Back home safe and sound. One more Great band was 'Swing Crew' which mixed up a few kids songs in with some not so kids songs for a awesome preformance. Really funny, good music. I don't feel like typing much more right now, although there is more to say about the trip - so I might post some later.

Day 5 now. Two more left after today. My behind is even more sore than before and my legs are starting to get tired, but it's ok because it's a lot of fun. Every town we go through sets of banners and there are hundreds of stands selling food on either side of the road in the towns and between them. Fireworks again last night, and the town had 5 stages with a band on each within a 3 block sqare. Three kids are riding unicycles the entire way and that reminds me that I need to work on that skill some more when I get back. I am concidering buying a bass guitar...but that's just concidering at the moment. A lot of people on the ride are in terrible shape (some must weigh over 350 pounds - way over) and still get the ridding done - they just take very slow days. There are many tandems (we're ridding one as well) and just as many recumbents. More later-

lots of corn fields

It's the middle of day three and I need to be quick because there are about 10 angry people waiting to use this computer after me. Great fun here. There is live music everywhere: the best being Nuns on the Run and Sol Fa, but many other no namers. My butt is SORE and my legs are getting tired, but everyone says - ya, the usual. 20 more miles to go today and 4 days left. More to come--

The RAGBRAI 500 mile bike ride across Iowa has begun, or will begin soon. My dad and I drove about 1600 miles over the last three days and are now in Sioux Center, the starting town. The actual riding will begin tomorrow with a 60ish mile ride to the next town (We're in the public library right now, and I forget the next town, but all the info is availible at their website: http://www.ragbrai.org) I'll post more info if access is availible.

We drove around last night with the laptop computer and found 4 WiFi signals within 3 blocks, and we're out in some small farm town in the middle of nowhere! - amazing! Coundn't get internet access from them on the initial tries, but I feel if we spent more time fiddling we would have had a better chance. It was kind of suspicious, though, a dark car idling on some residential street with it's lights out...

When we arrived at the camp site last night, we were the ONLY ones there. Today there w'ill be thousands. I'm taping the whole thing and it will be a pretty funny sight.

A pretty funny thing happened on Sunday, I was just driving along and out of the blue my car started sputtering and choking and finally - kerplunk - it died. It turns out I just simply ran out of gas, but one thing bugs me - THERE WAS NO LOW GAS LIGHT! On every other jeep cherokee I lnow of there is a low gas light, and I thought I was still sittin' pretty, when I blew it. So, it may just be a bad light bulb, or maybe it doesn't even have a low gas light - I'll check it out tommorow.

Bum bum bum ba da bum bum de da de do bum....
And now for the Bavetta.com news,

The first meeting of 'Easily Distracted,' a barbershop quartet group consisting of Owen, Ben, Dick, Alex and myself - yes, that's a five person quartet - was conducted at the maestro's house.

I just called the AP people and found out I got a passing grade of a 3 (just passing) on the AP Calculus AB test that I royaly screwed up filling the answer key on - so I'm kind of supprised, I must have done pretty well on the multiple choice part. I'm planning on taking the Calc BC test next year - and I now know how NOT to fill out the essay portion of the answer key.

I found this site when cruising the web: Yatta! - Interesting....

Today is the fourth of July. That's big news to the people who didn't know that. Being in the month of July and this being the fourth consecutive day of it, that would make it the fourth of July. There have been three previous days we have encountered in this month. That is to say of this year - now there is a July in every year - and to my knowledge there has always been a fourth of July, in July, I mean.

I was in the Truckee Mountianair Barbershop singing float this morning and watched the crowds of people pass by on either side of us. It was fun. We sang the National Anthem, Happy Birthday (our worst song), Hello Mary Lou, Sitting on Top of the World, and Connie Island Baby.