Reflections of RAGBRAI

With Andrew & Toby

It's been a few days since our RAGBRAI adventure has ended and yes we miss riding our bikes as crazy as that may sound to some of you. Today we bring you some forgotten moments & other RAGBRAI stuff we wanted to blog about. One thing that we find very true about RAGBRAI is that it's a ride where adults come to be kids for a week! You ride your bike, eat pie or some baked good
everyday, & just enjoy life without any other worries or responsibilities. The biggest responsibility that you have is not to crash your bike because if you do that your magical RAGBRAI ride could be over & that would stink!

Suzy at dinner

The Dog Named Suzy

Suzy on the bike

Suzy is a dog that not only rides in the basket of her owner's bike while wearing a helmet (safety first!) but also disrupts dinner conversations. While eating dinner at one of the church's Suzy just barked constantly until her owner picked her up & carried her like a baby....for those of you wondering how did Suzy make it into the dinner hall we thought the same thing as she was clearly not a service dog. Maybe she had a official riders band on & gained entrance that way but let's just say we are not inviting her to dinner any time soon!

Things we won't miss about RAGBRAI
1. Open Community Showers: Sometimes you just want to be alone when you are taking a shower...it's awkward enough having to shower with a group of naked people that you don't know but the awkwardness escalates as they try to strike up a conversation with you. Let's all be on the same page here wash up-get dressed- then we can talk if you would like.
2. Porta Potties: Now our disclaimer here is that really they weren't bad at all but by the end of the week your quads were tired making the hovering a little more difficult...we would like to thank the walls of the porta john for their support during those rough times.
3. Packing Up a Wet Tent: This occurred every morning except for the last one which was nice. But there is nothing like pulling out your steamy tent at the end of a long ride & hoping it would dry quickly.
4. Hand Washing/Teeth Brushing: While hand sanitizer is good it's not the #1 choice of hand washing. Whenever you got a chance to wash your hands with soap and water it was a glorious moment (sometimes I even thought I could hear angels singing). Not having to worry about having bottled water to use to brush your teeth & actually being able to rinse your toothbrush off well is a bonus!

Things we will miss about RAGBRAI
EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE 4 POINTS ABOVE!

What's up with your socks?

Wearing our Carter socks

In Friday's blog we failed to mention that on that day we wore one red & white stripped sock and one blue & white stripped sock....this was in honor of Carter LeBeau a member of the Quad Cities Bike Club who had rode in all previous 41 RAGBRAIs and was known for wearing these knee high socks. Carter passed away in August of 2013. I must say that those socks kept our legs warm & free of road grim that you would usually pick up on a soggy ride.

Why do babies with wet diapers cry?
If you are a cyclist who has rode on a really wet day or if you are a sweaty cyclist (swampass) you totally understand this. No one is having fun while their "diaper" (padded bike shorts) is soaking wet! In fact the first thing you want to do post ride is to get out of those shorts! So to all of you out there who have saved a crying baby from a soggy diaper that future cyclist says THANK YOU!

RAGBRAI Thoughts from Gabby (Dorice's Dog)


Climbing on mini bales

I love going to check the cows

I got to spend 2 weeks at farm camp & it was great! I celebrated my birthday on the farm & mom even gave me a few gifts before she left! I only got in big trouble one time & I'm still claiming innocence on the mess that was found in the shop. I got to do a lot of fun activities while there...maybe one day mom will just head back to Indiana & leave me to live on the farm....I'm a good helper really!


Post RAGBRAI Depression
Yes it's real and we are suffering from it. You beat your body for a week on your bike & occasionally your spirit but you yearn for more when it's all over. You miss your bike, your new cycling friends,

With Bob & Mary Anne

and just the fun of RAGBRAI. You have to return to the normal of everyday life & soon enough work life. If everyone's biggest concerns were riding their bike for a week, worrying about making it from town to town, and which flavor of pie you were going to eat that day the world would be a happier place!






RAGBRAI 2015: We Can't Wait!

