Find the Best Travel Agents for Your Trip using Tripology, Click Now!

| Travel Directories | Travel Articles | Scenic WebCams | Add Your Listing to Travel Directory | Receive Travel Newsletter |
| 78% of our visitors have added us to their Favorites Click Here to Add This Page to Yours  |  Tell a Friend About This Page |

| Williamsburg VA Hotels | mexico all inclusive | Chicago Hotels | Los Angeles hotel | New York Hotels | Atlanta Hotels | Los Angeles Hotels |

| Las Vegas Hotels | Orlando Hotels | Washington DC Hotels | Boston Hotels | Chicago Hotels | San Francisco Hotels | Seattle Hotels | New York City Hotels |

| Kensington Hotels | Union Square San Francisco Hotels | Washington DC Hotels | New Jersey Hotels | Arizona golf resorts | Dallas Hotels |

| Shenandoah Valley hotels | Dallas Market Center hotels | Nashville Hotels |

(Van Buren County, Iowa) The Lt. Governor of Iowa and his party were the first guests to stay in the Bonaparte Inn. They were here Friday night so he could launch a village festival Saturday morning. The festival is winding down when Brian and I arrive about two o'clock Sunday afternoon and check in. This handsome red brick building once housed The Fairfield Glove factory but has sat vacant for years. Reborn just now as a 13-room bed and breakfast with a marvelous view of the Des Moines River, this place seems destined to fulfill the promise of a popular movie made not far from here in an Iowa cornfield: "Build it and they will come." Only Brian and I have come tonight. We are welcomed like royalty.

Back home in Liberty, Missouri, Rich Groves and I have ridden our bikes on Saturday mornings for years to nearby towns for breakfast. Once on a business trip to Iowa, Rich had come across a flyer announcing Bike Van Buren. We had come. Again and again. For years. We had brought friends. On the third full weekend of August for six years we had reserved rooms in the Mason House Inn in Bentonsport. We would drive from Liberty a hundred miles up Interstate 35 to the Leon-highway 2-exit, then a little more than another hundred miles on highway 2 to highway 1. Turn left and three miles to W40. Turn right and six miles to Bentonsport, a living museum town on the bank of the Des Moines River.

Brian was badly hurt several years ago on the MS-150 when another cyclist clipped his rear wheel and half a dozen riders went down on top of him. He hasn't ridden much since. But on a recent late-spring day, he and I have left his house in Lee's Summit for our first ride in years when he says, 'I think it would be fun to go on a week-long ride.' Over lunch in Pleasant Hill we discover than June 25 to July 1 fits both our schedules.

Back home I spend a few days searching the internet and talking to other bikers. I find several organized rides that might fit. But my mind keeps coming back to Van Buren. I call the phone number I find on their website. 'My son and I can't come in August. We would like to come in June and ride the route by ourselves. Could I get a copy of this year's route?'

'Sorry. We can't give out the route early.' She says. 'Then could I get last year's route? Maybe the last two years?' I ask. 'I'll mail them to you,' she says.

I had never spent more than two nights in Van Buren County. Now with a week to book, I go looking on the internet for B&Bs. Bobbie and I fell in love with bed and breakfasts when we lived in England many years ago. We have stayed in many American B&Bs since. I choose three in Iowa: Bonaparte Inn, Mason House and Grandview.

Pedaling toward Cantrill about 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, Brian and I see hills rolling before us and over us as far into the distance as we can see. And hanging over the most distant hill, an angry purple cloud coming in our direction. We stop beside the road for a quick conference. 'If we turn back, we might beat the rain.' I say. But the cloud moves faster than we do. We are soaked by the time we get back to the Bonaparte Inn. By 4:30 the rain has stopped and we take to our bikes again, bound for Farmington and back via Harmony High School.

'I own the antique shop up the street. Name's Bob Hill.' We meet him in front of our B&B when we get back at 7. 'I'm 73. Moved here from Burlington four years ago. Loved the town. Wanted to help save it. Van Buren is the poorest county in Iowa. Only nine-thousand people in the whole county. Bonaparte has 468 people. And we're the second biggest town in the county. A high school girl just had a baby. One of our old guys is about to die. We hold our own.'

