The following is an account of what two Daily staff members,

Eric Rowley and Jill Sederstrom, experienced while traveling with

several groups of RAGBRAI participants with ties to Iowa State.

Eric is the Daily’s photography editor and is a senior in

journalism and mass communication from Rockford, Ill. Jill will be

one of the Daily’s news editors next fall and is a senior in

journalism and mass communication from Overland Park, Kan. As Eric

and Jill discovered, doing a story away from home is never as easy

as one may think.

DAY THREE AND A HALF:

After making sure the Wild Wild West beer garden and The Lacker

Room was properly serving beers at the correct temperature for

drinking; we walked back to camp. As we rounded the corner on Lewis

Street I noticed some of the team members around Jill’s car.

The closer we got to the car, the sooner the horror became

apparent. Travis’ bare buttocks were sliding across

Jill’s driver side window. It was quite funny, although they

denied they were going to do anything.

DAY FOUR:

Today was one of the longer days for the riders, and they got up

extra early and unfortunately we did, too. Five-thirty a.m. never

looked so beautiful, well if the sun was up, I’m sure it

would have been a great sight to see. The team was on the road

before we had brushed our teeth. We were again left in the car,

dazed and confused.

Tearing through the gravel roads once again, Eric took out most

of the bunny population in southern Iowa. He claimed the bunnies

were ‘suicidal bunnies’ but I have my doubts. I did

notice after he had taken out the third bunny, he did slow the car

to 50 mph. We stopped in the small town of Benton, and after

tearing off the small tree stuck to the front of the car, met up

with the team members

We took off on the road again and headed for another of the

biker’s stops. After a panicky 20 minutes in a convenience

store parking lot where Eric searched for his missing ATM card, we

stopped in Kellerton. We spent the rest of the morning wandering

the streets and waiting for ISU students to pass through.

All afternoon Eric and I drove from town to town in a fruitless

search for ISU students. Finally, we met up with both Team Blonde

and the The Killer Bees in Osceola. That night, Eric and I went to

Corn Shuckers Restaurant to work on the story.

DAY FIVE:

Our final day embedded in the RAGBRAI experience started early.

A cool wet morning greeted us. We broke down camp and headed to

Oskaloosa, so Jill could start writing her story. After dropping

her off at William Penn College, I head to the back roads to catch

up with The Killer Bees. This time the trusty gazetteer

wouldn’t have helped me anyway. To my surprise, the one and

only back road to Melcher-Dallas was closed. What are the odds of

the one and only gravel road to Melcher-Dallas being closed? Not

sure, but I think I should play the lottery. After a ten-mile

detour, I was finally in the town, but the kicker is I really

didn’t need to be there, I was only trying to get to the

next RAGBRAI stop. Some how I got turned around in the small town

of 1,298 and ended my frustrating search for the road by asking

Barney Fife for directions. So, another ten mile detour was in

store for me. I eventually reached the town of Lacona, where the

Budweiser Beer Bus was rocking. I looked at my watch and realized

that Jill had been sitting in the library for more than 2 hours. I

caught up with The Killer Bees at 1 p.m., grabbed a few photos and

sped back to Oskaloosa. I pulled into the parking lot of the

library, getting a look from Jill. She was done with the story at

10:45 < it was now 2:15.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sending our story back to the

Iowa State Daily newsroom. Jill headed back to Overland Park,

Kansas, and I looked forward to the rest of my RAGBRAI experience

on the road with Jay Maxwell, systems administrator of the Daily.

We managed to put 1,011 miles on the car in a matter of five days.

In the end, though, it was all worth it.