Every year, during the hottest week of the year, there's something called RAGBRAI. Basically, it's several thousand people taking a week to bike across Iowa. Every year, it's a different route, and this year it came through Coralville. Although every town that the route passes through has something special going on for the riders (food, mostly), the designated overnight spots are where the parties are. My next door neighbor offered to host a group (provide a place for their RV, offer showers, and a place to sleep and to store their bikes).

Since there was this party next door, I got myself invited over and met some pretty cool people. The group was put together by a guy from Seattle, who invited all his old college friends from Ottomua Heights (now Indian Hills) to go with him: "If I plan, will you ride?" Some of these people hadn't seen each other in 20 years, so it was a lot of fun eavesdropping on their reminiscing. The other interesting thing was hearing the impressions of Iowa from the out-of-staters. They hadn't seen lightning bugs before, and thought the locusts were really loud. (Which they actually are in my neighborhood for some reason. Mom was up a couple days ago and commented on how loud they were.) They also couldn't get over how fabulous the pie was. "Those churches are the place to eat along the way. Those grandmas can really bake pie."