Bill Grunwald's mother developed Parkinson's when Bill was two years old. By fourth grade, Bill was helping in the kitchen. Peeling liver was his first job. 'If you don't peel the skin off, it's tough when you cook it,' he says. Bill became a cook in the army.

Bill was visiting his son who teaches here back in May. He stopped in to see how the work on Bonaparte Inn was coming. Bill met the owner. He offered to help if she ever needed a cook. Then he went back to Wisconsin where he was head chef at a YMCA camp. A few days later he got a call. The owner of the Bonaparte had planned to contract with a local restaurant to do their breakfasts. But the restaurant closed. Could he come be their cook? In short order Bill and his wife found a house in Bonaparte and Bill found his replacement at the Y.

The breakfast he sets before us would be the envy of Bretons in old New Orleans. Bill's mother gave birth to a master chef. The owner of this place should send that failed restaurant owner a thank you note. Bill in the kitchen is more than an ace in the hole. His breakfasts alone are reason enough to seek out this place. The rustic and rural yet state of the art ambiance of the place if widely known would fill every room most every night.

Mason House B&B in Bentonsport is our home Monday and Tuesday nights. We drive the three miles from Bonaparte to Bentonsport Monday morning and leave Brian's back-up bike there. It's the one he rides around home, heavy and wide-tired. We have brought my two Trek touring bikes. His we will use only if necessary.

After leaving one bike at the Mason House, we strap the other two onto Brian's car and drive nine miles into Keosauqua, to the city park where all Bike Van Buren rides begin. No one is in when we stop by the Bike Van Buren office in the county courthouse. And the antique shop, which a sign in the office directs us to for visitor information, is closed on Monday. So we find ourselves at Misty's Malt Shop, just across the street from the park. The woman on duty gives us friendly and detailed instructions on how we get to Douds and Selma, ending with the words that for us are often out of place: 'You can't miss it.'

We make it out of town on highway 1 as she said we should. As we come to the hospital, I'm riding ahead and looking for J40, where we are to turn left. I remember she said something about the hospital. Maybe she said just past the hospital we would turn. We have ridden several miles before I figure we've gone too far to be just past. But the road is good, little traffic, great weather. We pedal on. Until we come to a sign. Birmingham is 3 miles straight ahead on highway1. Eldon is 16 miles to our left. I can't find Eldon on the Van Buren County map I picked up at the courthouse. We head for Birmingham.

'Used to eighty acres would take care of a family. Now one man takes care of a thousand.' Thus does retired farmer and life-long area resident Rex Overstreet, catch in two sentences the dynamic at work in this part of the country for half a century, whereby thriving country towns have become shells of their former selves.

Stockport sits one and a half miles from Rex's at the intersection of J16 and W30. 'Once had three or four hundred people, three saloons, two grocery stores, a bank and other businesses. Now, except for pop machines on the street, you can't even get a drink in the place.' Says Rex.

But for that sudden rainstorm, we would never have met Rex. Brian and I had just eaten a sandwich at the Jet Stop in Birmingham. We had pedaled into town right at noon, looking for a place to eat. We spotted the Jet Stop right off. Lots of cars and people coming and going. We decided to ride around town to see what other choices might be available. The few streets revealed none. Back we went.

As we leave Birmingham, the sign on J16 says 7 miles to Stockport. A cloud suddenly appears. Then light rain. But up the road I see sheets of rain coming our way. I spot a big tree and a white farm house about 200 yards ahead off to our left. 'Let's head for that tree,' I yell to Brian, who is riding some 20 yards ahead. We are standing under the tree when we hear a voice. 'Come in this house out of the rain.' We sprint up the gravel driveway and hurry into the house. Rex and his three-year old grand daughter welcome us. Rex's wife, Jean, comes a little later.

