Ride of the People of the Corn
 

RAGBRAI 2014. 450 miles across the northern counties of Iowa, a small town ride. I ride with the USAF team, 125 riders and 12 support personnel. A great time as usual. Only one bad day , a half day when I was caught in a rainstorm with cold and strong winds. Soaked and starting to feel sorry for myself when a woman comes along singing " My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

We rode through Clear Lake, and who can miss the Surf Ballroom, where the music died in 1959 with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valenzuela, but as you can see the music didn't die and the Winter Dance Party is still held. People come from all over including foreign countries. ZZ Top plays this fall. New groups and old favorites. I sat in a booth for an hour just taking it all in and listening to old time rock and roll.

Small towns and dancing in the streets.

A field full of wildflowers. Overheard a woman " we don't have anything like this in Los Angeles".

A great dinner and relaxing evening in the comfortable Lake Okoboji home of Jeff and Weezie Christie, fellow USAF retirees. Pheasant dinner from birds a mile or so away.

Many miles of Amish communities with horse and buggies and women selling pies and pastries. Did I mention the pies? Cherry, blueberry, raspberry, too hard to choose, so I had them all.

Ice cream made in churns turned by old hit and miss farm engines. When you use 4000 calories per day to power the legs engine, I eat way more than usual.

Watched a custom car maker in a small town with an early 50's lead sled chopped top Olds crammed with a turbocharged Cummins diesel engine. Torque and hard to keep the tires in traction.

So our long day was 105 miles and the short 40 miles. High temp was 86, low daytime was 73. Great weather and I'm looking forward to next year.

Thanks Bruce ,I look forward to this post every year...something I would like to do if I ever made it down that way ,by the way...I especially like the Mermaid !

Old time rock 'n roll, lead sleds. and the Surf... Oh Yeah! These are a few of my favorite things! No kidding, the Surf Nantasket at Nantasket Beach here in Massachusetts... anybody remember it or been there?

Thanks Bruce!

How about a picture of the car Bruce??? Those of us from around Detroit need to see that!

I don't have a photo of the chopped olds but here are some if the builders other cars. 50 woody without wood, a 57 fairlane and something in front I forgot what it was.

And for those who like big iron , my old airplane loaded and waiting A handful of throttles , get the gear and flaps up and head north.

Crew door

Four MA 2 Browning 50 s

Isn't that Ford a '58?

Twin headlights I believe makes it a '58.

Yes. The '57 had single headlights + it says 1958 on the sign on the side. I think the one right in front looks like a studebaker based on the configuration of the one headlight I can see and way the hood tapers towards the little round chrome grill assembly if you could see it.

I bet Studebaker as well. Maybe a 49, 50, or 51.

Are you certain that is a Galaxie and not a Sunliner? My uncle had one with the police interceptor engine. 58 sounds right.

This one has the rare retractable hardtop. Those were so cool! We had a '58 with posi-traction and the 352 police interceptor that had 4-bbl carb with huge throats. That baby would flat out haullllll asssss, but it was a puppy compared to my grandfather's '58 Chevy Biscayne with the experimental 400HP 348 with a 4-bbl, posi-traction and a 4-sp super turbo hydromatic transmission. My grandmother turned into a NASCAR driver every time she got behind the wheel of that thing. Pretty fun for us kids.

We had a '63 Galaxy wagon with the 352 4bbl and overdrive. You pulled a control handle under the dash to engage it.... talk about flyin' down the highway!!

I know the handle Dean! I bought a '65 Ford station wagon from a neighbor here just for the 289 engine that I wanted for my '69 Bronco. The wagon had a 3-spd w/overdrive with that cable control and got 25mpg on the highway. It was near mint, didn't have any rust on it and had all new glass. I gave it away after removing the engine. I was soooo tempted to keep it. It had been undercoated and didn't have ANY rust underneath and the interior was like new. Pete had parked it when something went wrong with the transmission, which I discovered was just a sheared bolt that held one of the shift levers onto the txmission and would have taken him about 15 minutes to fix. Apparently he never crawled under to find the problem. The engine was a project. I got it all installed in the Bronco and it wouldn't turn over - damn. The lifters and valves and lord knows what else were rusted up so I reverted to my hillbilly mechanic days from when I was 12-16 yrs old and started pouring oil all over the top end and slowly turning it over with a breaker bar and cheater on the balancer. When valves stuck and wouldn't retract and seat I dumped more oil on them and beat them loose with a big wooden mallet until they all moved to my satisfaction then folded the hood out of the way against the windshield and dumped motor oil and gasoline down the carb and started cranking it over and the fun began. It started with a few minor explosions and belched rust, black oily smoke and flames about 3ft high out the carb and exhaust for a while as it came to life, but after a few minutes and one minor grass fire was purring like at least a John Deere and I reckoned we were in business! Down went the hood and away we went for a test ride. After a few miles of sputtering and backfiring it smoothed out and ran like a new car. I wouldn't have been happier in a new Caddy! Eventually I pulled it out and creatively installed the 170CI 6-cyl out of my '66 Bronco in it. The V8 had too much power. I'm still using the Bronco for plowing snow, for which it is perfect. We definitely have some history together....