Tour's Final Day a Success

Bob Campagna, a photographer from Mount Vernon, IA has thought about going on every Green Bike Tour since the first in 1999. The final day of the 2006 tour was the first day he arranged to come with us. He and Tom Cook and I met near the Sixth Street power plant in Cedar Rapids and rode a few blocks to Coe College. Since we were early for the rally we went to the nearby Brewed Awakenings coffee shop for some good coffee. Teresa Galluzzo joined us just as the event got started in front of the library.

About 20 people attended the Coe event. My friend Roger Johansen brought his class and told me he was going to use the activism inherent in our Tour for class discussion. Professor Susan Wolverton talked about what Coe does to reduce commuting to campus. Cedar Rapids Councilman Tom Podzimek spoke about the many things, such as bike paths, that cities and individuals can do to confront global warming. Congressional candidate Dave Loebsack and State Representative Rob Hogg, candidate for State Senate, both spoke. After the rally and an interview for Podzimek with KGAN television, he led us through city streets to the Gazette for a photo opportunity and then on through the city bikeway to small roads south of the city.

The day was beautiful and the roads were free of cars. We arrived without incident onto the bikeway system in Iowa City, met Joan Cook and State Senator Joe Bolkcom in City Park and made a grand entrance from the Iowa Memorial Union bridge into the conference of Engineers for a Sustainable World. The conference plenary was being held outside behind the Union and the Green Bikers, all in yellow shirts, biked over the footbridge crossing the Iowa River to the applause of the crowd. Tom Cook and David Osterberg were scheduled to speak at the conference and show the video that Tom produced of our visits to various campuses in the Midwest. Before the outdoor crowd broke up we were able to say once more, global warming is real, renewable energy and efficiency are answers to this huge problem and if it is done correctly, local people in the Midwest make money doing good things for their environment.