Thanks, Val!

Val rode me in from near the state park west of Grinnell to her Hallmark shop on Main Street and was also nice enough to point out the local laundry mat (Hmmm - I didn't ask her to do that...). She remembers the GPM well and also the IPW walk in '88. Thanks also to Dean who is a 70 year old bike group organizer that kept me from getting lost.

It was a day of a lot of people remembering the peace walks. In the Amana Colonies I ran into Molly who was 11 at the time of the march and her neighbor had done a walker-in-the-home. She lived near the campsite and recalled in great detail the trucks and buses and porta-poties, etc. Here is a pic of her kids who could not have been less interested.

Elle was online checking how the Walmart quarantine protests went around the country and noticed that Iowa City had a successful action and sent an email to the organizer. He (Gary Sanders - self proclaimed ludite and, according to an Iowa blog, 'peripatetic gadfly' - pictured here in from of Dorothy the Tornado) has been an amazing host arranging two press interviews at the famous Hamburg Inn No. 2 (famous for having so many politicos swing through) and overnight accommodations. [BTW, the local bike shops are horked off at the restaurant for running a promotion that gives you a discount if you can bring in the highest receipt from a gas station. Even though they are a great lefty eatery the bikers are planning to go en masse and park their bikes in front. Don't tell anyone.] Gary used to write a column for one of the local papers and also covered the Soviet walk in 88. He was telling us how he was pestering the national media and wondering why they weren't covering the story. Good luck with that sort of thing...