We feel like we’ve focused so much on the Philly boys that we haven’t told you about some of the friends we’ve made. Shaun and Kayla are a Father daughter from Colorado. This is their first RAGBRAI and they are loving it! This was a bucket list item for Kayla. She’s a highschool student and she has been scarred by the group showers with older women!! Then there is Glen from Georgia who has a goal of doing a week long ride in all of the states (he has 22 done) and this is his first RAGBRAI super nice guy but he is a talker! We usually get his daily run down of what he has done when we see him in camp after the ride. For our faithful followers Ralph is back for another year! He became a grandpa this year so his son in law is not on the ride with him as he has a little infant to take care of.
We got rolling about 6:30 this morning and for the first time on RAGBRAI we didn’t know where to go since we usually just follow the crowds. So we thought if we went back towards downtown we might see other bikers and find our way out of town...we’ll we had a group of other riders from camp following us out and we gave them the disclaimer of not knowing where we were going but for some reason they trusted us and followed us out!
We had some great tailwinds going out of town and not nearly as many hills. It was a good morning riding. We passed a lot of wind turbines so that was pretty cool!
The towns on today’s stop left a little to be desired. Not a lot of fun things to do or eat. We wanted breakfast but we weren’t feeling any options. We decided to ride on and then we saw it. The glorious sight of smoke ahead. That meant only on thing....Mr. Pork Chop!! We ate our earliest pork chop ever at 8:15 am!! It was glorious! We also got to witness a woman from Texas eat her first bite of Mr. Pork Chop. You would have thought she just won a million dollars! It was hysterical! I’m pretty sure she is now a Mr. Pork Chop convert!!
At the next town we stopped for water and to use the porta potties. While in line for the porta potties we started talking to the guy behind us. We learned that he also grew up in NJ he told me a small town in Northern NJ...So of course I asked which one...his response was Denville ha the town right next to where I grew up. After talking a few more minutes we then discovered that we went to the same HS just many years apart! So I had to take a picture with Roy! That is the crazy thing on RAGBRAI you never know who you may meet!
We rolled on and finished our ride with one last stop for some homemade ice cream from Beekman’s a RAGBRAI staple that we have never had so we figured why not. The ice cream was pretty good...the peach was much better than the raspberry but still a good experience. We saw Pauly in line on our way out and finished our ride.
When we got to Ames we got to do a lap around the Iowa State football stadium so it was cool to experience where the Hawkeyes lay the smack down on the Cyclones. We took a picture booing the mascot and went on to our camp site.
It was a soggy mess setting up our tents and letting everything dry from last night! Oh and by the way it got cold last night! So cold and soggy tents are not a great combo...but like always we survived!
We had a shower truck shower today so no naked awkwardness!! We all decided to go to dinner together at Hickory Park! Ragbrai first for us but a good night eating at a local place. Headed downtown for the night!!
Make sure you find a pig. I want a picture of that!!
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