With Larry & Roger

With Ralph

We are already planning our return to RAGBRAI in 2015 and are welcoming to friends who want to join us. We hope to see many of our new friends from RAGBRAI again next year & meet even more new friends! We met some really great people on RAGBRAI & we were sad when the week was over & we said our good-byes. If the thought of this past week seems like fun & something you may want to do then that means you need to join us in 2015! We have realized that for most people RAGBRAI is not a one and done but becomes a tradition for them. Many of the riders we met had done over 10 RAGBRAI rides with one of our friends doing his 25th RAGBRAI this year!

With Carolyn

Thanks for following our blog, for the prayers, messages, and support, we greatly appreciate it!

PS...we've added pictures to previous posts so go back and check them out!

Team Air Force waiting to dip their tires

The Final Miles

Saturday's Route

For our final ride we decided to start a little earlier then our usual ride time. It was a combination of the excitement of finishing our first RAGBRAI and just wanting to hammer out a ride that was better then the day before. We found many of our new friends & wished them well on this final day of riding & were excited that when we finished today we did not have to set up the tents!

Holding up the strawberry!

 The ride started out with a nice pace & great temperatures. We knew the beginning of the course would be the easy part & we took full advantage of that. We had breakfast in the first town that we stopped in (no pancakes today...that was usually our breakfast of choice for many great reasons). The towns we stopped in today were much more low key then the rest of the week. They know that riders don't spend a lot of time in towns on the last day but it was still fun. We ran into Andrew and Toby a few times, and saw Larry and Roger one last time along the route as well. When we got to Strawberry Point, about midway through the days mileage we had a hamburger and traded in pie for homemade Strawberry shortcake from the Methodist church....it was well worth the trade! We got our picture taken at the giant strawberry and we were on our way.

Posing with the Strawberry

Last stop in Garber!

After Strawberry Point, we knew the hills were going to come. We rode through some beautiful Amish country and started making longer and longer hill climbs. When we got to Garber the last town before the big hills, we and everyone else stopped for some hydration and fuel before making the big ascent. Now Garber on any other day would be a town you'd drive right by and not realize it was a town, but today it was flooded with cyclist. They didn't have much for food there, but it did provide a chance to shake out the legs before tackling the last 14.2 miles. Immediately after leaving Garber, we were climbing. They were long, steep hills, but honestly I would rather do that than anything we did the day before. Once we made it up that hill there was a little flat before we made the next long climb. This hill was steeper and much longer than the first....probably over 2 miles long. At one point I was feeling pretty defeated because I just felt like I wasn't making any progress, but then all of a sudden I could hear the "Rocky" theme song coming from up the hill. There was a cyclist on the side of the road who brought her trumpet and was playing music for people to help them up the hill. Of course everyone was in awe of the fact that this girl had enough energy to play the trumpet! One guy behind me who was struggling, said exasperatedly "is she playing Taps?, am I dead?" Which caused everyone around to start laughing. It definitely helped break up the hill and before we knew it, we had made it up!

View from top of one of the hills!

The hills were a struggle for most & everyone reacted differently to the challenge. Some people embrace it, others curse it, & some are just straight up angry. Pedaling up the hill there was one couple who had differing opinions on how to embrace the hill...as this guy was pedaling up he told his wife that he read somewhere that people who think positively while riding up hills do better then those with a bad attitude...she promptly told him to be quiet as he continued to talk she exclaimed she didn't want to hear it & just wanted him to be quiet....I thought she was going to kill him...well at least it provided some of us with a laugh. After every great climb up a hill was a fantastic "coast" downhill. The thing that gets me the most is passing the

View of riders coming up the hill

bigger rider while going up the hill only to have them vroom down the hill and half way up the next hill before needing to pedal again. These downhills were awesome, fast, and scary all at the same time. With so many people screaming down the hill it can be dangerous. We saw one bad wreck with a rider thrown off into the ditch. While we'd love to just let it roll down the hill we did have to brake some to make sure we were safe. My max speed was 36 mph down the hill, but there were others that said they were going 45 mph. That's real fast if you have a crash. It was also a far cry from the day before when we were going downhill into the wind and struggling to get to 10 mph while still pedaling!

Completing the last few blocks!

