Those Summer Nights Are Callin'

Machines cranking out ice cream by some silos.

The thing I love about RAGBRAI, is that you have no idea what you'll stumble upon on any given day. I'd say that the second day (Tuesday) was probably the funnest of the week.

This is a building with a thatched roof by the corn maze.

Monday was hot and hilly, just like Sunday, and I found myself riding by myself in the morning. When I reached the first town, I texted a bunch of people and found my group. We ate breakfast burritos by a Casey's gas station and took off for the next stop.

The polka band we happened upon.

After lunch, some of our group wanted to ride to the corn maze. They were trying to get as many RAGBRAI'ers as they could to stand in the maze while a plane flew overhead and took a pic. Apparently, the plane came too early, so we missed the shoot. Since it was close to 100 degrees out, I wasn't too hip to the idea of checking out a corn field that blocked the wind.

Instead, I heard people yelling, "hey, go to the lodge. There is good German beer and air conditioning!" That would have been enough for me, but once inside, we discovered a live polka band and chocolate sauerkraut cupcakes too. Is this heaven? Very, very close.

Me trying to polka with my friend who just moved back from Prague.

Even though we were exhausted, we danced like fiends, and had a couple of beers and cupcakes, before we headed off to our next adventure.

The town of Templeton was dressed-up in Prohibition era cars and whiskey casks. These guys are pretending to drink from the empty casks. Too funny.

The next town we hit was Templeton - where they make the whiskey. We rode through and headed out to where the still was. there was all kinds of crazy drunkenness going on there. They sold shots of Templeton Rye for $7. I abstained, but I think I might have been the only one who did. There was a group of kids who put their foreheads on a bat after drinking and then ran in circles around it, until they fell down. Um, wow.

One of the guys hanging around the fake casks asked me if I wanted to post for a pic and of course I did.

We finally left the still and headed to our next camping spot. They found us a great spot in a state park outside of Carroll, Ia.

The boys in my group partaking of the whiskey.

There was a murky green lake we swam in, and actual showers too. It felt so extravagant. It was a perfect place to get some sleep before we had to get up early and ride the 100 mile day on Tuesday...