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Twas the night before Ragbrai when all through the overnight
Not a freewheel was spinning, not even a cassette.
All cyclists were sleeping in makeshift beds, visions of paved roads in their heads.
That is all I have. This post is about a real nightmare I experienced. This is not my attempt to rip off a renown and beloved Christmas poem. I lack the creativity and patience for that.
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| This bottle of vino was purchased by me when Mary's Heroes, my bicycle team, rode out west. There is a winery near Elk Horn, IA. A minister is the son in-law of the owner. He took us upstairs and sang Brown Sugar with guitar and then apologized for the awful racist lyrics. Good times! Down the road is the Danish Museum where I purchased a bottle of Viking Blood, a STRONG mead. |
A few nights ago...
My dreams usually make little sense. I'm in a suit at some meeting and spend most of the time in the dream searching for where I parked my car or bicycle, walking through buildings and once scaled down a driveway retaining wall passing by three Pugs on a ledge. Nonsense. Or they are often involving a job I had 20 years ago but with current colleagues in a stressful situation. Sometimes I'm with my dead parents. Dad drove the Ragbrai bus in one. And yet others. I have come to believe that this REM activity is my brain trying to wake up so I can empty my bladder and let the dog out for her bodily relief.
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| If 1989 was a sweet red...This one is produced a few miles from my house just off the bike trail. |
So, it was. A rare dream about riding a bicycle on some sort of massive cycling event such as The Ragbrai. The night before the ride during the dream, I dreamt that we partied like in was 1989. If you did not party in 1989, let it be known that it was the Summer of Love for my generation. No details in my dream I just knew we were all lit as the kids say.
Got up and threw a leg over my touring bike and headed out. Rode by myself. I guess I was late. 5 miles into it at some generic country intersection at the top of a hill was a friend of mine off his bike and drinking a bottle of red wine. So I stopped, pulled out my chair and produced my own bottle of red wine and drank with him. This friend was a composite character, not anyone I knew from the Awake World. Bottles empty, we rolled on.
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| Another Iowa wine. I once got very ill on my friend's homemade Catawba. Damn that was delicious! But after overindulging on it post beer consumption, we were outside in the rain. While he was wondering why he could not get his cigar lit, rain, I was making a birdfeeder. |
5 miles later we stopped at a farmhouse belonging to the parents of an acquaintance of his. Well, 7 hours later it was after 7pm. Normally not an issue. But it was an 81-mile day. Just then I discovered that I left most of my stuff back at the overnight. Important items were money and medication. SHIT!!!!! 81 miles plus 10 back and another 10 to get to the farmhouse it was quickly becoming a century day. 7 pm. Panic set in. I guess my sleeping heart rate was increasing.
What to do??? As much as I begged, no one would give me a ride back to the overnight. Someone gave me some cash and said good luck. So, I went to the barn where I parked my bike and said thank you and farewell while riding past a shiny aluminum Citroen. Yeah, weird, classic strange French car in an Iowa barn. Polished Element 13. My dreams are like that.
I woke up. Sat at the edge of the bed and processed that thought vomit. WTF was that? I was angry and upset. Why is this bothering me so much? It is not real. Just a dream, Ché, just a dream. Libby scratching at the door. Looked at the clock, 4 am, my usual time. Take the BP meds now. Beat the alarm. Time to get coffee brewing and thank the Lord that I was safe at home.
