Tools and Tires

The bus ride felt like the ride that was never going to end! Even with a couple of naps thrown in there we were so ready to get off the bus! We learned that the strategy getting off the bus is to quickly grab your bags and claim a spot for your tent. We did this quite seamlessly and got both tents up in 18 minutes! Not bad especially after the long bus ride! As we got our bikes and were ready to realign the handlebars and put our pedals back on (they are removed or adjusted for transport) Dorice realized that the bike tool did not make the trip...oops but a nice guy in camp (Jim) let us borrow his bike tools to get our bikes adjusted. (We told Jim we owe him a beer). This was also about the time a group of little kids were coming through camp giving out popsicles!  A popsicle is always the way to fix an error!  According to the little boy who gave us them, "the blue ones are the goodest"

After getting settled in we headed downtown to the expo area and to scope out our food options for the evening. We spent quite some time at the expo as we needed to find Dorice a new back tire since when we were in camp I asked her if she had her winter training tire still on and she sure did! Another crisis averted! 

We settled on an all you can eat spaghetti dinner at the First Reformed Church...why didn't they serve pie?  they did have desserts. We sat at a table with some guys from Team Jazz and much to our surprise they did not play jazz! We had some good dinner conversation and fueled up for the start of the ride tomorrow! We took a picture in front of the official RAGBRAI sweeper with our photo bombing friend Jay for a chance at some free swag. 

After dinner we finished walking around the expo and then headed back to camp for some final prepping of our bikes for tomorrow (like Dorice needing to change her tire). 

While we were writing this blog another little girl Ainsley who is two came by with her mom and another free popsicle!!  Today was hot and we are GROSS!  We've contemplated a shower but haven't decided if we want to yet. It would be a great night for a pool stop!!

A Few other pictures from the day!!  We are not sleeping in the bunk hammocks!