As we had already had some awesome downhills, we were approaching Guttenberg and Stacey looks over at me and says, do we have another last hill to climb? HECK NO....we are on downhill until we get to the river...2.5 more miles of coasting! It was awesome. As we got into town there was tons of traffic. Guttenberg is a small little town with one main road in and out, so imagine was 15,000 bikes and all the cars/support vehicles for that looks like. It was crowded! We finally made it to the side street and then we were back to only bike traffic on the way to the dip site. We spotted my parents along the route, and were able to wave at them as we rode by.

Waiting to dip our tires!

WE MADE IT! We were at the river, and had to wait to dip for awhile which allowed us to catch up with our friends Bob & Mary Anne. I also got to see my friend Laurie from Indiana as she dipped. We dipped our tires, and hoisted our bikes to recognize the feat we had just accomplished. It was a little surreal to be done, but we were! We really lucked out with the weather on Saturday because it was overcast for much of our ride, and as soon as we dipped the sun came out and it heated up quick.

Dorice Dipping

Both Dipping

Stacey Dipping

VICTORY!!!

After dipping our tires & hoisting our bikes in victory we had one last thing to do...retrieve our bags. Our charter's pick up site was only a few blocks from the dip site & was easy to find. We found our bags, took a quick "shower" using wet wipes & changed out of our biking clothes. We had about a 6 block walk to the car which on any other day, heck even yesterday, would've been fine but we had our 40 lbs. bags in tow...oh & it was HOT at this point! We loaded the car and were headed back to Dorice's parents house. On the way home we stopped for some food & finished our meals with a piece of pie! Even though this day of rest is nice we miss our bikes & may be having our first signs of post RAGBRAI depression.

451 miles later 

For the week we totaled 451 miles on our bike! The ride route was supposed to be 418, but apparently every RAGBRAI is significantly over the published mileage. We were extremely fortunate to have a safe ride for the week. We didn't have any bike issues as many people we know had significant problems, one person from our camp had his bike stolen in Mason City. We didn't have any falls, crashes, or medical issues. We know a few people who had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. We didn't get struck by lightning or have major amounts of water in our tent. Unfortunately two people died on this years' ride and these were the first deaths since 2010. One person had a heart attack going up one of the hills earlier in the week and another was found in their tent one morning. It makes us realize how fortunate we were to have a safe and fun ride. Thanks for all of your support and thoughts during the week. We still have more to write about in the upcoming days, and more pictures to share, so keep coming back. But now it's time to finish laundry and take a nap!

VICTORY!!!!

We made it!  We'll post more of an update after our nap!

We Survived!!

That water is in a 2-3 ft deep ditch

We bring you this blog post as survivors of a stormy night in camp. Our storm was complete with gusty winds, rain, thunder, & lightning. At one point the flash to bang count was ZERO! That lead us to having little sleep last night in preparation for a butt kicking day. This morning we had a small window of no rain so we took advantage of that to pack up the tents & hit the road. Getting to the truck to load over bags was tricky this morning as a river had formed...a makeshift bridge was put in place for us

As we started our ride the heavens opened up & lead us along for 20 glorious miles of cold, pounding rain.

Eating pancakes in the rain!

Just as the rain stopped abusing us, it's friend headwinds took over. These headwinds were in the range of 25-30 mph & were accompanied by hills...yay! Oh let's not forget about the crosswinds that would push us across the road, it was taking so much effort to stay upright that it was taking our mind off of pedaling. At one point, we were so tired from the headwinds and fighting that we just had to stop along the side of the road?..thankfully Mr. Pork Chop happened to be right there!! We had our pork chop and then headed on our way.


Need Mr. Pork Chop for fuel today!

We fought the wind for over 40 plus miles. For the day we did 68 miles in some very tough conditions! Let's say that with little sleep & our riding conditions we got our butts kicked today...it will be an early bedtime for sure tonight. We also want to report that on today's ride we encountered the creeper again thankfully he didn't recognize us & we let him pull away so as we laughed about seeing him again.

When we got to camp today we were exhausted, but we tried to hurry to get everything set up so it could dry. The sun actually came out for the last 10 miles or so of the ride, so it got hot and with the wind everything dried out fairly quickly. In the process of setting up the tent, the heavens rang with a glorious sound....the sound of the ice cream truck! Yep, that's right we got two big Popsicles from the ice cream man....they were well deserved!

