Letter to the Editor: A Waukon RAGBRAI® story

To the Editor:

I’m sure that Waukon is full of individual stories about RAGBRAI weekend. Here’s one more:

Because this weekend also included the Waukon Men’s Golf Tournament starting early Saturday morning and we had six participants staying at our house, we had not volunteered to work at RAGBRAI. A lady knocked at our door early Friday afternoon. She was driving the route as her husband, age 72 and participating in his 23rd ride, was scheduled to stay in the library with 45 others. She asked if she could pay us to let him have a shower.

We were happy to take them both in and provide air mattresses for them on our porch. They were a delightful couple from Clinton and joined our group for dinner and breakfast. They left us with a thank you note and $40.

It seems that a 62-year-old cousin, whom I had never met, was also biking across the state. She is a lawyer in international relations, living in Washington D.C. She also joined us for dinner.

Saturday morning, we walked to the S&D for breakfast. The restaurant was full with a line out the door. We beckoned to see if some in line would care to join us. A guy from the line joined us. He was part of a group of 20 bikers from Tulsa who had their own bus taking them on this trip every summer. He wanted to know about Waukon. We visited with him as he had his breakfast and left. Later, as we tried to pay our bill, Sandy, who runs the S&D, said he had taken care of it along with a generous tip.

Monday, we talked to a girl who was a sort of tour guide on one of the shuttle buses. She said she was left with over $200 in tips. I asked Sandy if the weekend had met her expectations. She said, “above and beyond”.

Later Monday, we got a call from our granddaughter, who is a nurse at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC. She had just found out that her supervisor was a participant in RAGBRAI and praised the hospitality of the people in Waukon.

Waukon was fortunate to be chosen as a destination town and be able to mingle with so many diverse strangers. But also, RAGBRAI riders were fortunate to have landed in a town as friendly to them as Waukon.

Dick Roggensack
Waukon