If any of you are worried about our supplies or ability to eat at camp Jamie has us covered. This rookie brought 24 clif bars, 24 package of crackers, 2 pounds of trail mix, 3 full roles of toilet paper, 1 large roll of paper towels and 12 pairs of underwear...in his words...what am I going to do with 12 pairs of underwear?!! Let’s just say that he over packed a little!
We had an epic morning today and we were out of camp by 6:20!! Record time for us. Probably because Stacey didn’t sleep too well. We got to see an awesome sunrise while climbing hills on our bikes and just cruising along.
Today we had about 20 miles to the first town which for RAGBRAI is the maximum distance they usually let riders ride before there is a stop over town. Now at home that is a quick midweek ride but when you are on a mission for pancakes it seems like an eternity! Since the first stopping town was rather small we bypassed it since it was only 3.7 miles to the next town and that proved to be great move...pancakes, eggs, and sausage for a free will donation at the K of C! Combine that with a nice park bench and it was just the RAGBRAI breakfast we needed.
After having breakfast we all met at this huge Iowa sign and got a full group picture in front of it! Pretty cool photo op for the whole gang. Today we spent most of the day riding and hanging with Jamie, Ed, and Paul. Next stop was in Templeton where we waited for Ed and Paul to get free corn and had to break Paul out of jail. Nothing like rolling into town with a friend dressed as a prisoner and having an old jail waiting for him!
We continued through Templeton and got to see the Templeton Rye distillery! It was a cool looking place, but we didn’t stop. Just some drive by pictures!
We had a light lunch in Coon Rapids and then we kept rolling with the boys. Ed was waving us to come meet him but we had to fill up some bottles so once we got to where Ed was he was gone. So the five of us kept rolling. Eventually we caught up with Ed and then he said the reason he was waving us on was because Lance Armstrong was right there. So rule #4...always come when Ed calls and we are faster than Lance because we had passed him on our bikes and didn’t even see him. We saw him again later though!!
We had some killer hills and headwinds today and it was hot towards he end. We had a good pace line going through the headwinds and we made some more friends that jumped on our line.
We got some amazing watermelon in Scranton and that was all Pauly had been craving. Then we headed for our last 9 miles of the day. About 4 mile soutside of the ending town a local orchard had made a corn maze just for RAGBRAI so we had made the decision to stop there and test our escaping skills which we weren’t too concerned about considering we had an escaped prisoner with us! There was a group of about 10 cyclists who were testing their escape skills with us..and as you can guess we made it!
After the corn maze we went into the general store and talked with the workers at the Orchard they were super nice and told us that we had to go on the big jumping pillow and let me tell you it did not disappoint...I’m pretty sure they are going to be booking our first trampoline performance soon...Jaime and Pauly will be our backups as they still have some work to do to bring their routine up to par with ours! RABRAI lesson number 5, never pass up jumping on a giant pillow! I mean when your legs are already dragging since your ~70 miles into your ride you still have to jump!
It was hot when we got to camp and setting up our tent in sweaty clothes and blazing sun after riding 70 miles is not fun at all. We got another pool shower today. Now the shower was less than ideal. Group shower tree with a button you had to push every 3 secs that expelled ice cold water. But hey the pool was fun. Pauly had bet any of $5 if we got the life guard to blow their whistle. We were all chilling in the pool when Jamie tripped and “fell” into the pool the lifeguard asked if he was ok and blew his whistle!! Jamie officially wins!!!We got the shuttle into town and we were going to hit up the Catholic Church for lasagna but as we were walking there people told us it was sold out. So we headed to the VWF where we got a spaghetti dinner! It was good and just what we needed after the ass kicking day we had. Dinner was just Stacey, Jamie and I and we had a great conversation! It’s nice to hear the rookies thoughts on the first few days! We left and walked around looking for ice cream. The wind picked up a little and you could tell it was going to rain...maybe a light annoying rain...and then the wind shifted, the temp dropped and it started raining hard. We headed back to the VFW for shelter and got in just in time before the skies opened and it downpoured and rained sideways. For about 5 minutes it was total monsoon. This is where we get RAGBRAI rule #6: no matter how nice it is when you leave camp...close up the windows and put everything in your tent! Now we faired much better than our Philly friends (mental note...put all your stuff in your tent and put the rain fly on!) but still an important lesson and for the record...last year Stacey’s tent was at risk of collapsing at any given moment and today her new tent was dry even with the windows open no water got in...but for the clothes, towel, and biking stuff drying outside of the tent well that was a different story!
All in all another great day! Today wiped our legs out pretty good with all the climbs and headwind! Now we relax in our tents and listen to the concert going on in downtown as though we were there...yes we can hear it that clearly...at least it drowns out Ed’s snoring!
Mullet update: while there was no majestical mullet sightings today we did notice mullet #5 a ginger mullet. But ginger mullet loses points as he was not wear a helmet! WTH ginger mullet protect the flow and your brain! Also if we tell you to “bike off” we may or may not be cursing at you!
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