We are happy to report that we are taking the Lutherans off probation today. We went to dinner at another Lutheran church tonight and they had a plethora of different kinds of pie to choose from along with lasagna, bread, and carrots & celery We went with Andrew and Toby and another guy from our camp, Mike. We ended up sitting at a table with a bunch of rowdies from Minnesota...they had sagged today because of the bad weather, so they were full of energy. The most vocal of the group was Howie and it just happened to be his birthday, so our room sang him happy birthday, and then the praise and worship band sang him happy birthday over the speaker system as well. Needless to say thfis made Howie even more rowdie!

After we returned to camp we were provided some on site entertainment by the local theatre group. Pork chop trained to slay the dragon...they incorporated bikes into the skit as horses & a way for pork chop to train to slay the dragon...let's just say it was interesting. We also talked to Bob & thankfully he slept in a tent last night...we were concerned about that this morning!

Tomorrow's the last day, we hope to have the energy & strength to climb the hills (tomorrow's climbs are over 2x what we have done so far), we ask that you pray for tailwinds for our ride (please try harder than your no rain prayers...our lives can depend on this) and we hope to report our victory tomorrow....after our nap!

The Toothless Wonder



Frank Lloyd Wright Hotel in Mason City

Last night we headed downtown to roam around a little and listen to the live music (this was a rare night that we couldn't hear it from our tents). The headliners of the night were Warrant & Bret Michaels (talk about some washed up 80's artists. As we were sitting in the park we made a new friend John he's an engineer who works on the navigation software for Garmin...how cool is that! He was a super cool dude.

Our camp site was at a playground & right next to train tracks...well RAGBRAI being in town doesn't mean that the trains stop rolling so we got to listen to the glorious roar of the train's horn....c'mon people tired cyclist are trying to sleep. Before we went to bed, Stacey comes to my tent and says, "uh dude, we have a problem". Now I'm thinking there is a huge spider or something in her tent, but nope...that would have been easy.  Instead she says, "I just lost the cap off my tooth when I was brushing my teeth."  Ok, that's a bit more serious than a spider.  We did a quick google search and decided it wasn't an emergency and that our ride must go on!  If your have any dental knowledge and don't think our course of treatment is correct, don't tell us until after Saturday!!  Stacey now is affectionately called the "toothless wonder" around camp!

Thursday's Route

The start to today's ride was a little rough, but in the grand scheme of things no big deal. While trying to air her tires, Stacey's stem on her tube bent and we couldn't get air in it, so we had to change here rear tire before ever got started.  Thankfully we were at camp still and it only set us back a few minutes.  Stacey was pretty ticked that this all went down, but as soon as we got on the road we were greeted by a man playing a harmonica while riding his bike.  I think that cheered Stacey up and we were well on our way to a good day!



Channeling her inner Spidy

Some may say that when biking up a lot of hills you may come face to face with Jesus...instead we were greeted with free watermelon it was fantastic & at a perfect point in our ride when we needed some fuel. This was an on the pedal swooping of a watermelon slice handed out by a coordinated man...grab & go style. Did you eat watermelon while riding your bike 20 mph down a hill today? I don't think so!

One of Stacey's new friends in Clear Lake

Today we biked 67 miles which had many glorious hills & fields of corn. Once we got our tents set up we realized that Andrew's kids were there so we got to meet his 3 little ones & his wife along with Toby's wife. Much to Dorice's dismay our showers were at Wartburg College (a rival college of Central's where Dorice attended) while she was bitter about giving these folks $5 for a shower they were the best of the week!

For dinner tonight we gave the Lutherans one last shot (mainly because we couldn't eat another pasta dinner) they served us cheesesteaks, German potato salad, PIE, & ice cream. They have redeemed their ranking some but we still are holding them on meal probation. Dinner was great tonight since we didn't have much food on the ride today. Not only do we plan dinner we also figure out where we are going to get our nightly snack since usually by 8 PM we are super hungry again.