Rex's 94 year old mother lives alone on the old home place a few miles away. His dad died in 1978. 'Bad heart!' Rex says. Then Rex's brother ran the farm. Until the tractor turned over and killed him. He was 38. Of the seven children born to Rex's mother, four have died. 'Funeral Director said he had never buried four sons before the mother.' Rex tell us. 'That must have been hard on you mother,' I say. 'It was. But she's tough,' Rex says.

The rain comes in torrents as we talk. The sound on the roof conjures memories of my childhood. After 20 minutes or so the rain stops. When we come to Stockport, I spot a Pepsi machine beside what looks to be a vacant building to my left. We turn right onto W30. We see Citizen's Bank on our left. It still looks prosperous, though we see no one about. The front door of the Post Office is open. We stop for directions. As we pedal off, we spot another Pepsi machine. The front door of City Hall stands open.

Ritzanna Kunzman had four classmates when she graduated high school in Selma in 1954. The town had several hundred people, a post office, a bank, grocery store. Selma now has some 55 people, no post office, no grocery. A Pepsi machine the only commercial activity.
Ritzanna went off to the University of Iowa in Ames, met and married Duane Seaton, became a nurse and moved around the country for 32 years in her several professional positions. She retired in 1995 and moved back to the farmhouse she grew up in. A long gravel road runs alongside the Des Moines River before turning right and ascending a long hill to the house, surrounded when I see it by hundreds of acres of corn so brilliantly green I expect a baseball field to appear.

Grant Wood chose a farmhouse near Eldon, Iowa as the focal point of his American Gothic, his much mimicked masterpiece of American painting. Ritzanna leads Brian and me to Eldon today. She's riding the Trek she rode across the country in 2000. I'm riding the Trek I rode in 1987 from Orlando to Seattle to Anaheim. Brian is riding the Trek I bought some 18 months ago when I retired my road-weary one. For this Iowa ride, though, I took it down off the hook in my garage so Brian could ride my new one and leave his heavy hybrid home.

Ritzanna and I met in 1998 when Rich and I came to Iowa for the Villages of Van Buren ride. Selma is one of the villages in Van Buren County, and Ritzanna is a regular on this ride.

Van Buren County has not attracted McDonald's or Wal-Mart or any of their aspiring rivals. Diners and shoppers must choose from a limited number of local purveyors. Roadsides have no competing signs to lure uncertain consumers. Folks who live here know who has what and where to find it. Convenience is not at home here.

Brigadoon is a magical place in the Scottish highlands that appears only once every hundred years. When Tommy from America chances to be there once when it does, he is smitten by its charms. If he is still there when night falls, he will go to sleep with them and awake in a hundred years, which, to all who live in Brigadoon, is a normal night. Driving 200 miles from our homes in Liberty and Lee's Summit to this place brings us as near to Brigadoon as we likely will ever come.

The Amish have come to Van Buren County in Ritzanna's lifetime. We are a few miles from Keosauqua at mid-morning on Wednesday when we see an Amish couple coming from their garden toward the fruit stand set up in their front yard. The buckets of beans and berries we see wouldn't last long in my panniers. But the jars of jam will travel well. Blackberry is my choice.

I guess the husband and wife to be in their mid-forties. He has a full beard. She wears a long dress and a bonnet. Their two daughters about nine and 11 are modestly dressed, polite and quiet. He tells me he has 25 acres. He can't make a living on his place. He manages a nearby farm belonging to a non-Amish. 'I get a monthly check,' he says.

His dad bought a farm in Van Buren County in 1973. He estimates there are 65 Amish families in the county. When I ask if I could take his picture, he asks me not to.

Up the road a short distance, Ritzanna notices the door to the furniture maker's is open. When we rode by yesterday it was closed. 'If it's open, they don't mind if you drop in,' she had said.

'Hello,' I yell at the open door. No one answers. 'Hello!' No response. We're about to leave when a barefoot woman comes from the garden and ushers us inside. She and her husband bought this two-acre piece of ground seven years ago and built a new house two years ago. Her husband builds furniture at the request of area folks. She estimates that 20 Amish families live nearby.

