wine, biking, recycling, dmv & susie one tooth

bike bus for bike ride

These are all related, I swear. A few weeks ago we went on a bike ride which started at the Snus Hill Winery. I could find a link for them somewhere if you really wanted but I guess it isn't too relevant if you're not living nearby. It was a 34 mile bike ride, round-trip, which started in Madrid, IA and went to Ankeney, IA. Kind of a funny group- the ride proposed to start at 10:00 a.m. We got there around 9:30 or so, and found a group of hard-core bikers, getting ready (by drinking Coronas apparently) and putting gear and bikes on the above-photographed bus. Apparently we were mixing it up with a group who had done RAGBRAI together, earlier this summer.
This is the big Iowa-Des Moines register sponsored ride across Iowa which happens in the summer.
So there was this group plus some random others. It was basically a ride for a cancer-support charity which the winery was hosting/sponsoring. The winery was going to have wine tastings at the end, although after a few hours of biking, wine is really not the drink you really want.
Anyhow...while we were hanging around, waiting for the biking to begin, saw a guy wearing a Steelers jersey. I thought, damn, we can't escape! I thought about talking with him anyway, based on the Pgh connection, but it was an oddly cliquish group of bikers.

Friday we stopped at a wine tasting at a wine store for Prairie Moon winery... most of the wines were actually pretty bad, ranging from mediocre to just plain awful. Sorry Prairie Moon. I hope no one from PM is reading this. The rep at the store was pretty nice, and since we were the only ones there, he & the wine store owner talked a bit. Somehow we started to talk about Snus Hill and the bike trip, and we mentioned we had moved here just recently. I don't know, this always seems like a good default topic for conversation. Then they told us that the guy with the Steelers jersey was a guy from WVA area and the owner of Snus Hill.

Anyway... the rest of this weekend involved going to the recycling place again. This was both good and weird. After sorting all the plastic/glass/papers/cardboard, thought we would try to cash in our maybe 10 soda cans and a few wine bottles and beer bottles. To get your deposit back, you have to go to a separate bldg. (okay more of a shed really). And the place is only open til 12 pm. on Saturdays. As we walked over there, were informed by a sort of unkempt, ill-tempered lady with a giant trash bag full of cans, that the line STARTED after her. Apparently the holding pen inside was full and the rest must wait outside, til space becomes available. At this point another woman came by (also with huge bag of cans)-- seriously, how much freakin' BEER and SODA do people drink? I'll assume this is several weeks or month's worth and not that people actually go thru cases of soda or beer in one week. Okay, c'mon, I really want to think this.
Finally, we get to go inside and wow. First, it's that smell of the recycling area at Hy-vee, only intensified. Second, it's so sad. A guy & his son walk out with a $20 bill. People wait with giant garbage bagfuls of cans. We briefly contemplate whether we really need to wait right then to get back like $1 or so. Um, nope.
We let the second woman take our place inside.

Oh I think I was going to talk about the Dept of transportation too, but this entry is already kind of long and depressing.