One of the many interesting "bikes"

Tomorrow is another long day and it could have the element of rain & high winds to compete with. Rain is expected to roll in over night so here's hoping our tents stay dry! There are only 2 more days of riding left & the concern of post RAGBRAI depression is already setting in!

Pigs & Pools





The Surf Ballroom

Wednesday's Route

What do you mean you didn't have a pork chop at 8 am this morning? That's right, today we went to the famous Mr. Pork Chop for our breakfast.  We had committed to eating there today because it was a short day.  Little did we know we'd come upon his stand about 15 miles into the ride.  It was the best stop ever because we didn't have to wait....normally the wait is forever long.  You may be thinking, how on earth can you eat a pork chop at 8?  Well because it's that darn good.  It's hot off the grill and they just hand you a pork chop bigger than your hand in a paper towel. By far the best pork chop either of us have ever had! We talked to them as they were grilling and they said they sell 800-1000 pork chops a day at $8 a crack.  That's 56,000 for the week!  They've definitely got a good thing going.

Enjoying our pork chop

 

Today's ride was short with us going about 41 miles.  The winds weren't bad, the temp was good and it was flat.  We  were actually done for the day by 11 am.  We went through Clear Lake which was really pretty.  Clear Lake is famous for where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens played their last concert at The Surf Ballroom.  They then were killed in a plane crash a few miles from our overnight town today.  This is where "the day the music died" phrase came from.  

For lunch today we had pulled pork sandwiches (we made it the day of the pig) after  that we went to the Mason City Pool...for free ( no we didn't wait 30 minutes before we went in the pool) not only did we get to swim for free but shower for free...VICTORY! RAGBRAI is the only time the ladies line for anything is shorter than the men's. This pool was huge and had a few fun water slides & diving boards it was a great way to spend the afternoon. We hung out with our friend Andrew at the pool and were like kids doing cannon balls off of the diving boards! Cycling tan lines were on their best display at the pool, I'm sure it was entertaining to the locals.

Dorice tested the water slides

After the pool we decided to go to the Lutheran church for a spaghetti dinner. This is our second trip to a Lutheran church & our last due to their lack of serving pie as dessert....to our Lutheran friends out there...why no love for pie? Stacey did experience a new food of the day today....scotcheroos!  

We are quite the neighbors in the camp grounds...our new friend Ralph (he's from DC) has given us a 5 star rating as a  neighbor & Roger & Larry usually set their tent up by us as well. Last night we were neighbors to Andrew & his dad ( his name is Toby) & when we set up camp today they seemed disappointed that we weren't by them again....so see you guys would love to come on RAGBRAI with us and be our neighbors.

We figured we would tell you that we are holding up pretty well physically. Stairs & getting up from sitting may be getting a little slower but overall we are happy with the way we feel ( we thought you might care about this part but if not sorry for the 15 seconds that it took for you to read this).

Sometimes riding can get a little boring, so thankfully people put signs along the road to keep us entertained...a few of our favorites

"Caution, tighten your bra straps and take out your dentures, rough road ahead"

"Kook-aid stand ahead serving real kool-aid by a real live 4 year old"

"Free snow mobile rides 2 miles ahead, weather permitting"

"Shut up legs, just keep moving"

A few things you only hear on RAGBRAI:

"RUMBLES".....what riders yell out to signal rumble strips on the road

"Do you need more butt butter".....the chaffing cream is never far away

"We would have gotten here sooner, but there were $2 drafts at the last town".....we hear that from Roger a lot

An addendum to yesterday's blog: Dorice made me pet a cow yesterday (Abby was her name) she tried to get me to kiss a pig but let's be honest there is no need to do that...I think the heat was getting to her at that point! 

Stacey pet a cow

We thank you for all of your comments & texts. They keep us laughing along the way! 

Happy Hump Day!  Ride a Camel!

Some bananas going down the road

HHHH

Tuesday's Route

What is HHHH, you ask, well it's the 4Hs of RAGBRAI and we experienced all of them together.  We had hills, headwinds, and humidity when we first left.  It was brutal. We left at 6:15 am today because we knew it would be a long hot day.  The wind and humidity were the result of just missing a storm...we luckily skirted just around it and never felt a drop.  The heat came later in the day...it probably got into the 90s, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky so it was a little toasty.  We definitely got sun even with 3 applications of sunscreen!  The hills were not cool because they seem to always come with the headwind.

