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| The calf from the morning of T.I.v4's pre-race became the header for T.I.v5. |
By the time of the running of the fifth Trans Iowa, you would think I'd have had everything all figured out. Boy! Nothing could have been further from the truth. With the event evolving every year, and with some of those changes being pretty significant ones, the event really lacked a lot of continuity. The fifth one didn't help much in some ways with that, but in others it was the event which 'solved a lot of problems' for me. I hope to paint a clearer picture of this as I get into the telling of the stories about this, singularly unique, and very memorable, Trans Iowa.
Some things I won't dive into very deeply as there are things I've beaten to death concerning this event. But there are details I've never shared which may help put some puzzle pieces together for some fans of Trans Iowa. I will touch on all that was unique to the event though. One thing in particular should be told up front that I believe was a story that sets the stage for what is to come concerning T.I.v5's stories.
David Pals was still my co-director, and for this Trans Iowa, we had a new territory to explore, but an area that David knew well, being it was within his area of gravel riding from his home, then in Marengo, Iowa. I'll get into why it was we were down that way later, but one of the things David was excited to share with me was a quaint little village called Washington, Iowa.
Now, I had a bit of familiarity with this town, located Southwest of Iowa City, as I had explored possibly living there at one point when I was working in Iowa City as a jeweler. (That's another whole story of my life, but there is no space for that here.) That said, I hadn't really gone "downtown", and this was what David wanted to show me. Washington, like many smaller Southern Iowa villages and towns, has a town square. It was surrounded by businesses, and David was thinking we might use the town square as a checkpoint location. He showed me the central, park-like lawn, and then we drove around the square looking for a coffee shop or bakery. David was sure there was one, but he didn't know exactly where it was.
It was early, perhaps too early, for small Iowa businesses to be open on a Saturday. We didn't see anything inviting, that is, until we saw her. She had appeared as if out of nowhere. We hadn't noticed her on our first circumnavigation of the town square. She was a strange visage for such a town in Iowa. She seemed to me to be more like a liberal arts student from the University of Iowa than a small town, conservative, rural woman. We immediately were both struck by the incongruity of her appearance and her presence on the very edge of the street. She stared at us intently as we gazed upon her. Then something very peculiar came over us. We slowed down. It was as if we were hearing the Siren's song, but it was eerily silent. She beckoned to us just then. As if under a spell, David simply pulled into a parking space, and we both got out. The young woman then offered us coffee from her shop, which plainly was there, all of a sudden. But we didn't see it until just at that point in the day.
Odd that. But the coffee was as magical as the woman's appearance, and she not only was a fine and engaging hostess, but the owner of the shop. In the end, we struck up a deal for her to offer her coffee and pastries when we arrived with the event later that April, and by all accounts, the coffee was excellent and she did a great business that day.
It was weird like that, and so was the entire event. A one-off, magical moment in Trans Iowa's history.
Next Week: Rejected!
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