The Amish school sits a few hundred yards up the road at an intersection of two paved road. Many of the intersecting roads we have seen are gravel. Yesterday while we were stopped at the little café that sits katty-corner from the school, we saw three young Amish girls coming down the intersecting road toward us. They turned at the intersection and rode past us. The middle one waved to us as they trotted their horse. The open air surrey they were riding had no back. How they maintained their balance and kept from tumbling backwards is a mystery.
By all odds Marian and Brian should never have met. Ritzanna and I made up our route this morning after we met at 9 o'clock in the park in Keosauqua. She thought we would get to Mt. Sterling by lunchtime and would eat there. She mentions several possible routes out of Keosauqua to me.

I choose the route through Lacey-Keosauqua State Park, a 1600 acre wooded masterpiece of Mormon history and Great Depression era stone buildings of CCC origin. We fly down a few hills at the entrance and grind our way in granny up a long and winding road. An ascent like this is not well placed early in a ride when nerves and muscles are not yet in sync and the night's sleep still lingers. When at last we are at the top, we stand for long minutes, gasping air and gulping water.

We stop for pictures at the Mormon River Crossing and for Ritzanna'a history lessons at several spots. Then the Amish fruit stand, the Amish furniture maker, the crossroads store and several other anonymous and impromptu stops along the way. And by noon we are still miles from Mt. Sterling. Precisely at high noon we roll into Milton. I stop to snap Brian's picture in front of the post office, proof that we were really here.

Ritzanna disappears into the American Legion Hall across the street. Momentarily she emerges and motions to us to come. 'I didn't call here this morning,' she says. 'I thought about it. But I thought we would be here earlier. But they can work us in for lunch.'

Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, area seniors come here for lunch. We get our food and follow Ritzanna to a table with three open seats.

'I live in Selma,' she tells the three other people at our table. 'I'm riding today with my friends from Missouri. One is from Liberty and one from Lee's Summit.'

'Did you say Liberty?' The woman at the far end of the table asks. 'I graduated from Liberty High School in 1933.'

'Really?' Brian asks. 'I graduated from Liberty in 1980.' Thus do Marian Epperson and Brian Chasteen discover they graduated from the same high school-47 years apart.

'How many were in your graduating class?' Brian asks.

'Eighty,' Marian says. 'There would have been more. But algebra did 'em in. We had a young teacher who was really hard. She just died about a year ago. She was over 100.'

'You know who she's talking about, Brian?' I'm shouting at this point. Everyone in the room, even allowing for hearing loss, must hear me. 'She's talking about Irene LaFrenz.'

Marian nods. 'I taught with her husband at William Jewell,' I tell her. 'We went to the same church.' We stay for a long while to visit with Marian Epperson Arnold and her husband of 67 years. She's 91. He's 93. 'She followed me home.' he says when we ask how they met.

To get to Mt. Sterling we bypass the left exit off highway 2 that would take us back to Keosauqua. Up 2 several hundred yards we then turn right. Into the hills. The four miles of hills from 2 to Mt. Sterling end with a steep and winding descent. We leave the pavement to walk our bikes down a gravel road into the village. Here we find A.J.'s Bar and Grill that looks out over wetlands stretching to the Missouri border about a mile away.

We have ordered ice tea and chicken strips and Brian has played country western on the juke box when a big man in faded blue jeans walks in. 'Jo Hamlett,' Ritzanna exclaims in delight. 'I wanted these folks to meet you. And here you are.' To us she says, 'Jo writes a column in our county paper. It's the first thing most folks read.'

For the next few minutes Jo regales us with a true life tale of a visit to Mt. Sterling about three years back by NBC, ABC, the BBC, the Today Show and Good Morning America. It all started when Jo proposed a village ordinance against lying at council meetings.

Jo reckons Mt. Sterling's population at 49, smaller by far from his childhood and school days here. 'Towns around started loosing people when they graveled the roads back in the 50s. When all the roads were mud, folks couldn't go far.'

Jo himself went far. He's back now in retirement on the old home place. His status as an A.J.'s regular is signaled by the big glass of ice tea that appears on the bar nearest our table. Without a word, Jo collects it and brings it to our table, takes a powder from his shirt pocket and stirs it into his tea.

