Yard Art Across America

I've noticed a growing trend of yard art, subtle and grandiose, in my recent travels out in rural America.  Americans have long had a propensity for decorating their yards at Christmas and Halloween, and even Easter, so much so it might be termed part of our cultural heritage.  It has almost become a craze among some communities, and a compeition only as Americans can make it.  Whether it is an urge for self-expression or a clamour for attention, the "art," tacky as it can often be, ought not be too severely condemned.  It is more often an enhancement than a blight and can be credited for leading to a higher and more varied form of art.

Yard decorations have begun to evolve beyond mere pink flamingoes and ceramic deer.  More and more home owners are putting up original creations.  Whether its an over-sized wooden woodpecker on the side of one's garage or a scattering of tributes to Mickey Mouse, they all deserve commendation.

There have always been the eccentrics who have devoted their lifes to filling their property with a wild array of concoctions and ornaments.  Now they are being joined by common everyday citizens who have a bent for some fun and creativity, adorning their yards with oddities they have some connection to.

I have been enjoying a regular dose on my present ride down to Columbus, Georgia to attend the annual vigil outside of Fort Benning in remembrance of the Jesuit priests who were murdered in El Salvador  nearly thirty years ago.  I biked the eight hundred miles from Chicago last November for the occasion and enjoyed basking in the great passion and energy of the thousands of activists from all over the country in attendance.  I knew I  couldn't stay away.  Unfortunately, I'm not accompanied again by Tim, but will be joining up at the event with Dwight, a long-time friend of equal stature who I have shared many an adventure, including another one in Georgia for the 1996 Olympics.

My first four days on the road across Indiana have been marked by Carnegie libraries and yard art.  I hadn't even left Illinois when I came upon a permanent pallet in a farmyard featuring pumpkins and bike wheels.

Bikes have been a common adornment.

I'm not always sure if the bikes are meant to be an art-ful display, but I accept them as such.

I can't say what this rural resident meant by his display of bikes, but they were a statement of some sort.

The property with the woodpecker south of Huntington, Indiana had a scattering of art with a throne looking out upon them.

I have been particularly attuned to these creations, as Janina and I have been inspired by this same spirit sweeping the land.  Since I moved in with her after my return from Telluride, we have mounted a bicycle on the roof of her house and decorated another out front near a Goldsworthy cairn Janina constructed.  Its just the beginning.  I've been extra diligent collecting bungee cords on this trip, no matter what shape they are in, for something we don't know yet. Janina will figure out something.

Her yard is increasingly filled with cairns varying from four or five rocks stacked on top of one another to caverns of dozens, some as high as four feet.  And we're only just getting started.

Another version of yard art sweeping the land are colorfully decorated "little free libraries" for trading books.  

According to the website that sells them, there are over 30,000 scattered about the country.  One can find them by entering a zip code on the website.  Janina and I haven't joined that fraternity, but we regularly stock five of them within several miles of her home.  When we recently visited friends in Bloomington, Indiana, we brought along books for its littlefreelibraries.  There was a significantly higher quallity of books in the academic community compared to Janina's suburbia.  We came back with an Orhan Pamuk novel, a study of Malcom X, a novel by Jiimmy Carter, a book on the humility of the founding fathers and not surprisingly, a biography of Bobby Knight.  No Kurt Vonnegut though, born in Indianapolis, where we visited the superb Kurt Vonnegut Library with his typewriter and paintings and rejection letters along with all of his books.

The yard art also spills over to libraries.  Many have sculptures relating to reading out front.  

I try not to let the many forms of art along the way be a distraction from my Carnegie-quest, but rather another feature of it.  You'll have to wait for all the libraries in the next post.

"Reckless, The Life and Times of Luis Ocaña," by AlasdairFotheringham--Another Merckx Biography

The career of Luis Ocaña was so intertwined with that of Eddy Merckx, Alasdair Fotheringham's recent biography on the Spanish Tour de France winner, "Reckless, The Life and Times of Luis Ocaña," is almost as much about Merckx as it is about Ocaña.

More than half of the book is devoted to their Tour de France battles in the early '70s.  They were born just eight days apart with Merckx being the junior, but Merckx's career took off much faster than did that of Ocaña.  They first raced against one another in 1968 at the Giro d'Italia, when Merckx was already a dominant force and Ocaña was somewhat of an unknown.  Merckx won the race, his first Grand Tour victory, while Ocana finished 34th.  They both rode The Tour de France for the first time in 1969.  Merckx won it while Ocaña lasted only eight stages.  Ocaña improved to 31st the next year as Merckx won again.  

But in 1971, Ocaña was able to challenge Merckx full throttle unlike anyone else at the time.  He gave him one of the worst defeats of his career on the Orcieres-Merlette stage in the Alps, winning by an unimaginable eight minutes and forty-two seconds.  He was poised to claim The Race title and topple Merckx from his throne, but he crashed several days later in the rain in the Pyrenees and had to abandon. He couldn't descend as well as Merckx and gave into his predisposition to recklessness as he chased after the Cannibal on a treacherous descent and wiped out and then was hit by two following riders.  Fotheringham maintains that his reckless streak was what defined him, thus the title of the book.  It was  what made him great, but also undid him, on and off the bike.

