We forgot to tell you Friday night that we did a triathlon on Friday. We biked (obviously), we swam at the pool, and we ran to catch the shuttle! Never stop training! Friday night was the warmest night of sleeping we had...Stacey didn't even need the Jesus robe! We were up early again to get ready to embark on the last day of the journey this year and the sunrise over camp was beautiful! It was a little bitter sweet because we felt like we just got started! We were packed and on the road riding by 6:37....and we made it on truck B! VICTORY!!
As we left Coralville, we winded through Iowa City and took a cycling tour of the University of Iowa campus. We could have had a much more direct route, but they wanted us to see all the sights...and of course one big hill by the old capital building. It was up this hill that two guys with "Don't Mess with Texas" jerseys decided that they would draft off Dorice as she climbed up the hill....well these boys couldn't hang and she dropped them like a hot potato! A little while later they went flying by her, and so on the next hill she just flew by them again to prove a point! Maybe they should have been wearing "don't mess with Dorice" jerseys! Since we had only been on the road about 4 miles we decided to skip breakfast in Iowa City and wait til the next town....this would soon prove to be a not great decision.
As we rolled into West Liberty we asked the volunteer where a good spot would be to grab breakfast, he told us that the local church was serving eggs & stuff so we decided to give it a whirl. We made our way to the church, paid for our breakfast and as we were about 4-5 deep in the line to get served a gentleman announced that they may run out of food before they could serve all of us who were in there...well sure enough they did, so we got on money back and headed back towards to vendors to find some food which we needed bad since we were about 27 miles into our ride at this point. We went in line to grab a breakfast burrito only to come to the realization that they weren't breakfast burritos but just regular burritos. At this point we were so hungry that we just went with it and had a beef burrito and beef gordita and rolled out of town. Now we had some great tailwinds and a mainly flat ride so we hooked on the back of a pace line and were flying. We were going a consistent 20-22 mph and feeling effortless. The trick here is that we sneak in behind some tall person, Stacey tucks right in and then Dorice behind her so most of the time all the cyclist in front sees is Dorice and it doesn't look much like drafting at all. We planned to keep on this draft line but as we rolled into town our lead drafters were making a beer stop and we had decided to keep rolling through.
We continued to use the draft and tailwinds to our advantage and decided that in the next town we would stop and search for some pie. We saw some members of team cow on a tandem fat wheel bike and they were moving....it was impressive! They play great music so we tried to stay with them for as long as we could, but they stopped at the craft beer tent, so we lost our tunes. We were starting to see a pattern here...we lose tunes and draft lines for beer! It had been pretty overcast and cool up to this point, but the sun was starting to come out and we could tell it was going to get toasty. As we approached Wilton, we started seeing signs for the petting zoo sponsored by the FFA. I challenged Stacey to pet a cow since she chickened out last year. I mean it's just a cow...they are harmless! Especially some little FFA members cow! We got to the petting zoo and they had sheep, goats, dairy cows, chickens, and piglets. Stacey petted a sheep right away...and seemed to be shocked at how soft it was.
Then I saw it...they were letting people milk the cow....this is awesome....I'm going to make Stacey milk a real cow! The cow she milked earlier in the week was a fake cow...she was practiced and ready for the real deal. As we approached the cow, another rider was milking it and some other riders were hugging the other cow and taking selfies. Stacey looks at me and says, "I'm not ready we need to come back." So we looked at the goats and I petted the baby calf and then back we went. Her time had come...she was going to milk a cow! She got in there and milked it just a few times, but the girl did proclaim her a pro cow milker...due to her practice earlier in the week for sure! We have video so we'll try to add it here! Stacey would not hold the piglet because he started squealing like piglets do, so we left. For the record....Stacey still hasn't actually pet a cow! Next year it's on!
We rounded the corner into Wilton and bam pie stand right there. We parked our bikes grabbed some pie (#6 for Dorice....homemade peach...the first time I had to have the same kind).
Shortly after we finished our pie the stand had sold out. We asked the woman how many pies she baked and she told us 100 pies and they sold out in about 2.5 hours and we were some of the earlier people to arrive in town! So for those of you who think I'm crazy about this pie thing....several others are as well! Wilton is the first town I've ever encountered on RAGBRAI that had volunteers outside the porta potties making sure the seats were clean and that they had adequate toilet paper...what was this...the Hilton? Luxury service for sure! On our way out of town as we filled our water bottles we noticed that they were giving out cooling neck towels that we could ride on with...awesome!
