshall County, but unless the communities step up, it won’t happen. If each took responsibility to spread their respective events, this would (well should) take hold. Lets make it happen, people! Do it for the Sign!

MCEDC Annual Report

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Great to see that Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) is back on track with Annual Reports. (And not just because of my teeny-tiny picture on the cover! Ha!) Riverside Commons actually has two references in the report, though not by name.

The lack of an Annual Report was one of the major issues in my last couple of years on the board. It got contentious with that director fabricating a false schedule for producing a report that never happened. Then it was apparently just completely disregarded by the next director. I’m glad to see that the new leadership under Greg Hildebrand includes living up to commitments, the Annual Report being one of these.

I don’t know how Greg is doing on the State and National levels, but on the local level, it’s been refreshing to have a MCEDC President that is not constantly burning bridges, MIA or joked about due to the inability to contact them or find them in the office. He also doesn’t take his title too seriously. IYKYK This will go a long way to improving MCEDC’s image and returning it to the mission it had when it was founded.

I hope we will be seeing quarterly newsletters again too. The organization has to be seen and seen as productive in order to continue to move the county forward. Even at its low points, I felt it was positive for Marshall County to have MCEDC. Good luck to Greg as he strives to make it an organization of which we can be proud once again.