Ocaña's lone Tour win came in 1973 when Merckx skipped The Tour after winning it the previous four years.  Ocaña won The Race in convincing Merckxian fashion by over fifteen minutes over future Tour winner Bernard Thevenet, claiming six stages along the way.  But without Merckx in the field nor the Italian great Felice Gimondi, it was known as "The Tour of Absences," and Ocaña's victory was somewhat tainted.  Ocaña, though, would have none of it, and said that if Merckx had been there he would have made him suffer.

Fotheringham interviewed Merckx for the book, but not Ocaña, as he died in 1994 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of forty-eight, sixteen years after he retired from racing, distraught over his ill-health and struggling finances.  But he does interview his wife of twenty-seven years.  She feared her husband would do harm to himself and called his doctor to come and tend to him shortly before he shot himself.  Fotherringham cites his brother William's biography of Merckx several times and also that of Daniel Friebe. The emphasis on Merckx is reflected on the cover of the book, quoting Merckx as saying Ocaña was his "most dangerous rival."  Fotheringham also references many of the other books written about Ocaña, including his autobiography and another with the title "Merckx-Ocaña: Duel at the Summit."

What made Ocaña dangerous in the eyes of Merckx was his recklessness.  He was a rare cyclist who dared to attack him and with abandon. Usually it was to no avail, but he made Merckx wary.  When he humiliated Merckx in the 1971 Tour with his dramatic win on the Orcieres-Merlette stage, considered one of the most memorable stages in Tour history, Merckx responded the next day with an all-out attack with his teammates from the very start.  That too is a legendary stage.  Merckx was only able to gain back two minutes, but he pushed the pace so hard the racers arrived at the finish in Marseilles much earlier than anticipated and before many of the dignitaries had gathered.  The mayor of Marseilles was so incensed he didn't allow The Tour to return to Marseilles for several decades.

Ocaña was driven by an obsession to defeat Merckx.  He renamed his dog Merckx so he could have the command of at least one Merckx.  He took special delight in ordering Merckx to lie at his feet.  When he met the Queen of Belgium, he told her he was going to make Merckx eat his bike.  He told others he wanted to destroy him.  He attacked him many a time, but was only able to claim victory over him five times, two of which were time trials.

As prone as Ocaña was to impulsive and unpredictable behavior, Fotheringham doesn't cite a single instance of Ocaña being brought to tears, whether in defeat or victory, as is common in the peloton.  To contain such emotions was part of his heritage.  He said he only saw his carpenter father cry once--when he presented him with the Spanish national championship jersey for the 1968 time trial.  

Ocaña had an early career decision whether to declare himself Spanish or French.  His family moved to France when he was twelve. He was educated in France and married a French woman and spent most of his life in France.  His wife said he was clearly Spanish in character, but overall was more French than Spanish.  He rode for a Spanish team early in his career.  When he switched to the French Bic team of the pen company in 1970 for more money, he was lambasted by the Spanish press.  One writer said he would pay for it with "tears of blood."

Fotheringham's previous book on an earlier Spanish Tour de France winner, Federico Bahamontes, was also light on the mention of tears, in contrast to most cycling books.  He clearly understands the significance of tears though, as he uses the tears of Gimondo, after a snowy stage in the 1968 Giro, to demonstrate the severity of the conditions and to elevate Merckx's triumph on the stage.  Gimondo struggled and apologized to the nation afterwards in tears on television.

No cycling book is complete either without the intrusion of drugs.  Fotheringham attributes a  teammate as saying Ocaña was a very heavy user of "medication," though he only tested positive once --for pemoline, an amphetamine, in the 1976 Tour when his career was in decline.  He didn't deny taking the drug, but  said he was no more guilty than anyone else. Four others also failed the drug test in that Tour, but none were kicked out of The Race or given any kind of suspension.  They were all sanctioned with the standard penalty in effect then--a mere ten minutes added to their time.

Fotheringham offers other examples that the times have changed considerably in the decades since Merckx and Ocaña.  Teams during The Tour were often housed in dormitories.  The money they earned was also paltry compared to now.  Early in the 1971 Tour on a day when the riders had to ride three stages in one day, they went on strike in the first sector in protest that the prize money had not been increased since 1963.

Fotheringham inserts many such choice insights into the world of cycling, making this a valuable contribution to understanding not only Ocaña and his rivalry with Merckx but the sport in general.  Whether he next writes on another Spanish Tour winner or some other aspect of cycling, it will be a book to look forward to.  Hopefully he'll try to match the output of his brother, though he has a was to catch up.  With only two he is eight behind.

"Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy" by Tim Moore

Tim Moore regards himself as a travel-writing humorist.  Each of the five blurbs he selected to put on the back cover of his latest book ("Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy") emphasizes how funny it is, one even describing it as "laugh-out-loud."  It is debatable whether his endeavor to cycle the 2,000 miles of that 1914 race on a one-speed bike from that era with wooden rims wearing garb of the time is comical or ridiculous.  What isn't debatable is that it was a struggle, not only for him but for those who accomplished it, as only eight of the eighty-one starters finished the race, the highest attrition rate of any of the trio of three-week Grand Tours held in France, Spain and Italy over the past century.

Reliving this race was a great idea for a book and for an escapade, such as Moore is known for.  He wrote a similar book about The Tour de France, "French Revolutions," in which he rode the route of the 2000 Tour.  He was a novice cyclist at the time who didn't bother to train for the effort to make his struggles all the more emphatic and laughable.  He walked up most of the mountain passes.  The book just marginally captured the flavor of The Race, as he rode the route a month before the racers did without the roads thronged with fans or the towns decorated with bicycles and banners and the newspapers full of articles on every aspect of The Race.   The response of the French public to The Tour is as much a part of The Race as is the route and the racers.  

It was a book for neophytes, not aficionados, and the same can be said of "Gironimo!"  Too bad the other cycle-writing Moore, Richard, who wrote the brilliant "Slaying the Badger," didn't write this book.  Richard has a deep knowledge and love for the sport and would have made this a much more informed commentary on the lore of the sport and its participants.  His several books on cycling are all packed with telling detail that this book lacks.  Tim, the other Moore, did plenty of research, including regular referrals to an Italian book from 1972 about the 1914 Giro, but he is more concerned about mirth and his efforts, than truly penetrating to the essence of the Giro and what the experience was actually like for those who competed in it.  

There is no denying that he has a much deeper understanding and interest in bicycle racing than when he undertook his Tour de France ride.  For one, he knew enough to train for this ride.  It consisted mostly of riding a stationary bike while he watched the broadcast of various races. The commentary from those broadcasts was deeply embedded in his subconscious.  He frequently hears the voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen as he rides along, and confesses he doesn't think he could have finished the ride without them.  He is inspired to keep battling a vicious wind as he imagines Sherwen describing his efforts: "Moore's got the race-face on and he's pumping those two big pistons he calls legs." 

He finds encouragement too from the wisdom of Paul de Vive, an early-day French cycling enthusiast who was the first to advocate bicycle touring.  He agrees with de Vive that cycling is "a wonderful tonic," but adds that, "There is no point in denying that sometimes its shit." "The shit" is what he prefers to dwell upon, not only in this book, but in his previous one. 

His research is impeccable enough that I only caught one minor factual error.  He wrote that Eugene Christophe broke his fork in the Pyrenees in 1912.  It was actually 1913.  But he doesn't make the error that many books do of the time penalty he was assessed for accepting the assistance of a young boy to operate a bellows as he repairs it. He plays it safe by writing he was penalized rather than giving the exact amount--ten minutes reduced to three.

Moore spent thirty-two days riding the eight stages of this Giro.  They averaged 250 miles each.  It took him five days to ride the first stage in which 37 of the 81 starters dropped out.  By the end he was determined to ride the final stage in three days.  His pain and suffering is the main thrust of his story.  He walks up many a climb, though not if there are others around.  He's not sure if he wants to give a friendly driver who encouraged him on one steep climb to keep pedaling "a tearful hug" when he meets him at the summit or to "punch his lights out" for prolonging his suffering.  Tears figure in at another summit during a few day stretch when he was joined by a much stronger friend on a contemporary bike.  His friend reaches the summit well before he does.  When Moore joins him, he douses himself with water from a spring, hoping his friend can't distinguish it from his "tears of relief."  When he weeps on another hill he explains that "riding a bike up a big hill makes heroes of us all."

Tears receive a frequent mention, not only his own, but those of others.  The great Italian cyclist, Costante Girardengo, the first to be anointed "campionissimo" ( champion of champions), competed in the race as a 21-year old.  He won the third stage, but was so depleted by the effort that he abandoned the race twenty-two miles into the fifth stage, "sobbing apologies for letting everyone down."  Moore goes back to the first Tour de France in 1903 to add emphasis to what a horrific ordeal bicycle racing can be.  He quotes its winner, Maurice Gann, as lamenting that he "cried all the way from Lyon to Marseille" on its second of six stages.  The winner of the 1914 Giro, Alfonso Calzolari, cries as well, though in a different manner. As an 85-year old recounting the race to the author of the book Moore uses as his chief source, he says that he "cried like a baby" over accusations that he cheated.