We had some more tailwinds and great riding as we approached Walcott...the final town before the end in Davenport. As we rolled into town all of the festivities were going on at the town park and in the middle was a little league all-star game. These girls probably no older than 5-6 had never played for crowds like this before. All the riders were cheering them on and enjoying the game. The game was a high scoring affair with a final score 26-25! As one rider form DC said, "If George Washington were here, he'd be proud...this is America!" Now at this point it was HOT! It was at this point that Stacey had wished she had packed some salt tabs but to substitute for that she got a pickle on a stick and a bag of chips...no one wants to cramp on RAGBRAI!
Dorice also got a pickle on a stick and yes folks pie piece #7 (blueberry pie and it was this place's last pie of blueberry....winning!).
We also decided that a cold Gatorade was in order...did we mention it was HOT out?!?! As we rolled out of Walcott Dorice noticed a person wearing a Central Jersey and yelled "Go Dutch" and rode up the road a bit chatting with Matt and Anne Oliver, people she went to college with....before this happened we were trying to decide if we needed to fill our bottles for the last stretch so I still had my cleat covers on so I had to catch up to Dorice...the good thing is that you really can't get lost on RAGBRAI.
We have figured out that we are really good at making our last miles of the day take longer since we find many fun things to stop and do along the way. While Dorice managed to accomplish eating 7 pieces of pie, about 5 miles outside of our ending town I accomplished the task of peeing in a cornfield. This is a RAGBRAI thing and in general I'm beginning to think maybe it's a Midwest thing overall. It is freaking hot in a cornfield!
As we were making our way to the dip site taking in our final miles of the ride we spot a slip and slide and had to stop...we were waiting to find a good one of these...we took a slide (not our best performances), had a few laughs, and went on our way. These people were awesome. They had a full spread of food out and a mini beer truck in their driveway to share with the riders....just super nice. We got to enjoy some nice up hills to finish out our ride. When we got to the dip site we were unsure if we were going to dip there or the 7 miles down the road where we would retrieve our bags and get picked up. We decided to dip there and continue on our way...this is where the bonus miles started as they made us ride around the entire island-which felt like it took forever! We took our ceremonial dipping pictures (Stacey was photographed by a local paper and was told she'd be on the front page) and continued on to our final destination. We were told to hop on the bike path and it would take us to Isle of Capri to get our bags. Well minor detail was that they weren't letting the cyclist on the bike path. So we told the volunteers who stopped us that we would need some help then finding our way there....I would say that they gave us general directions but not great ones. Luckily we were able to pick up the bike path further down and get to our final spot. It was another RAGBRAI ride in the books! We completed a hot 78 miles today and 220 miles for the three days we rode!
Three days of RAGBRAI was better then no days of RAGBRAI. It was great to see some of our buddies from last year we even got to see Larry and Roger at the bag pick up one last time for RAGBRAI 2015. We changed out of our sweaty cycling clothes, packed up our stuff and headed back to the farm.
So how did we do on our burning RAGBRAI questions:
-Dorice reached her goal of eating 7 pieces of pie only having one flavor (peach) twice
-We saw Mr Porkchop later in the day and he was as awesome as we remember also note it was another rainy Friday that Mr Porkchop made us feel better about life
-We saw 6 of our RAGBRAI friends from last year
-We did not run into the Noblesville creeper
-We only ate dinner at one church and had breakfast at another church so our best church meal award goes to the Church in Hudson....$3 pancakes and sausage breakfast..well done!
-On the hilly day our legs weren't super happy but I think that would've been true on any day even if these weren't our "recovery rides"
-It took Stacey until 5 miles outside the ending town to pee in a cornfield
-Dorice rode a rubber duck in a pool and Stacey milked a cow.....we also did a ton of other really fun things that you have read about.
We also promised a farm camp update for Gabby. She really loves farm camp! Everyday she goes with Marv and Bria to the big pasture to check the cows, and they run in the pasture. Gabby isn't real afraid of the cows, so she'll run right up to them. Some cows aren't fond of this tactic, so they start to charge her....well then she retreats to hiding under the truck! I think she's learning who she can come up to and who not to bother. Gabby hates being hot and hates being in the sun, but mom said that she will sit in the sun to watch the cows if they are up close to the fence by the garden...she loves cows! This is the first trip to the farm where Gabby has been able to actually help with chores. Marv is trusting her more around the cows and Gabby just loves it. She helps moves the cows from the pasture to the feed lot every night. She has improved on her herding abilities in just the few days she's been here. Because it was so hot yesterday Gabby and Bria got to go swimming. Now Bria loves splashing and laying in her pool, but Gabby just likes standing in it to cool her paws. She isn't one for splashing, but still enjoys the refreshing days at camp. She's going to be really sad when farm camp is over. She loves the farm so much.
Thanks for following our 2015 RAGBRAI adventure....we hope that some of you will join us on the ride in 2016! We have videos to add to the blog...but they take forever to load. We'll just post those to facebook!
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