Ragbrai Week

     The acronym, RAGBRAI, first appeared in print in the Sunday Register's Iowa Living section on Jan. 5, 1975, in a brief story I wrote announcing that The Register had decided to sponsor another cross-Iowa bicycle ride, the third annual.
     The acronym came about this way. The first ride was called simply the Great Six-Day Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. All of us assumed at the time that the first ride also would be the last. How wrong we were. Popular sentiment -- in the form of a flood of mail to The Register -- demanded at least a second ride, which was called the Second Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, or SAGBRAI. Again, the public response called for another and it became obvious by the third year that the event was going to have a much longer life than any of us had expected. This raised the prospect of a TAGBRAI and even a NAGBRAI.
     Something, obviously, had to be done. So I determined to make up an acronym that could go the distance, whatever that distance turned out to be, by simply tacking Roman numerals on it in each succeeding year. Further, as noted in the introduction to this book, I wanted it to be so long and ludicrous that everyone would think of it as a good-natured joke (which didn't work, alas, people took it seriously).
     And finally, Michael Gartner, then the editor of the Register and Tribune Company, suggested (actually, he told me to), "Get The Register's name in it, for crying out loud." He might not have said, "for crying out loud," which I did.
     The result in 1975 was the title we've used ever since: RAGBRAI (the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) with a Roman numeral.



John Karras and Ann Karras, Ragbrai: Everyone Pronounces It Wrong

This Week in Iowa Nature

July heat triggers the hatching of millions of short-lived mayflies along the Mississippi; their remains often have to be shoveled from streets and sidewalks in Dubuque and other river towns.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Connie Mutel Interview: Part 2

Given the rainfall and snowfall in 2010, climate change in the Midwest and across the nation and world seems to be intensifying. What’s your opinion?

Research clearly shows that climate change is now affecting us and that we are changing farming and other activities as a result. Iowa is growing warmer and wetter—with temperature increases especially in winter and at night and rises in soil moisture, atmospheric humidity, precipitation (particularly in the first half of the year), and heavy precipitation events being especially great. Floods now rise faster and higher than they did in the past, with climate change and landscape alteration both factoring in. Climate change is not the sole cause of today’s floods, not at all. But it confounds today’s floods and increases environmental and water stresses. Without taking many more steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even as we adapt to future changes, I feel that our future is indeed grim.

You have made tons of presentations in the wake of A Watershed Year’s publication. What’s been the most common question?

People want to know why we are not more energetically adopting solutions for environmental problems such as flooding and climate change. Why do many politicians, decision-makers, and business owners refuse to consider that these problems are indeed intensifying and may well challenge the integrity of future lives and our planet in a major way? How can we come together to work energetically on solutions?

Tell us about your current projects.

This last winter, I helped put together a report on the impacts of climate change on Iowa (http://www.iowadnr.gov/iccac/files/executivesummary.pdf). I’m now working to complete another book, a scientific biography that’s been in the works for many years. I’d then like to do more writing about our coalescing environmental dilemmas, perhaps something on climate change in the Midwest. We’ll see.

—Cornelia F. Mutel, editor, A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 

Gardening in July

Friday, July 7

Last night with dinner, we had a bowl of fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden. Also a Walla Walla sweet onion, a Dutch purple onion, and sprigs of dill in marinated beet salad that Kate made with her own red wine vinegar. And this morning, I harvested another meal's worth of broccoli shoots, another picking of snow peas, and two quarts of black raspberries. But it's not just the bounty that makes the difference, it's the harvesting too, as I discovered again this morning, back in the corner of the lot, behind the larch tree, picking the raspberries. The cool air, the little fruit clusters, red, purple, and black, the beaded surfaces of the ripe dark fruit lit by the rising sun, the thorns brushing my shirt sleeves, the slight rustle of leaves, the seclusion.


Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Connie Mutel Interview: Part 1

Earlier you said that “the 2008 floods can serve as our wake-up call, prompting us to take steps that will reduce future flood damage.” What steps have been taken? What remains to be done?

A Watershed Year was the impetus of about a dozen community flood forums held across the state in 2010. But thankfully we’ve gone beyond just talking. The Rebuild Iowa Office reports that some progress has been made on all 12 of its flood-mitigation legislative initiatives, which ranged from establishing support for flooded individuals to initiating regional watershed plans. Some cities have made tremendous advances. Cedar Falls is the poster child here: it passed legislation in 2009 that discourages building in the city’s 500-year floodplain, and it also has installed rain gardens, permeable pavement, and other structures that reduce runoff into the flood-prone Cedar River.

When it comes to future floods, you’ve said, “Don’t try to return to business as usual.” Yet when it’s not actually pouring rain, most people seem to be doing just that. Where can we go for information to help us make better decisions about flood prevention and control?

The Iowa Flood Center (see next question) is a tremendous asset. The Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division is another information source, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has people who work with communities on flood-sensitive development plans.

Tell us more about the Iowa Flood Center.

This is an exciting new center at the University of Iowa. The IFC is the nation’s first academic research and training center devoted solely to flood research. It is a unique resource for Iowans and already has a number of products available on its website. For example, anyone can access current stream-level data from the IFC’s statewide network of 50 stream sensors. The web-based “Iowa Flood Information System” allows Iowans to view maps of watersheds upstream from their communities and overlay other data on these maps, such as current precipitation, river stage data, and water travel times throughout the watershed. This is an example of a powerful new tool that will help Iowans better understand flood risk and prepare for imminent floods. I’d encourage readers to look up their community and bookmark the website (www.iowafloodcenter.org).

—Cornelia F. Mutel, editor, A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 

Gardening in July

Friday, July 1

I kept to my course, gazing at everything along the way, from the recently opened pink and rose hollyhocks in front of our neighbor's peeling white shed, to the yellow Hyperion day lilies just beginning to open behind the currant bushes, to all the summery colors and shapes on display in Kate's perennial border, now at the climax of its third bloom phase. The tall fuchsia spikes of the lythrum, the sky blue of the stirrup-flowered delphiniums, the navy blue of the salvia spikes, the violet blue of the veronica spikes, the orange and pink and white of the tiger lilies, the yellow of the yarrow, the white of the small-petaled feverfew. So many colors and shapes so carefully arrayed from back to front, from one end to the other, I was momentarily transfixed by the spectacle.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of the Growing Season

Plant of the Week

Purple prairie clover
Petalostemum purpureum (Vent.) Rybd.
scientific name, 2008: Dalea purpurea Vent.
other common names: thimbleweed, red tassel flower


White prairie clover
Petalostemum candidum (Willd.) Michx.
scientific name, 2008: Dalea candida Michx. ex Willd.
other common names: thimbleweed, white tassel flower
Petalostemum: from the Greek, meaning “petal and stamen,” referring to the way the petals and stamens are joined
Purpureum: meaning “purple”
Candidum: meaning “shining white”
Legume family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)
Photo: Dalea purpurea


Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition