Winner Winner Spaghetti Dinner

The day has finally arrived that we are in camp with our group QCBC. As we set up camp we eagerly awaited the arrival of some of our friends from last year...not knowing which ones we may see.  We found a familiar face or two show up & as we ventured out from camp we met some folks from Indiana. Jon had on a Toughman Indiana shirt on so we had to stop & talk with him. We found out that him & his wife Rochelle live in Pendleton IN & this is their 1st RAGBRAI. Rochelle works at CIO in Anderson so we know a lot of similar people from my days in Anderson. Such a small world!  They are with a group of people that are from Indiana and many of them volunteer/work for 'Back on My Feet' in Indianapolis. They all are first timers so it was fun to talk to them about their experiences so far. 

After we met our new friends we ventured over to check out things out at the main stage and vendor area. Everything was set up on the other side of the UNI dome and Wellness Center on UNI's campus. I'm pretty sure that if we would have ridden today we would have used the opportunity to shower and use the indoor pool/water slide there. Instead we just like around at the facilities and ended up running into the Troy Garrett the athletic trainer at UNI...he was manning the shower queue so he couldn't show us the AT facilities. We headed out to the vendors to check out the tshirts, and we were able to find clear covers for Stacey so she didn't have to walk around in and ruin her cleats!  BONUS!!

After checking out the vendors we headed back to camp. Dorice took our water bottles back over to the wellness center to fill them up while I enjoyed a quick nap. We then decided it was time to head out for dinner. Only 2 church choices tonight one that was serving pony & the other serving all you can eat spaghetti...clearly we went with the spaghetti..really who serves pony?!? Now we took our chances as this was a Lutheran church and if you remember from last year they set us up for disappointment a lot. Well folks they pulled through...not only did we have spaghetti but Dorice quickly spotted that they had pie for dessert & they gave all RAGBRAI riders a bag of trail mix...bonus! 

Not only did they have pie but as Dorice would say they had the elusive strawberry rhubarb pie that she always tries to find..clearly this place won her stomach. So thumbs up all around for this dinner & Dorice's pie count is officially at 1...hopefully finding the elusive strawberry rhubarb on night one is a good sign for the week's pie consumption. 

After dinner we headed back to camp and walked through the college bar area. Two guys in their mid 50s were playing Rock Paper Scissors to determine who had to finish the laundry and who had to get more beer....but they never decided which of those tasks was the "winning" task. These are the dilemmas people face on RAGBRAI. We saw just a single cot set up in our camp site and we can only assume that our friend Bob from last year is again sleeping under the stars. While Bob may have slimmed down a bit from last year he still has not applied any sunscreen as he is pretty crispy already!  As we got back to our tents we spotted it....what we think is Roger and Larry's tent!! Roger and Larry provided us endless entertainment last year, so we were excited that it could be them!  We walked by their tent...read that as "stalked" their tent...to see if we could determine it was them. Now we're not sure but the was a pillow with a flower pillow case on it so we're 90% confident that is Larry's....I mean the guy talked about his PJs all the time last year!!  We may camp outside their tent until they return!!

We are exhausted...it's 6pm and we didn't even ride today. I'm not sure we're going to make it to the Hairball concert tonight....what a shame!  With any luck we'll be able to hear it from our tent!  And if we can't hear the concert we do have the guys in the tent next to us who are singing...yet another bonus!

One of the burning questions Stacey left off last night was:

How long will it take for Stacey to finally take the plunge and pee in a cornfield?

The tent we "stalked" was that of Roger & Larry.  It was mutual happiness when we saw each other...they told us they were nervous that we didn't come back or that maybe we joined another club...they excused us for missing the first few days. We caught up a little bit & then the boys headed off for dinner but not before Larry gave us his food report for the day & a piece of candy from Canada.