Team Cornpone’s April Fool’s Ride 4/1/2017 in Buchanan Co., Iowa

Captions: 1. Team Cornpone's karaoke DJ, Mitch. Jim thought he looked like ZZ Top, but Mitch said, "Duck Dynasty." It is Buchanan County, after all. 2. Hillary Clinton, with Jim holding her head on for the photo. Someone ripped her head off before we got there. 3.On left, Jim Conzemius; on right, Maria Conzemius. 4. The Cedar River alongside the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. 5. A bicyclist with fat tires on his bike. He raised his arms when he saw me ready to take his photo with my camera.

Team Cornpone, located in the wilds of Buchanan County, Iowa, announced before the 4/1/2017 Fool’s Ride that Donald J. Trump, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Kellyanne Conway would appear on the ride. Unfortunately, only Trump, Hillary, and a bear showed up.

Riding from Phat Albert’s bar to Brandon, Iowa, where we saw someone wearing a real coonskin hat, to LaPorte City, Iowa on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, Jim and I couldn’t find Trump, Hillary, or the bear, which made a surprise appearance.

On the way back to Brandon, we saw Trump, with pig’s feet instead of dress shoes. Then we saw a bear. We also saw Hillary with her head ripped off. I asked Jim, my husband, to hold Hillary’s head on so I could take a photo of her intact. Afterward, Jim laid Hillary’s cardboard head on the pole she was mounted on.

At Phat Albert’s in Brandon, Rebecca, a Libertarian friend of ours, assured us that Hillary’s head was intact when she passed. Some Hillary hater must have just ripped it off after Rebecca passed by and before we did.

Rebecca is a teacher and is very unhappy that the Republicans destroyed her collective bargaining rights. It must be tough to do the hard work of a teacher and feel disrespected like that.

We talked to a Trump voter at the only bar still open in LaPorte City and were amazed by his world views. He called himself an “environmentalist” but believes there’s such a thing as “clean coal.” That reminds of my right-wing acquaintance on Facebook who called the women on the U.S. Supreme Court “old hags,” and then claimed in the same sentence that he’s not a misogynist. Self-delusion seems to be the hallmark of Trump and Trump voters.

I was somewhat appeased by Trump’s cloven feet on his cardboard cut-out. Obviously some astute editing went on.

There were so many riders that Phat Albert’s ran out of food. We got one of the last pork sandwiches left, and I’d wanted a brat. Turns out I was lucky to get food at all.

We had a good time, but I was somewhat dismayed by how much drinking was going on. Huge crowds of drinkers and partiers blocked the trail so I had to announce that we wanted to pass through before they’d let us through.

The Cedar Valley Nature Trail is in amazingly good shape. The Department of Natural Resources staff/forestry staff in charge of the trail is doing a really good job. The trail was in terrible shape before the new person took charge. There were branches all over the trail in the old days and some of us fell off of our bicycles and really hurt ourselves when a branch would get tangled in our spokes. For a long time we had to take the country roads because the trail was impassable. Two bridges were out, for one thing. They’re back in service now.

The Cedar Valley Nature Trail goes from Hiawatha all the way to Waterloo. It’s about 52 miles long, and it holds a lot of happy memories for us. We remember going on the two or three KGAN rides with our kids when they were little. On the first one in 1992, Sarah was two and a half and Jesse was seven, almost eight years old. Sarah was very good the first day with her bunny and books in the Burley buggy behind Jim’s bike. Jesse rode his own bike. But by the second day, Sarah had missed her nap and threw a fit, so Jim and Sarah rode back in the luggage truck with the driver, and Jesse and I rode back on our bikes. That is, we rode back until Jesse wolfed down hot dogs and pop at a stop. Naturally, he got sick.

Mercifully, a Chicago soccer player offered to carry Jesse’s bike on his shoulder while riding his own bicycle. I carried Jesse in the baby seat behind my bike, which was limited to 40 pounds. He weighed 65 pounds. The only time it was really tough was when we got to that stretch of big gravel where a farmer refused to sell his land to the trail and an improvised detour had to be made to accommodate the farmer and stay off his property. (Eventually, the farmer sold a piece of his land so the trail could pass through without a detour.)

That day I ran out of energy when we reached Center Point after riding almost 100 miles in two days. A KGAN weather man picked us up in a van in Center Point, and gosh, was I grateful. Sarah and Jim arrived in the luggage van some time later in the parking lot where we’d left our car. Sarah’s little face was red from bawling her head off. Tears were streaming down her face. I had to feel sorry for the driver, but I felt worse for her. She’d been separated from her mommy and done without two naps by that point. Jesse was feeling better. Not so much Sarah until she was reunited with me and fell asleep in the carseat in the back of the car.

We miss doing RAGBRAI with the kids when they were younger. We miss them terribly. Jesse became such a strong rider he could ride 110 miles and push his sister the last 10 miles. Sarah became such a strong rider she could beat strong men up the hills when she was 14 years old. She loved messing with them. She had a great strength-to-weight ratio. They both did.

Jesse was my revenge. He was so fast. I would tell him, “Jesse, don’t draft that ambulance!”

He’d say, “Mom, I’m not drafting it! I’m trying to pass it!”

Oh Lord, it’s amazing he’s still alive, but he is, and I hope he stays that way.

Both kids have cars now. Sarah’s 28 and Jesse’s 33 years old. I wish they’d remember what strong cyclists they used to be. I wish I could get back the strength I had in my forties. I need to train a lot more to get ready for RAGBRAI.