A.J.'s frontier ambiance is not subtle. Animal skins adorn the walls. A stuffed beaver sits just inside the door. The skull of a horned animal hangs on a far wall. A photograph of a band of Indians hangs on the back wall. The caption reads. Homeland Security-1492. The jukebox has no highbrow music.

We are standing on the porch ready to push our bikes up the gravel hill when I spot Santa Claus in worn overalls climbing out of a big truck. He clutches a blue cooler in his left hand and walks toward us.'Hello,' I say. 'Hi,' he responds. 'Thanks for coming. My name's Tim. I own this place.' 'What happened to AJ?' I ask. 'I bought the place from him. I used to be a long-haul trucker. Now just local. This is home.'

We ride over the line this morning. Between Birmingham and Fairfield, a distance of just eight miles on highway 1, we cross from Van Buren to Jefferson County. Parsons College closed in Fairfield in 1973. The campus is now home to Maharishi University of Management and a community of Transcendental Meditation practitioners. On 100 acres a few miles from town the TMers have built Vedic City, an attractive place of yellow domed buildings. The vegetarian menu today features Mexican food and a mango drink. The place is packed with an eclectic assortment of dress and a wide range of ages.

With more people than all of Van Buren County, Fairfield attracts shoppers from miles around. Our third riding day with Ritzanna draws to a close as we arrive back at the Jet Stop in Birmingham where we started this morning. She straps her bike to her car. 'I have to drive back to Fairfield for milk and bread before I go home,' she says. 'Watch out for the deer,' Brian jokes. Ritzanna's car is dented from the three times she has hit deer. She laughs. 'In the daytime, they're not a problem.'

Misty's Malt Shop in Keosauqua has become our defacto staging area. We are soon back. 'You find your way the other day?' It's the lady behind the counter who asks. The one who was here the first day and told us where to find J40, just by the hospital. 'You gave great directions. We had a great ride.' From that reply she likely can't tell that we missed the turn.

After spending Monday and Tuesday nights at the Mason House B&B in Bentonsport, Brian and I load our bikes on his car and drive to our home in Keosauqua for the next two nights. From the description of the Grand View B&B on the internet, I'm anxious to see the place. High on a bluff overlooking the Des Moines River, this handsome brick house with seven bathrooms and six baths cost $450,000 to build in 1975 as a private residence. The man who had it built owned and operated the grain elevator in Stockport. He was a generous philanthropist for local causes and a much-admired man. Auditors showed up one day for a surprise audit. He shot himself. The elevator failed. Farmers lost money, Ritzanna's family among them.

Bill and Mickey were looking to downsize from their 2500 square feet when they came upon this house. One loved the three-car garage. The other loved the view. So now their house had 8500 square feet. Opening a B&B was not in their plans. But friends and family were attracted to this grand view. Might as well charge for their services.

Am I ever glad! One of the many bends in the river can be seen from inside the house and from the sun deck along the back of the house. Wooded hillsides along both sides of the river frame the blue serpentine waters as only nature can do. Sitting in such a setting melts away thoughts of any other place or other activity. The words of an old church song come to mind: 'I've got peace like a river in my soul.'

Which comes first I do not know. Do B&Bs attract people with a need to visit with one another? Or does being at a B&B bring out a need that anyone in this setting would have? How it all begins I will never know. But that it always works I know for a certainty.

When Brian and I arrive at the Grand View and call out, 'We're here,' a male and a female voice in unison respond, 'Come on in.' Mickey is seated in her recliner. Bill is standing at her side. A couple sits on the leather couch across the room. A man sits on the couch just in front of Mickey. A young man stands near the bookcase. We quickly know their names, where they're from and what brings them here. They know the same of us. Bill comes with a plate of fresh, home made cookies and a soft drink. We all sit and talk.

Ganish is from India. He is living and working here in Keosauqua for a few months. It was his bicycle we had seen in the yard. He uses it to go back and forth to his job. He didn't have a car in India. He mentioned to town folks that he rode a bike. They got one for him. He didn't think to tell them that his bike in India had a motor.

