From left to right: JunkYard Dog, SmileDoc., and the driver of the official RAGBRAI XXIV Golf Cart is TD.

The Golf Cart Story

One of our stopping towns in 1996 was Sibley Iowa. We were camped next to the golf course. A great place to eat was the Country Club on the golf course. Its fairly late in the evening because the dogs never get in early from a great day of riding and partying on the Ragbrai. We are in the bar of the restaurant and we find that all they have left is spaghetti! We were in the mood for steaks that night and so we were asking people in the bar where a good place might be for steaks. The owner came up and TD was talking to her about could we go buy some steaks and have her club cook them? She said sure but when we called around, the grocery stores were all closed! TD had the owner talked into taking us home to her house and she was going to cook us steaks................ until her daughter decided that would not be a good idea. So we ended up eating spaghetti at the club. During our meal, we met the person in charge of the golf course, and the one in charge of the golf carts used by the RAGBRAI officials. TD was asking where a good bar in town was and if we could use a golf cart to go into town. Well you all know that they would not let us use the cart to go into town. After our meal, we all went out to go home and as we walk out the front doors of the club what is parked outside? A golf cart! And the cart also had keys!!!! Well as you can see from the picture above, TD got behind the wheel, Smile Doc sat in the middle and JYD assumed the position of shot gun. Of course TD would never leave any dog on the side of the road, but the rest of us including myself didn't have enough guts to take the cart so the three of them drove off into town with a smile on their face to find a bar and the rest of us hung our heads and tucked our tails between our legs as we walked back to camp wishing we had enough moxy to go with them! Well about three o'clock in the morning we hear TD drive up. They dropped Smile Doc off at her tent, and they park right out side our tents with the golf cart! They were laughing and trying to put words together as JYD is stumbling to his tent, someone from one of the other camps yells out " Keep it down out there!!! We are trying to get some sleep"! Well that is when both TD, and JYD gave this guy both barrels ................ something like......... and remember I will not be able to give this tongue lashing any justice because only TD can do it and make you feel like poo poo. But TD starts yelling at this guy to shut up and go back to sleep!!! That we all have to listen to him snore at night anyway and as TD is reaming this guy JYD starts in on him. Well we find out the next day that this guy packed his bags and went home because he could not get any sleep on the RAGBRAI to have any energy to ride the next day.