Trans Iowa Stories: Too Cold For Beers - Part 2

A really rough level B Road near the end of T.I.v14's course.

 "Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject  by clicking on the "Trans Iowa Stories" link under the blog header. Thanks and enjoy!  

I was freezing. I wondered how long Matt would need to sleep. Where was Luke Wilson? He should have passed us by along about this time. Will anyone else be dropping out? 

These were the thoughts I had running through my head as I paced about trying to stay warm. I wanted Matt to get a good nap, and I wasn't about to wake him up just yet. But he ended up stirring and finally I was able to climb back into the warm Subaru and unthaw my chilled fingers and toes. Matt was refreshed for the time being, and we headed out to look at the final bits of the Trans Iowa course. 

My question about riders dropping out was answered, pretty much, by a big fat 'no'. In fact, I would think by the situation at that time that Matt and I were on a fool's errand. We saw no riders. The phone was dead silent, and it was past midnight. We were enveloped in a dark rural landscape which seemed a world away from any reality we were familiar with. 

Eventually we came across Tony and Mike in their truck, but there was no one stirring inside and we assumed that they were napping, so we moved along. Somewhere in this time period we also came across Walter Zitz, riding for his pride now, but there was no sign of Gleason or Tomasello. Not far down the course from there we were surprised by a very rough and rutted Level B dirt road. It was about the roughest dirt road I had encountered on a Trans Iowa ever. I know it got our attention! 

This was the last Level B road on the T.I.v14 course where MG and I toasted the last T.I. ever.

We were rolling in closer to the finish. Matt was getting really tired again and we were just going through the motions at this point, trying to get through and then maybe have a nap. I had something in the back of my mind. I wanted to stop, at least once more, just to try to have that moment again. A moment like Matt and I had experienced earlier on Saturday morning at the end of a dirt road.

I chose the last Level B on the course, maybe five miles from the end of the T.I.v14 course. Matt stopped at the bottom of a hill in the valley. We scrambled out into the the chill of the night with two Dale's Pale Ales in hand. We toasted to the last Trans Iowa, and well..... It was just too darn cold! We quaffed those beers in a hurry. Later I would learn that the temperatures dipped into the low to mid 20's overnight. Matt and I couldn't take it. My plan for a meaningful stop was thwarted by the cold.

And then we were back in Grinnell. Matt went and dropped me off at my truck, and I aimed it over to Miller Park, found a suitable parking space, and began a long wait until the morning. It was a little after 3:00am. I fought off sleep demons until about 4:30am when a magical owl convention occurred around the small pond at Miller Park that morning. It was a old fashioned hootenanny, it was! I couldn't believe that the few Trans Iowa fans and Matt slept through it all. 

Cold and alone. I waited for the last bit of Trans Iowa v14 and the end of the run of Trans Iowa events.. What would happen? Would it be a really emotional time for me? I did not know quite what to expect.

A Sunny Day In The Park