RAGBRAI ’23
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Culver’s Electronic Sign Spoke to Me!
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!
Changing School Images
August 7, 2023
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver
Community, Culver, Easterday Construction, government, School, Trends
I think I have written on this before (when the middle school gym was built), but my search capabilities weren’t sufficient to find the previous post. This is dating myself and includes some historic ramblings, so here we go…
I didn’t see any promotional material on the changes for the Culver Community School buildings this summer, so seeing the glass block come down and seeing it replaced with new black smoked glass was a bit of a surprise. I was also a bit amused by the progression.
Forgive me for doing this extemporaneously without doing the research, but it’s not something that I felt mattered beyond my memory.
The elementary school was built before air conditioning and was built with windows that opened across the bottom, about 4′ above the floor, and glass block above those windows reaching up 10′, letting in light for the high ceiling classrooms. Google failed me on finding good images of this, but I found the images to the right and below on the Maxinkuckee History Past Tracker page showing pictures of the school from the 1952 as the new elementary school addition was first opened.
The glass block isn’t very clear in this picture, but there was another interior picture on that page that showed the glass block a bit clearer. I’ve included that one to the left. I don’t have pictures from Easterday Construction’s history at the school, but I know we did the north addition and struggled to match the glass block, brick and windows, as the Architect wanted continuity.
The progression of the remodels has always amused me. The construction of the middle school gym was completed at the same time or just before the remodeling of the elementary school in the early 2000’s. Two different architecture firms were employed. It would appear they didn’t talk…
Knowing how Architects often think, I’ve always postulated the following: The middle school Architect knew that splitting the elementary school and middle school was a big change. (There was lots of controversy moving the middle school from being attached to the elementary school to attaching it to the high school.) He wanted to tie the new gym construction to the high school to which it was being attached. Similar brick and metal banding was used to accomplish this. But to ease the transition and keep continuity for the children moving from the elementary school building to the middle school building, the glass block “theme” was used, even though use of glass block was somewhat dated at the time. The gym include a glass block clerestory and some other glass block accents. Meanwhile, working within his own silo, the elementary school Architect wanted to update the building look and knowing that glass block is notoriously bad for insulation and weathertightness over time, replaced the block with colored metal panels! Hahahahaha! He also changed the entrance to create a simulated nautical theme (think masts).
The remodel of the elementary school received a lot of hate. The new panels with the “rolling” accent lines deemed playful by the Architect were deemed gaudy by the community. (Picture to the left from the Culver Visitors Guide.) My Mother, Jackye Berger, was on the school board at the time and was somewhat incensed by the difference between what was approved and what was installed. The presentation to the school board was done using a full façade picture ( a long horizontally and short vertically picture of the entire east side of the building) with colored pencil (pastel) colors rather than the bright and shiny panels that were installed. The Architect later admitted that was intentional as they knew the bright panels wouldn’t get approved… As these things go, the Architect for the Culver Union Township Library addition then decided to carry the nautical theme and create a sail effect… which has since been removed/modified due to multiple issues…
So now we’re in a new era. The elementary school panels have been repainted in earth tones (very nice) and the glass block is going away at the middle school. Since I haven’t seen the plans, I don’t know if all of the glass block is going away, but it appears they are saving the vertical bands at the corners. Future generations will wonder why it’s there and a future school board will undoubtedly change that too.
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