The hills & headwinds were so wicked that the thought of getting off of the bike, tossing it into a corn field & setting it on fire crossed the mind...no worries I just kept  pedaling & embraced the conditions. Just as we were getting into a good riding flow  we encountered the Noblesville creeper. As is standard on RAGBRAI you often strike up random conversations on the ride...all of ours have been great until we met this dude....he's from Noblesville Indiana and apparently hangs out at a bar in the town I live (I've seen the place from the outside & it looks shady...this dude solidified that fact on the ride). We finally escaped the creeper & were on our merry way.

We had more pancakes and watermelon today...in fact Dorice showed off her skills as she caught her pancakes while the griddle master tossed them at her.  She caught four of five with the last one banked squarely off her chest.  Today's new food for Stacey was Kringla, a Danish almond pastry which we ate while waiting in line for pancakes!

Line for pancakes....you need snacks!

We had some pie at the fire station in Titonka, which for those of you who've seen Dances With Wolves know that means buffalo.....but Stacey decided it was the name of a Japanese village.  It was at this point that I realized that Stacey had gone completely delirious. Let's be honest folks, she sang and did the whole hokie pokie while riding her bike today.  Tonight we ate a pasta supper at the Lutheran church.  We like to spread our church meals around to different denominations!  We finished the day off with some ice cream because who doesn't need ice cream after 81 miles!

We'll leave you with a final visual for the day.  Imagine if you will, we get back to camp and are exhausted, sweaty, and down right gross.  But first we have to set up our tent....now it's a 20 mph wind.  We were defeated.....many times, but finally with a little teamwork we got them set up. We were definitely on team struggle bus tonight!

This is what you look like after 81 miles!

Tomorrow is a short day, but we are exhausted so heading to bed....it's a pretty quiet camp tonight because everyone got their butts kicked today.  Here's hoping for tailwinds and cool temps!

Pancakes & Watermelon

So how do you fuel for a 40 miles (45.7)? Pancakes & Watermelon of course! For today's blog we are going to switch gears (see what happened there!) and tell you about what we carry while biking along with some of the things we see while riding (apparently you guys care about these things so we want to keep our fans happy).

Monday's Route

Biking supplies: we each carry 2 bags on our bikes that serve as the home for some minor repair tools & some additional items. As far as tools go we carry a bike tool (Allen Wrenches of various sizes), tire levers, spare tubes, CO2 cartridges, & a patch kit. Our other bag usually contains our money for the day, our cell phones, energy chews, sunscreen, & various other items depending on needs. In addition to our bags we also have pockets in the back of our bike jerseys that carry more supplies such as a small camp roll of toilet paper (which thankfully we haven't needed yet), and a clif bar. Dorice usually carries a cell phone charger & I carry a small pharmacy of allergy meds (we compliment each other well). In addition our bikes allow us to carry 2 water bottles one which is water & the other is Gatorade ( we carry extra packets of this as well). Compared to some other riders on RAGBRAI we carry minimal things some riders carry everything they need for the week...when we say everything we mean it clothes, sleeping bags, tents etc! Then we have our musical friends that strap solar powered radios on their bikes (great entertainment for us, extra work for them).

Watching all the other riders is a interesting experience as many have interesting jerseys and team names.  Some of our favorite so far are:
Team Skunk
Cranky Bastards
Fat & Tired
Team Flamingo
No Pie Refused....made up of individuals who work for NPR radio
Team buzz.....they all making buzzing sounds when riding by you in their bee jerseys
Team cow
Team Brewhaha....they hand out bar guides
And our favorite...whom we hope to never meet...team Air Force.  There are several of them and if anyone is stopped with a flat or other issue, they swoop in and help you fix your bike.  They are super nice and helpful, but I'm hoping we don't need their services.  Doug Lomsdalen I think you need to joint their team for next year!