The couple on the couch is from New Jersey. His name is Russ; hers is Debbie. They have been married eight years. They were friends and colleagues at the same company for years. After Russ's wife died of cancer, their mutual friends began to invite them places as a couple. Then they became one.

Ronald is the man sitting on the couch. He is a retired farmer with four grown sons. He was an avid skier and traveler until a hip replacement put a crimp in his style. But only a crimp. Like Russ and Debbie, Ron is here for the Barn Tour that takes place tomorrow. With a busload of other folks who have sent in their $60.00, they will visit Iowa barns.

During our two days here we will see these folks often. And not just here at the house. Ron is having dinner at George's Steakhouse one night when we arrive. He tells us what is good. We talk for a while. Russ and Debbie show up at the Bridge Restaurant the next night just as we arrive. We share a table.

Brian's car won't start when dinner is over. Russ pulls his new Buick up and offers a jumpstart. We open his hood and can't find the battery. As we stand there with both hoods up, a man comes from the restaurant and prepares to get in his big truck parked just by the door. 'Need help?' He asks.

Russ says, 'I was going to give him a jump. But we can't find my battery.' 'Those new Buicks have batteries in the trunk. I used to sell cars. I'll give you a jump.'

Next morning, Mickey has waffles, biscuits and gravy, bacon and sausage, orange juice, coffee and fresh fruit ready for us. Ron left for home after the barn tour yesterday. Russ and Debbie sit at the table with us. 'Debbie is a sensory chemist,' Russ tells us. 'She tastes everything to make sure it tastes right. I'm in charge of shipping.' For better than an hour we linger over breakfast and hear about the place Russ and Debbie work. Debbie estimates she tastes 125 different flavors every day, including one for dog food. Her company makes food additives for untold national brands. She loves her job and is good at it.

While we're eating, Mickey's daughter comes for her home in a nearby town with her two small children and their big dog. Mickey introduces everybody to everybody. The dog greets everyone. Like being home. We hate to leave. But we have promises to keep. And miles to ride before we sleep.

But Brian's car won't start. Mickey notices and calls Bill. He's a manager in a nearby plant and has to be on the job at 5:30 in the morning. We haven't seen him at breakfast. He appears shortly in his pickup and jumps our car. We're on the road again, thanks to our fourth jumpstart in less than a day.

>From Sunday morning when we left Liberty until 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon when we finished our ride, Brian's car performed flawlessly. And in style. On two days Brian got back to the car long before I did. As I came riding up, he had all the doors open so it would cool and was playing a CD of my favorite songs from the 1950s. But when we leave Misty's Malt Shop and get to the car near 4 o'clock on Thursday, it won't start. We have the hood up and jumper cables in hand, when a young man eating an ice cream cone walks up. 'Need a jump?' He asks. 'I can help.' He returns momentarily in an 18-wheeler and pulls up beside us.

Then last night Bill jumped us so we could go to dinner. The guy at the Bridge jumped us after dinner. Then Bill again this morning. We leave the motor running while we gas up in Keosauqua for the drive home. We don't plan to stop on the way. But when we try to back up in the Wendy's parking lot in Cameron, the car dies. I run to a nearby car and explain our need. Another Good Samaritan.

We are home by four o'clock as planned. As I learn later, my 10-year old grand daughter, Laura, is expecting me and anxious to hear my stories. We ride bikes together. She thinks I'm precious. She told me so when she was three. Now she wants to be at my house when I get home. She asks her mother, my daughter, Debbie, if they can come. 'We haven't been invited,' Debbie says. Laura puts her hands on her hips, draws herself us and says, 'Mom, it's Nana and Papa. We don't have to be invited.'

In Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, Emily asks, 'Does anyone ever realize life as they live it, every single minute?'

Thanks to family and friends I come close.

Article submitted by:

Ed Chasteen
HateBusters, Inc. 
Box 442, Liberty
Missouri  64069
816-781-6431 | 816-803-7371

 

Add Your Listing to our Travel Directory