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!