Since we thought it was going to rain we decided to set our bikes in Stacey's tent. I guess it pays to have a big tent! No rain last night!!! Yay!! It's never fun sleeping in the rain or packing up a wet tent.We headed out around 6:45 and we were the first bags on truck C....this proved to be a key factor later in the day. The day was overcast and no wind!! It was glorious and we were moving!
As we approached the first town we saw signs for homemade donuts...we thought we'd be stopping soon so we could go back. We totally missed our opportunity. Moral of the story...never pass up homemade donuts. Dang!!
We moved on to Swaledale and guess what...those Methodists were at it again. Serving breakfast burritos for $3!! We also split a homemade cinnamon roll. It wasn't cinnamon bites on a stick, but it was still delicious. As we were eating we saw these girls!
How can you pass up helping raise money for monkey bars?!? It is here that we also found an abandoned cell phone on the ground. We gave it to Carol at the Methodist church. I hope they found their phone. Good news is that the had 85% battery and was actually on...a rarity for Ragbrai phones!
We've seen a few dogs riding RAGBRAI. We've decided that Gabby would love to do RAGBRAI, but since she is probably a little too big for a back pack like this dog has, Stacey has agreed to pull her in a wagon behind her bike. Because safety is important, Gabs will wear a helmet!!
Since the beginning of today's route had a lot of quick trips ~6 miles between towns there wasn't much to do in some of the towns and since there was a chance for rain today we breezed through our next town as it was a beautiful morning to ride despite the humidity. As we went we were hopeful to lose the bullet cars as we like to call them since these things are straight up dangerous to be around! Pictures of bullet cars later!
Our next town was Cartersville. As we turned towards town, the state trooper said..."there's a storm coming, be careful!" Now when on RAGBRAI you hear lots of rain rumors and people claiming to know what's up... but when a state trooper says it.. you take notice! Cartersville had this huge awesome looking swing into a pond! The RAGBRAI tan lines were on full display on the cyclists who were going on the swing. By this time breakfast had worn off and it was time to fuel up again...a burger and brat before 10 AM why not it's RAGBRAI! As we ate our food Dorice said let's go over and watch the swingers...might need a better choice of words next time! At this point the skies started to look angry and we knew at this point we were probably going to get rained on, it just wouldn't be a RAGBRAI for us if we didn't get rained on one day. So after "watching the swingers" we put on our rain jackets and headed out. Now a rain jacket on the bike when it's warm out is what I imagine a vegetable in a steamer bag feels like when it's cooking! Sure enough the few drops we started to feel turned into a straight up rain that made for slick roads, spotty sunglasses, and a stream of water spraying up from the back tire not fun for drafting or for trying to keep a dry bum!
10 miles in the rain only means one thing...we need pie! The Methodist came through again in Rockford with pie! 3 for 3 in 2 days for the Methodists! They may just be slowly winning us back! We found a spot under a tent and ate our pie and just tried to wait to see what the rain was going to do.
As we were sitting there Dorice commented to the people across from us how big their cookie was and then they said look at the size of this scotcharoo...she commented about the impressive size of it. Now this is where it gets weird again as this is the third time on RAGBRAI that Dorice has been offered a bit of a stranger's dessert. It all started with the clean side of a used toothpick and has just continued since...I mean people in the Midwest are nice but this behavior is crossing a line! No I don't want to eat the last half of your scotcharoo random stranger...that's gross and actually mildly inappropriate to offer a stranger your food. Why do people keep offering me their desserts? Is it because I look hungry? Is it because I am a fat kid who likes to eat a lot? Make it stop people! I won't take food from a stranger...my mom raised me better!
After we waiters out the rain a bit we decided to head on to our ending town. We only had 15 miles left and it wasn't raining. We didn't put our wet rain jackets back on! About 7 miles to go it started raining AGAIN. It was at 3 miles to town and we were soaked that Stacey says do you want to put on your rain jacket? Um....no I'm soaked and we're almost there. A nice gesture but a little late. Gotta love rain days!!
We got to camp...without getting lost! And guess what? It wasn't raining!!!! Wahooooo. So we didn't have to set up our tent in the rain. Now it's always a crap shoot on what happens to your bags on a rain day. Did they leave them on the truck as long as they could? Did they cover them with a tarp? Being on truck C we knew we'd be the last bags to be unloaded! BONUS! All the bags were out and under a tarp. We found our bags right away! They were soaked! Boooo. But we got stuff set up and aired out...a little. Now Ray and Vince were in camp befor us. Carlos rode in with us. We had our tent set up before those two found their bags!!! It helps to remember what truck you put your bag on!! Oh.....tent pole update. Now three parts are held together by duct tape!
After getting our tents set up we headed downtown for a little fun. We had seen some different river attractions in our daily town guide and decided to check it out. We got to go tubing in Iowa's only white water course complete with some fun rapids. On our first go around we went down the river together as a one armed swimmer can only go in circles when they try to paddle! On the second go around we went on our own. Now this is where Dorice almost floated straight back to camp as she was way off to the right when the exit point was on the left and the current was trying to take her downstream more. For Sarah, Cailee, and JG it was like the JG hamster ball incident in Pigeon Forge...no worries she didn't float down to camp but it gave us both a good laugh. Don't worry mom, we had life jackets! Totally need to find a Tri where we swim with those type of currents it would improve our times immensely. We thought this was a good time now to shower up, the storms seemed to have passed for the time being and we were done with our river fun, we learned that the path next to the river lead right back to our campsite and that there was a shower on the way back. Well when we got to the shower truck the wait was super long so we decided for a wet wipe shower instead tonight. We got plenty of cleaning from Mother Nature today so we were just fine with it.
Dinner tonight was at the First Bapist Church and they brought their A game...penne lasagna again we are in the Midwest they don't know how to correctly label Italian food but despite their name confusion it was freaking delicious and they had pie...honest homemade pie with love as the main ingredient type of good! Real apple pie with a real cinnamon sugar crust. Second piece of pie was needed remember it was a rainy day and those call for some extra power! Oh your legs are tired eat some pie, the sun is beating you up eat some pie, headwinds suck eat some pie, rain poured down on you eat some pie....bottom line pie fixes everything on RAGBRAI except for maybe tent poles. PS Santa if you're reading this Stacey needs a new tent for Christmas!
We need to try to get this blog posted and we still have lots to do at camps since our stuff is scattered everywhere trying to dry. The hills start tomorrow! Going to be good fun!
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