🎥 This Week's Video

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We Biked Across Iowa With Our Dog | RAGBRAI 2026

It's been over five weeks since our last video, and Iowa is the reason. We came home with hours of GoPro and 360 footage and a phone full of Sara's clips, and it took us a long time to find the story hiding in all of it. In the end, the story was the people we met between Onawa and Dubuque, along with Kramer, who barked at us from his trailer every time we slowed down on a hill. Sorry it took so long, but we're so glad it's finally here!

​Watch the video →​

👀 What Caught Our Eye

The Farmer's Dog

Kramer LOVES this food. He's been on The Farmer's Dog for a while now, and dinner has become the best part of his day. He cleans the bowl, then rolls around on his back like he just won something. Every meal comes pre-portioned for him, so there's nothing for us to measure, and all we have to do is watch a very happy dog. If your pup deserves a post-dinner roll of their own, our link gets you 50% off your first box.

​Get 50% off your first box​

🚲 Ride Across Iowa With Us

Next summer we're riding across Iowa again, July 24 to 31, and we'd love for you to come with us. You don't need to be a cyclist, either. This year people three decades older than us passed us like we were standing still, and nobody was keeping time. We'll help you register, tell you exactly what to pack, and save you a spot at camp with us every night.

Nine people have already signed up, three of them overnight right after the video went live, and we're capping the group at 25.

Every rider gets a Matador duffel as their goodie bag, and MoonPie, made right here in Chattanooga, is helping us fill it. We have a few more announcements on the way, but we wanted to start by thanking Matador and MoonPie for saying yes early.

It's $295 to ride with us, and $100 holds your spot. The price goes up to $349 once RAGBRAI announces the 2027 route, so if you've been thinking about it, now is the cheapest it will be.

​Save your spot →​

📍 Worth Sharing

A few things we bookmarked this week:

• ​A new airline rule could cost you a free hotel. When a delay is the airline's fault, most big US airlines will cover a meal, and usually a hotel if you're stuck overnight. Starting today, the DOT stops counting ten things as the airline's fault, including some surprise maintenance, a passenger's medical emergency, and removing an unruly passenger, so if one of those strands you, the room may be on you. Your refund rights haven't changed, though: if they cancel and you don't take the new flight, you still get your money back. Next time you're delayed, it's worth asking the gate agent why.
• ​A Rhode Island pumpkin may have just set a world record at 3,156 pounds. Ron Wallace beat the old mark by nearly 300 pounds, though Guinness still has to confirm it, and we have a lot of questions about how you get it onto the scale.
• ​The US is phasing out passport stamps. CBP will stop routinely stamping passports on arrival and use facial matching instead. You can still ask for a stamp, and your record lives on the I-94 site, but we're going to miss the ink.
• ​A guy at the airport told Tony Hawk he looks just like Tony Hawk. Tony told the story on Craig Melvin's podcast: a man sitting across from him kept staring, and when he finally walked over, it was to share the news. We really need to know what Tony said back.

✈️ Flights We'd Text to Friends

A few that caught our eye this week.

​Dallas to Istanbul for $749, 36% off (normally $1,185+). Nonstop on Turkish Airlines, which almost never puts this route on sale, with dates from November through March.

​Boston to Tulum for $386, 30% off (normally $552+). Delta through Atlanta for November and December trips, and this one only lasts a day or two.

​Orlando to Lima for $1,128 in business class, 43% off (normally $2,000+). Copa through Panama City for trips now through December, so you can fly in rested and go straight to the ceviche.

​Chicago to Auckland for $2,647 in premium economy, 37% off (normally $4,225+). Delta through Los Angeles for trips now through December, which happens to be summer in New Zealand.

​Birmingham to Athens for $3,576 in business class, 29% off (normally $5,070+). Through Montreal on Air Canada and Lufthansa, for trips in December and January.

​Chattanooga to Brisbane for $6,210 in business class, 29% off (normally $8,790+). That's our home airport, and it's the best price Going has seen on this route, for December trips on United.

​Atlanta to Marsh Harbour, Bahamas for $799 in business class, 41% off (normally $1,355+). American through Miami, with trips from February through April.

We find every one of these through Going, and it's worth setting up alerts for your home airport. Most of these deals won't last long, so if one catches your eye, don't sit on it.

Is there a city you wish we would feature for flights? Email us back and we'll put it in the next email.

💬 You Wrote Back

Two weeks ago we told you about the man who fainted on our flight home from Copenhagen, somewhere over Iceland. We asked if you'd ever been on a flight like that, or been the one who stood up. You wrote back, and a few of your stories gave us chills all over again.

Will wrote in first:

"We were on an overnight flight from Newark to Shannon Ireland when a very similar thing happened. An older gentleman stood up, passed out, and hit his head. The plane went from dark and quiet with most people trying to sleep to lights on and lots of activity up and down the aisles. As they were asking for doctors or people with medical training, I felt the engines roll back and the nose drop. I looked at the map and figured out we had just passed St John's Newfoundland."

In the end, Will says, "they determined he was ok to continue to Ireland." Then he did something we loved. His cousin flies for Delta, so Will asked him how often this happens. Here's what came back:

"My cousin said he has some type of reportable medical problem about 3-4 times a year. He has never had to divert to a different airport but has been close a couple of times. He said there is a system that the flight attendants enter information into and get help from medical personnel on the ground."

Three or four times a year for a single pilot, which we found strangely comforting, because even over the middle of the Atlantic there's someone on the ground helping the crew make the call.

Connor wasn't on a plane at all. He was running his coffee cart at a three-day event at the Broadmoor:

"An attendee came up to my cart and then fainted, fell backward, and hit his head on the edge of a table on the way down ... Paramedics called, stretchered out."

And one reader shared this:

"My husband is a paramedic and has had to help at the airport many times. They've mostly been fainting issues."

Every one of these stories has the same turn in it, where a dark cabin or a coffee line becomes the place strangers step in for someone they've never met. On our flight it was a VA nurse and an ER nurse, and in yours it was a crew over Newfoundland and a set of paramedics in Colorado. Thank you for writing these out. We read every single one.