There are all kinds of bikers on this ride...all ages, shapes, and sizes.  We saw a guy yesterday that had "88 and doing great" on his license plate....he was looking strong.  We've also seen several young kids...probably 6 or 7...most are on the back of tandems, but some have been pedaling the whole thing on their own.  There are all kinds of bikes too, road, hybrid, mountain, recumbent, tandems, triple bike (we made up the name, but you get the idea), there are eliptical bikes, hand cycles, a rowing bike, and a unicycle.  Honestly, anyone can do this.  We saw a tandem today that was encased to look like a banana going down the road.  We also have seen some recumbents that look like a jetsons vehicle....it was a little mini car, but still a bike.  He said the bike weighed 70 lbs....NO THANK YOU!  We have also seen a man pulling a cart behind his bike with his dog on it.  The dog was harnessed in!  Sarah Manspeaker this is the way for you and T-Pain to do this next year!  We have also seen a lot of ways to park your bike in the stop through towns from leaning up against a tree,to balancing 2-6 bikes against each other, and our favorite the cable between two tractors.

While trying to post the blog last night the moment finally came....we got our "virgin" tattoos.  Sharon a lady in our camp came over to make sure we were properly marked.  She also painted a bicycle on my toenail.  The tattoos are great, but they give you about 5 other tattoos in all other places on you legs because you sweat and it rubs off everywhere!

New friends of the night & day....first we'll start with Bob oh Bob he's an interesting guy who just sleeps under the stars no tent for him...he then told us we should try sleeping under the stars too ok great suggestion but he repeated that about 10 times. Bob has done RAGBRAI 25 times! Next was Caroline she's a first timer like ourselves nice somewhat quiet girl who talked to use as we were writing our blog last. We also talked to another older gentleman but didn't get his name he was the one who sent Sharon in our direction for our tattoos. While on our ride today as I (Stacey) was wearing my Team in Training bike jersey (Go TEAM!) and met Andrew & his dad. Andrew grew up in Richmond, VA & now lives in Iowa. We rode with him for about 10 miles & having good conversation. Andrew is a doctor and had some AT questions for us, only because he's a doctor we felt we could educate him so we answered his questions. His dad's bike broke on Saturday so he has been riding demo bikes for the trip...today he was on a $5,000 road bike riding in hiking boots.....classic! A lot of the conversations in the camp site begin by people asking if Dorice & I are sisters....seriously people do you see the height difference just because we have curly hair that doesn't make us sisters. Although we did feel better after a couple said they get people who ask if they are siblings....now that is awkward. For those of you who have become a fan of Roger's no worries he's up to his usual antics...he's fantastic! Let's just say Larry woke up in the middle of the night and Roger wasn't in the tent, so he had to call him to find out if he was ok.  Oh Roger...he's always out partying.  While she wasn't really a new friend, we did meet Emily, a 4-Her in Graettinger who was doing a service project for her fair this week.  She was serving free water, that she would pump into our bottles for a huge drum and she had ice for us to put in our bottles too.  She was working really hard to pump the water and she was making a ton of friends because she had ice....cold water is at a premium.  We gave her a good donation and wished her well on all of her projects she had at this week's fair.

Emily helped us with the water!

We finished today in Emmetsburg today (after 20 mph headwinds and hills for the last 8 miles), and we have been spending some time downtown. We ate at the Catholic Church today because they were having homemade chicken and noodles, green beans, homemade bread, and of course pie.  Stacey was a little skeptical because she had never had or heard of chicken and noodles....WHAT?!?  Who knew I'd be introducing her to so many new foods on RAGBRAI?  Let's just say the Catholics did not disappoint.

Tomorrow will be our longest and most likely hottest ride of the trip.  It's going to be a challenge.  We hope to get some good sleep and not get woken up in the middle of the night by a blood curdling scream....apparently the guy a few tents down had a cramp. We hope we're never like him!  Finally another shout out to Cailee Welch who has been riding a portion of each days mileage at home in Arizona.....she's already training for next year!  Who else is in?!?



View coming into Graettinger

Chilling in Boyden!

Oh and if you can't tell...we trade off writing parts of this and sometimes we don't identify ourself as the writer....you get the idea!