Moore chooses to ride a dinosaur of a bike so he can suffer as the racers suffered and refers to the ordeal of the 1914 Giro as a "solar fireball of suffering."  He strains his literary muscles to such an extent when describing his suffering that it must have wearied them to the point of exhaustion bordering on pain and suffering.  He endures "slow-roasted suffering."  His legs were "blasted in shiny pain."  On another occasion they "glowed with pain." He is distracted by "blinding pulses of neat pain."  He seeks "majorly suffering" such as Sean Kelly describes when he comments on races.  This was the first Giro since the inaugural race in 1909, six years after the first Tour de France, to be decided by time rather than points.  Moore calls that "the sour cherry on top of the pain-cake," as a rider couldn't build up a cushion from points and take it easy on a stage.  They had to ride every stage hard.

By stage five he's able to put his mind on "auto-pilot oblivion," enabling him to go "whole hours without asking aloud whose stupid bloody idea this was."  The book is packed with British lingo.  The b-words run rampant--bloody, blokes, bollack, bin, bitters, bodge, buggery, boot, buttocks.  His favorite b-word though is the French bidon for water bottle.  He mounts his handlebars with a pair of vintage metal bidons, and there is a photo to show them.  The book is scattered with photos of the author and his bike and his gear, including a photo of his laundry in a hotel sink.

He makes mention of his Tour de France ride from time to time.  He sees many more "proper road cyclists" in Italy than he did in France, in fact more in one hour on the outskirts of Turin than in his entire circuit of France.  The Italians are also more lively.  Many react with great glee at his ancient bike and his get-up, complete with goggles.  He regularly encounters prostitutes along the road, a subject that didn't come up in his previous book.  Two on a sofa propose a mènage a trois. In Rome’s "tart belt" a completely naked women beckons him from the shadows.  

He learned from his French ride that a definitive article preceding a mountain, such as Le Ventoux or L'Alpe d'Huez, is a warning of a sort, giving the mountain an added measure of respect.  The Italians refer to their most intimidating mountains in a similar manner, letting him know he’d have to summon a little extra effort.  Such observations do show he has a sharp and attentive eye, lending a good amount of merit to this book. My tastes would have been much better served though if Moore had placed more focus on informing than tickling and had concentrated more on racing than masquerading as a racer.  

Headwinds Across Illinois

Gusting winds were blowing me all over the road and sometimes off it for 160 miles on my home stretch run across Illinois from the Mississippi River to Chicago.  My water bottles weren't transparent, so I couldn't claim to have white caps in them, as did "Des Moines Register" columnist John Karras, co-founder of RAGBRAI, on one of his rides across Iowa, but I wouldn't have doubted if there were. If someone had stopped to offer me a ride, as happened in Nebraska in much milder conditions, I might have accepted, not only to be spared the danger and the strain of the conditions, but also because I had ridden this highway a couple times before.

A grizzled old-timer in a beat-up pickup truck did stop with an offer--not of a ride but rather of a five dollar bill.  It was a few miles past Mendota at about my halfway point across the state.  "I spent a couple years on the road myself," he said.  "I know what its like out there.  Here take this.  There's a McDonald's a couple miles up the road.  Have yourself a cup of coffee and something to eat. You're lucky to be passing through, as things aren't so good here.  Two of our three factories are closed up.  Lots of people are out of work and a good many of those who aren't have to drive a long ways to their jobs in other towns.  I'm glad to be retired." 

He wasn't the only kindly soul who wasn't particularly well-off who thought I might be a victim of these hard times and short on funds. The day before outside of Davenport I stopped to ask a bedraggled older fellow, who from a distance appeared to be a touring cyclist, for a cycling-friendly bridge over the Mississippi.  The bags adorning his bike were actually filled with aluminum cans and he was stopped along the road gathering more.   He said he lived in a tent in the nearby woods. After he gave me directions to the Centennial Bridge, I asked him if there was a grocery store up ahead.  "Do you need some money?" he asked.  "I could give you some."  

I felt as if I should have been the one doing the offering.  I'd pick up a pair of vise grips a few miles back.  "Could you use this?," I asked.

"That's in pretty good condition," he said.  "How much do you want for it?"

"No, no, take it," I said.  "I was just rescuing it from the road and looking for someone to give it to."  Then I pulled out a couple of bungee cords and offered him those too.  "No thanks," he said. "I find plenty of those myself."  

It was late in the day.  He advised me not to try to bushwhack in downtown Davenport as there were some unsavory characters there.  He is caught by dark on occasion in the city and has to be careful where he sleeps.   "I sleep sitting up so I can make a quick eacape," he said.  "There are punks who like to come along and give you a boot."  

I was sorry I was pressed for time, otherwise I would have asked if I could share his campsite in the woods. I knew he could keep me up late with his tales.  Though he might not have been monetarily rich, I could tell he'd led a life rich in experience.  He had not an iota of resentment or despair.  He was a survivor who was doing just fine.

I had to ride on a narrow sidewalk across the bridge and could only take quick glances at the river below as I tried to hold my line in the strong wind. I had visited the Carnegie in Moline a couple years ago, so I could head right out of town.  I crossed the Rock River before its confluence with the Mississippi and passed through the town of Milan.  A car dealership had a banner out front that might have been inspired by Huck Finn.

