Just how many people will visit Decorah this weekend?

(Comment by decorahnews.com's Paul Scott):

This weekend will be unprecedented in the history of Decorah.  RAGBRAI has come to Decorah twice before and Nordic Fest occurs every year, but never before have the two events coincided.

The Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office predicts 10,000 to 12,000 bike riders and another 3,000 to 4,000 support people will arrive in Decorah Friday as RAGBRAI passes through.  That means 13,000 to 16,000 people will be in town because of RAGBRAI.

Nordic Fest attendance has always been harder to peg, but let's say 10,000 people visit Decorah because of that.

When you add those two figures--and combine that with Decorah's population--it's not a stretch to guess that 30,000 people will be moving around in Decorah over the next few days.

Now there are two ways to look at that number.  The first is to complain about the traffic in town and the inconvenience of closed streets.  That's understandable--it WILL be hard to get around town.

But the second approach is to do everything we can to show visitors why we love this town!  That means saying hello to our visitors, helping them in any way we can, and making sure they want to come back again in the future.  After all, maybe one of those 25,000 visitors would want to open a business here and hire some of us.  Or maybe they'd like to buy a house and help pay the taxes that keep our city running.  Either way, we'd be doing ourselves a favor by being on our best behavior over this weekend.

After all, they're just visiting--we get to live here!