RAGBRAI
For those of you that don’t know, RAGBRAI is an annual 7 day bike ride across the state of Iowa. It’s not a race, but more of an adventure/challenge. 10,000 riders are pulled from a lottery to participate each year, dipping their tire in the Missouri River on the west side of Iowa to start and finally in the Mississippi River on the east side of Iowa at the end. They estimate as many as 20,000 additional riders are on the road any given day. RAGBRAI stands for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.
Becky (my wife) has been doing RAGBRAI for nearly two decades. (Our Sister-in-Law Toni has been doing it with her for at least 10 years.) Becky & Toni train (less and less every year) throughout the Spring. The ride is always the last week of July. Generally that means it’s hot in Iowa, but since they camp every night, sometimes that’s cold. Generally the shortest days are 40-50 miles while there are longer days of 70-90 miles. For those that want an additional challenge, they usually have at least one day where they add a loop that makes it a Century Day, i.e. over 100 miles. This year the mileage total for the week was around 460 miles.
Becky and Toni leave for Iowa on the Friday before the ride. They camp the first night in the ending town and then board a bus Saturday morning to ride across the state to the starting town. They camp Saturday night and the ride starts on Sunday. A charter truck moves their tent, luggage, etc. to each day’s ending town where they pick it up, set up tents and camp for the night. This year the last day was long and they didn’t get in until after 6. There are all kinds of ending festivities, but at that point they just want to get home and usually just hit the road.
If this interests you at all, there are posts at Becky’s website, Berger Audiology, where she has recounted some of the trip highlights along with pictures from along the way. Look for the blog titled Bergerology Blog on the ribbon under the logo.
I included her first post from the first day below:
*****************************
My sister-in-law Toni and I headed out for RAGBRAI today around 12:30 pm today. We had a few setbacks that lengthened the trip, but overall it was uneventful. We have gotten stuck in traffic in Chicago almost every year, so we decided to go cross country this time, since the start was farther south in Iowa. As it turned out, that put us on a lot of county roads, so we really didn’t make any better time. I drove and the Jeep isn’t the smoothest ride!
We had to get my bike carrier modified (Thanks Burt’s Body Shop), because both of our new bikes have frames that are too small for the carrier as it was made. There aren’t many options for Jeep bike carriers, so it was good that we could “fix” it. That seemed to work well for us. We both like the newer bikes (Mine from last year and Toni’s from a year or so ago), though I’ve been struggling to find a saddle that works for me. I’ve also been having some issues with my left wrist and Toni is still having some shoulder issues, so this trip could be more challenging.
Mary Ellen Rudisel Jordan
Thinking about a good friend of the Easterday Construction family on her Birthday. It’s hard to believe that Mary Ellen has been gone from us for 6 years. I think of her often.
I miss being able to ask her for a quick sketch. I also miss her quick wit and quirky humor.
Lost without GPS
The paper map industry has suffered the same fate as the fabled buggy whip industry. Technology has moved on and we no longer have a glove compartment full of maps in our cars as a record of our travels. Hmmmm… I don’t think I’ve ever in my life time seen a pair of gloves in a car’s “glove compartment”, so how does that continue to be the common reference? (I may have AADD. I should never have found out that was a thing.)
I’ve noticed that in the past few years since the advent of GPS mapping, I can’t give directions to anyone anymore. Even places I’ve been to several times, I’m unsure of myself without plugging it into a mapping app. Now that most of them factor in traffic and accidents, I’m often “punished” by trying to head out on my own on a route I know. As I sit in stuck traffic, the alternate route it suggested mocks me.
While I did think GPS was making me stupid, I wouldn’t have thought it was affecting me physically as the Dr. Oz article to the right suggests. I don’t need any brain shrinkage!
I seriously can’t imagine people blindly following it off the road as suggested here. It’s not that accurate with the “Turn here” advice, though it is improving.. (It better get perfected quickly though if those self-driving cars are going to rely on it.)
We had two cars with GPS Navigation built-in. On the plus side, it’s a bigger screen, turns down the radio when it speaks and includes heads-up display. On the downside, it is generally less than 6 months before it’s outdated and the last I checked, the subscription update cost more than a Garmon. But why even buy a Garmon when Google Maps is constantly updated and comes as free app for your phone? The last car we bought, we skipped that option. A $15 phone holder took the place of the $1,000 GPS option.
We still have a few maps and sometimes I find it interesting to pull them out and see where I am on a larger scale. The zoom out feature on the mapping software just doesn’t give you the same effect. On the other hand, my wife would be fine if she never had to look at a paper road map again! She’s directionally challenged and if the map is right-side up in front of her, then we’re always going north…
Harrington Noodles Project in the News
We’ve been working with Harrington Noodles for some time on a new facility. They make Amish Egg Noodles which are sold in stores locally and throughout our region. The demand is exceeding the capacity of their current facility.
The new Harrington Noodles factory will provide them with updated work space with modern temperature control, a loading dock and room to expand – all things they’ve been lacking in their current facility. Last night they were featured in a news report on WNDU. You can find the story and video here on the WNDU website.
We went through several reiterations on this project to find the right fit. The site is adjacent to Pretzels, Inc. in Plymouth providing some benefit to having similar production facilities in the same area. The property was purchased from PIDCO (Plymouth Industrial Development Corporation) and has easy access to Hwy 30.
The wet spring has hampered construction on this project as with many throughout our region. We have the building up and are waiting for the soils to dry out so we can proceed with infrastructure. That should be happening soon.
The Carpenter
An old carpenter about to retire is telling his boss about his plans to stop working in construction and enjoy life with his wife and kids. He is so excited about retiring that he wasn’t looking forward to anything else. All he wanted was to retire.
The boss was upset about losing a good worker and as a personal favor, asked the man to work on the construction of one last house. The old carpenter didn’t want to accept, but he couldn’t deny his boss one last favor.
He took the job, but it was clear that his heart wasn’t in it. Consequently he was careless and used inferior material on the construction of the home. It was a sad way to finish such an excellent career with so many years of total dedication to his craft.
When the house was completed his boss was there to inspect it. He gave the key to the house to the old carpenter and said, “This is your house. It’s a gift for you after so many years of hard work.”
The old carpenter was shocked. “What a shame!”, he thought. If he had known that he was his house, he would have done things differently…
That’s how it is with all of us. We construct our day-to-day lives carelessly without giving the proper attention to detail and then we have to live in the house we built. Afterwards we think that we could have done things differently, but time doesn’t come back. Too late now…
Remember that you are the carpenter of your own life. You construct your life a little bit per day – you hit a nail here, build a wall there and so on…
Author Unknown