A llittle further, as dark fell, I camped along the Quad City International Airport, my first non-cornfield campsite in days.  The wind ruffled my tent all night. I had to wear an extra layer to stay warm in my sleeping bag.   In the morning several formations of geese passd overhead on their way south.  There wasn't a Carnegie Library along the route that I hadn't visited.  My stops were minimal.  I just grinded away into the strong wind between seven and eleven miles per hour depending on what the wind and terrrain allowed.  With 1,500 miles in my legs from Telluride, they were strong enough to put in close to eight hours of effort in the less than twelve hours of light at my disposal.  There was no relaxing or gliding in these conditions.  

Struggle though it was, it was satisfying to be out in these less than optimal conditions and persevering, watching the farmers in their huge combines harvesting their corn and appreciating a few early Halloween decorations.  One farmhouse just east of Walnut was populated by an army of nearly a hundred ghoulish characters, some hanging from trees.  One guarded the mail box.

Another supervised the sale of road kill.

The sun was setting.  I didn't want to camp too near this band of characters.  A few miles down the road I found a high and thick field of unharvested corn that provided enough of a windbreak that I thought the wind might have calmed down during the night.  But when I emerged from my tent I could see the nearby wind-turbines were still spinning and pointing in the wrong direction. On I pushed.  I had 90 miles to Janina's. I really wanted to make it this day even if I had I to push on into the dark. I knew once I got to the urban sprawl the wind would be somewhat blunted.  

I was within twenty miles when the last of the sun's light was gone.  I had turned on to 75th Street from highway 34.  It had a nice wide shoulder.  I'd never come in this way before and didn't know if the shoulder would hold up all the way to my turn on to Plainfield.  Before I could find out the air turned misty and my glasses became dewy.  My limited visibility became even more limited.  I survived for six miles riding with great caution.  I wasn't tired, but this was becoming a bit too stressful and perilous.  I had passed up several forests already, wondering if it was a mistake.  When I came to another, better judgement prevailed and I turned in.  At the speed I was going it would be at least two more hours of riding in the dark, sweating out each revolution of the pedals.  Rather than feeling defeated, I felt happy to have one last night in my tent.  It made my arrival at Janina's the next morning all the more joyous.  Though I was reveling in the completion of another great journey, I was already looking forward to being back on the road next month for a ride to Fort Benning in Georgia once again for the vigil honoring the six Jesuits priests and their housekeeper and her daughter murdered in El Salvador twenty-six years ago.

West Liberty, Iowa

When I saw a set of bike sculptures in front of the Carnegie Library in West Liberty, I thought maybe they had been put up by someone anticipating my arrival. It wasn't likely, as the last two Carnegies on my route were no longer libraries, so no one within the last one hundred miles could have alerted West Liberty to me and my quest, as happened in Indiana last spring.

My first question for the librarian, rather than "Do I need a password for your WIFI?," was, "What's the significance of the bike sculptures out front?"  Several of the librarians had ridden RAGBRAI this past July as a fund raiser for the library and the sculptures brought attention to their endeavor.  They raised over $5000 from pledges and also the sale of T-shirts. There was one on display on the circulation desk along with a photo of the four librarians and a city councilman who participated in the ride.

I figured the library would have at least a couple of the several books written about RAGBRAI.  None were on display, so I asked where the 700 section was.  "We no longer use the Dewey Decimal System," I was told.  "We file things by subject.  I'll show you where our bike books are."

Not all were grouped together, as personal accounts were in the biography section.  There were two about people who had ridden coast-to-coast, one of which I had read, but curiously none on RAGBRAI, especially since the librarian I  was talking to had ridden RAGBRAI five times and was the inspiration for the others to do it. She had also just read the recently published "Gironimo!" on the 1914 Giro d'Italia that I am eager to read.  There was enough local bike interest for the library's copy to be checked out.  She was aware of my friend Greg Borzo's 2013 book laden with photos on the history of RAGBRAI, but hadn't acquired it.  She checked the holdings of other Iowa libraries and could find only one that had a copy of it.  

She wasn't all that surprised, as she explained that RAGBRAI isn't as popular within the state as out-of-staters might think, as many Iowans are turned off by some of the rowdiness associated with it.  There are those who ride it once and say they'll never do it again.  I asked if she knew my friend Kathy, who has ridden it many times with a schnauzer.  "Of course, everybody knows her," she said.  "She's so popular that she charges people to take her photo with her dog and gives the money to a charity, an animal shelter."

I hadn't noticed Carnegie's portrait and asked if they had one.  It was high above the elevator facing the library's new entrance.  The library had been expanded in 2001, extending it off to the left without it appearing to be an addition.

To the right of the original entrance there was a cabinet with books for trade.  

It was a replica of such cabinets known as "Little Free Lbraries" offered by http://littlefreelibrary.org.  They sell kits ranging from $150 to $1000. Janina has several neighbors out in LaGrange with such contraptions in front of their homes.  This was built by a local craftsman.  He had made six of them, all of different designs.  They were scattered around town in parks and other public places.  The library stocks them with discards and donated books.  The librarian acknowledged that not everyone trades a book for a book as is encouraged, so sometimes their stocks begin to wane, but she was just happy that people were availing themselves of the books.  They used to have extra "Oprah" books to spread around, as for a couple year period early in her program they would receive a monthly batch of twelve hard-back copies of her latest selection.  She also had strong words of commendation for Bill Gates.  He had made it possible for her libary and countless others to join the Internet age.  Without his generosity they would not have been able to afford computers.  She felt almost as much goodwill towards him as she did for Carnegie.

Our conversation went on for so long talking of books and bikes, my legs began to tire and I had to apologize that I needed to sit. I had been pushing into a strong head wind the past three days, partially thanks to hurricane Joaquim brewing in the Caribbean, blasting a cold wind out of the east.  I had wanted to make it back to Chicago by the end of the month to help my roommate clear out of our apartment, as our landlord had sold our building to a developer and we were being evicted.  I had moved out most of my stuff before I left for Telluride, but had left a few minor items behind, mostly posters and pictures.  Debbie had gained permission from the new landlord to leave such things in the basement through the weekend as long as everything was out of our apartment.  I was sorry the winds were preventing me from helping her complete her move.

I had extended my mileage a bit by swinging up to the college town and state capital, Iowa City, for its Carnegie.  It had been a dandy, but had been converted into five apartments catering to students. It had lost its luster and wasn't particularly well-maintained.  The grounds around it were strewn with cigarette butts.  It was on the fringe of the campus, across the street from the new large glassy library.  A large number of students were wearing Iowa sweatshirts in the chilly fifty degree temperature, that had me in tights for the first time on this trip.

I had to push directly into the northeast wind for over fifty miles from the previous Carnegie in Sigourney.  It was in the process of being converted into a residence even though it still had a canopy with "Library" on it over its entrance.  The new library on the outskirts of the town had little more character than a warehouse.  The librarian spoke with great nostalgia for what a fine place it had been to spend her days.

West Liberty would be the last of my Carnegies in Iowa, as the one in Davenport, where I would cross the Mississippi back into Illinois, had been demolished.  That left me with an even dozen in Iowa, two more than on my crossing two years ago.  That leaves me with seventy-six more to track down in the state.  There had been 108, but ten are no more.

Eldon, Iowa

When I entered the Carnegie Library in Leon I was greeted by the librarian, who handed me a sturdy cloth bag with the library's name on it and the slogan, "Branching to the future, Rooted in the past."  He said, "We're celebrating going electronic today and we're giving out these bags to the first fifty people to enter the library.  Help yourself to the home-made cookies and lemonade over there and take a pen too."

"My goodness.  You've actually still been using a card catalogue up until now?"

"We have.  And if you'd like it, you're welcome to participate in our silent auction."

"Do you have any books on RAGBRAI," I asked.

"I don't think so, but I'll check."

While he did, I gave a quick glance to the 796.6 section.  There wasn't a single cycling book, nor were there any on RAGBRAI filed elsewhere.  I was becoming accustomed to such news.  I had recently heard the author of "Rumble Yell," a first-person account of riding across Iowa with thousands of others, interviewed on the Outspoken Cyclist podcast.  I was hoping to read a chapter in each Iowa library I stopped at.  I had yet to read even a page of this 2013 book.

Even though Iowa is celebrated for and somewhat defined by this huge cycling event that dates to 1973, I had yet to meet anyone who had actually ridden it. This is the second year in a row I've ridden across Iowa on my return to Chicago from Telluride and the second year where I hadn't met a RAGBRAI veteran.  It seems as if a good percentage of the 15,000 who join in on the ride every year are non-Iowans even though it was originated by a couple of Iowa journalists to celebrate their state.  I have no recollection from when I rode RAGBRAI thirty years ago how many locals were on the ride, only that we were treated very well by all the locals.

That hasn't changed.  Iowans have been significantly more friendly than those in Nebraska and most other states I have bicycled through.  I was pretty much ignored in Nebraska, but here in Iowa people are regularly approaching me for a word or two.  During my next break after Leon, as I sat eating a burrito at a service station, an older guy wanted to share some of his bicycling exploits with me, including riding in RAGBRAI in its second year.  At last, I finally met someone who had ridden RAGBRAI.  He enjoyed it, but never rode it again, preferring other bicycle adventures, including a ride to Alaska with a friend.  With typical Midwest non-chalance he commented, "I'm not bragging, but I was a little stronger on the hills than he was.  I found that if I let him lead the way, he'd ride harder than if I went ahead."

I wasn't able to scan the book shelves of the Mount Ayr Carnegie, as it only had week-day afternoon hours and I was there in the morning.  I would have liked to have seen if its interior had any extra touches similar to the tile mosaic of Public Library on its exterior.  It gazed upon the county courthouse in the town center from a corner plot of land that hadn't allowed for any additions.

I couldn't gain entry to the Corydon Carnegie either, though it didn't matter much, as it no longer served as a library. It was right next to the high school and had been appropriated by it after being replaced by a new library several blocks away.  Like Leon's library, it had Carnegie chiseled into its front facade.

As I stood gazing at it, a guy with a bandana on his head told me I ought to check out the mural in the post office across the street. "Its famous," he said. "It was one of those New Deal paintings."  It was painted in 1942 by Marian Gilmore, a student of Norman Rockwell.  It was entitled "Volunteer Fire Department." She had earlier won a nation-wide competition for a mural in another small town in Iowa.

Further down the road as I entered Bloomfield I came upon a series of homes brandishing "Trump for President" signs with the slogan "Make America Great Again," the first politicking, other than the many anti-abortion billboards, of these travels.  One Trump supporter was also flying the Confederate flag.

The Bloomfield Carnegie was adorned with an intricate ramp.  Few Carnegies are handicap-accessible as they generally have a symbolic set of steps that one must climb as if mounting one's self to higher realms.  The librarian told me that if I returned next year there would be an addition, its first significant alteration other than the ramp. The library did have National Historic status, so had to comply with certain regulations to make the addition.

The librarian in Eldon said she had been trying to raise funds for years to enlarge her one-room library but hadn't succeeded.  Her library had "Free" engraved in its facade, adding extra emphasis that I was going back in time when I entered this century old library.  "Carnegie Library" was  chiseled in the corner stone and his portrait hung above the book shelves.  The bathroom was down a steep staircase accessed from the librarian's alcove behind the majesterial circulation desk. I was the only patron during its final forty-five minutes up to closing time at 5:30.

Bedford, Iowa

Even though Andrew Carnegie provided the funds for 1,679 libraries in the US, doubling the number of public libraries in the country during his era of giving between 1890 and 1920, not every town in the country has a Carnegie, though they could have if they met his simple criteria of providing a parcel of land for the library near its center and passing a bond issue to maintain it amounting to ten per cent per year of his contribution for the construction of the library.  He didn't even give away half as much money as he wanted to for libraries.

Still, there are so many of his libraries that when I pass through a town without one, I wonder how they could have missed the boat.  The town of Nebraska City on the Missouri River had a good excuse--a local benefactor had already provided them with a most substantial library.  Nebraska City was the home of Julius Sterling Morton, a newspaper publisher who was a strong advocate of tree planting and  the originator of Arbor Day in 1872.  He went on to be the first Secretary of Agriculture in 1893 under President Cleveland.  His son founded Morton Salt in Chicago and became someone of great wealth.  He funded a grand library in his home town in 1895.  It has been added on to and is grander than ever.  It screams for attention, unlike the quiet, assured dignity of a Carnegie. It had the ostentation that Carnegie discouraged, though one could hardly argue that an abode for books could be too nice.

Nebraska City made for a fine farewell to Nebraska, though the forty miles leading to it were on a four-lane divided highway with a non-stop din of traffic reverberating in my ears, the least pleasant stretch of my ride across the state, harkening me back to my ride along Colorado's Western Front.  I had a good, wide shoulder to ride on, but it didn't provide a distant enough buffer for me to even listen to my wealth of podcasts.  I had no viable alternative, as I ducked below Lincoln, having visited its set of Carnegies two years ago.  There are few bridges across the Missouri River.  I needed to cross at Nebraska City to begin my series of Carnegies along the southern border of Iowa.  

My final of seven Nebraska Carnegies came in Crete, seventy miles before leaving the state.  Its librarian gave me a brochure detailing its history and the services it offered.  It had had a large addition that blended nicely into its original red brick exterior.  

Among its amenities was a collection of 120 cake pans for borrowing.  "Is that a common feature of Nebraska libraries?" I asked.

"No, I think we're the only library in the state that does it," the librarian replied.

I didn't burst her bubble and tell her about the library in Arapahoe with a similar quantity of pans for its patrons.  Instead, I asked, "Are they popular?"

"They are, especially during the holidays."

My route from Crete towards Lincoln included another unexpected stretch of gravel for five or six miles.  At least it was hard-packed and had virtually no traffic.  But I had to stop and add air to my tires as I had slow leaks in both of them after another encounter with goatheads the night before.  When I returned to the road from my cornfield campsite both tires were studded with the pesky little balls of small darts that can leave the barest of pinpricks in one's tubes.  I thought I had patched all the punctures, but unfortunately hadn't.  No bike shops remain in rural small-town American, but, miraculously, Walmart sells the not so common presta valve tubes, such as I needed, and also patch kits.  The first Walmart I came upon was out of the narrower tubes that I prefer, but the slightly wider ones it had in stock sufficed.  I thought I had left the goatheads behind me by the time I reached Nebraska.  Hopefully they haven't encroached upon Iowa.

I crossed into Iowa over the Missouri River after descending from the bluffs of Nebraska City and a Lewis and Clark park. I had dropped three thousand feet in my four hundred mile ride across the state. It was flat riding through a valley for six miles before turning south for nine miles on the shoulder of a bluff to the town of Hamburg a couple miles north of Missouri and my first Iowa Carnegie of these travels.  It was unmarred by additions and stood alone in full small-town glory with the sun setting behind it.  It was closed, but its WIFI required no password, so I was able to catch up with Janina on FaceTime.  She had the good news that she had completed her Telluride Journal and posted it at http://merelycirculating.com

Ten miles down the road I burrowed into a cornfield for the night.  I couldn't sitatute my tent to allow the sun to hit it in the morning and dry the dew, so had to roll it up damp.  It was fifteen miles to Shenondoah and its Carnegie.  

As I sat on its steps with it closed on Sundays, drinking chocolate milk and eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich, reading a book since its WIFI was blocked, an elderly woman walked by and asked, "Where are you riding to?"  After I told her, she said she had walked the Appalachia Trail over twenty years ago when she was sixty. She's not the first such person who I've met in my travels who had accomplished the feat and knew I was someone who would appreciate it. "I did the whole thing and I did it on my own," she added.

"That's impressive," I said.  "I know a lot of people try, but not very many complete the whole trail."

"Yes, I'm a tough country girl."

"Do you bike?" I asked.

"I used to, but not since I got a pace-maker.  I'd like to talk some more, but I'm on my way to church. Sorry to ask you where you're going.  I know its none of my business.  I was just curious."

"Not at all.  Thanks for telling me about your hike.  Its always nice to meet someone who has accomplished that."

"God bless you."

The Carnegie in Clarinda had been converted into a first class art museum by a couple who had grown up in Clarinda and went on to a successful career in aviation in Lincoln, less than one hundred miles away.  The library had played an important part in their life's and they were happy to rescue it when it came up for auction a few years ago.  The current exhibit included an incinerated Citroen out front, the work of an Argentinian artist that represented the series of car bombings in his country during its years of unrest.

I reached Bedford and its Carnegie as the full moon that would be eclipsed in a few hours began to rise from the horizon in front of me.

With no signs for the library I stopped at the downtown Casey's General Store to ask its whereabouts and also to fill my water bottles. It was across the street on the corner of Jefferson and Madison.  It was a perfect example of a Carnegie--eighteen steps up to its entrance flanked by a pair of white globes not yet turned on.  Over the entry was "Public Library" and just below the word "Free."  Up above was 1916.  A plaque acknowledged it as a National Historic Place.  To the left was a flag pole.  It had no additions other than an air conditioning unit to its rear and a book return box out front.

I pedaled five miles down the road towards the moon until dark and slipped into a little gulley beside a corn field and behind a cluster of trees.  An hour later when I was eating my second bowl of ramen and creamed corn I heard a car stop along the road and then saw a bright spot light trying to penetrate the trees.  I opened my tent door for a better look.  There were actually two cars.  Then I heard a voice shouting, "Is anybody down there?"  They hadn't actually spotted me, but evidently I had been reported.  The officers seemed reluctant to approach me, so I climbed up to the road to face the consequences.

"I'm traveling by bicycle," I explained.

"We know," the young, non-threatening officers responded.  "We've had a couple of reports on you.  We heard you were at the Casey's in Bedford.  People around here are suspicious of strangers. A hitch-hiker passing through here a couple years ago shot some people. Do you have any ID?"

I had it at the ready.  As I handed it over I asked, "Do you know how the Bears did today?"

"They we're losing 3-0 at the half."

"Could you ask how the game ended when you call in my license?"

While one officer retreated to his car the other said, "Keep your hands out of your pockets if you would."

"What's the story on the hitch-hiker?" I asked. 

"He was an escaped convict from the Clarinda Correctional Facility.  He broke into somebody's house and got their guns and used them.  He actually shot my partner in the shoulder."

We had the eclipsing moon to watch while we waited the verdict on whether I was wanted.  The officer left with me said he thought it would be cool to ride one's bike across the country.  He hadn't ridden RAGBRAI, but had many friends who had and knew he'd do it one of these years.  When I told him I went to Bedford to see its Carnegie, he said his partner's wife was the librarian there and she was busy getting ready for its 100th anniverary next year.

When the other officer returned he said, "They lost 26-0.  You're clear."  Then he told his partner they had a domestic dispute to tend to.

"Sorry to put you guys out," I said.

"That's okay.  Have a good night."

During the interlude the moon had nearly disappeared. I saw much more of it than if I had been in my tent.  

I'm getting used to being checked out by the police.  Last year it happened five times in five states--Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Illinois and Indiana.  Like finding neckerchiefs, bungee cords and license plates along the road, its not an official tour until my driver's license has been called in.  I just wonder how more frequent it would be if I were another color or wore a turban.