The Return of Ragbrai

Like much of the world, RAGBRAI was also delayed last year due to COVID. But never fear my friends, RAGBRAI is back on and I am returning. I’m excited to pedal across the state of Iowa and leave the worries of work behind for a week. 

This year’s RAGBRAI will be very different from years past for me. Stacey is not riding and none of the Philly boys have returned. So time to make new friends and reunite with a Muncie friend on the ride. That’s right…I finally have been able to convince someone to join the fun after they spent years reading their blog. Emily and Chris are joining the fun. I met Emily when she lived in Muncie and we were both training to do the Ironman Muncie 70.3 event. She has since moved to Milwaukee and married Chris. I’m excited for them to experience their first RAGBRAI. about a month ago we met via Zoom and I put together a rousing presentation that answered all of their burning questions. The key points were: bring snack for the bus, stop at all the fun things, and eat the pie. If you do that, you no doubt will have a great week. 

Gabby and I left Muncie on Thursday after my students gave their final presentations for their summer class. They all did awesome and I’m super proud of them. Gabby was ready to leave on Tuesday when I started packing but she held out until Thursday afternoon. Going to farm camp is by far her favorite week of the year. She’s even more excited this year because my parents got a “pandemic puppy” last year and Gabby loves playing with Boomer. He’s a character…cute and full of corgi energy!!

As I went to meet Emily and Chris to check in bikes on Friday I couldn’t help but notice there were a lot fewer people. Hmmmm are people not doing RAGBRAI because of COVID, or did they find another charter, or am I just imagining things?  I guess time will tell. After a few mishaps getting the pedals off the bike, a bit of blood, and an overuse of antibiotic ointment Chris and Emily were loaded up. I answered a few last minute questions and said I’d see them in the morning. Emily was nervous but I think excited too….but maybe mostly nervous!  

Travel down to the bus this morning was uneventful minus me forgetting the grapes I packed for the bus in the fridge. No big deal!  Chris and Emily got us seats saved before I even showed up. And I was right…only 2 buses. Normally QCBC rolls out with at least 6!  Not sure why so few. But don’t worry some of the regulars are still here. Bob is here, the brothers who aren’t all that friendly are here, and a few other familiar faces!

A few weeks ago Ray emailed and said a guy he worked with was doing RAGBRAI and going with QCBC. He asked if it was ok if he gave him my name/number as someone who could answer any questions on the route. I said sure!!  Now Ray just told me this guy was “Gary”. That’s all I knew!  I didn’t get his phone number or even last name!  I just envisioned myself going around camp shouting Gary hoping someone would answer!  

Thankfully Ray tagged Gary in a Facebook post last night so I did the appropriate stalking to see what his last name was and what he looked like. Then came the moment. I spotted a guy that I thought looked like him loading the bus and said, “are you gary”?  Winning!!!  It was him! I think he may have been a bit taken back by my ability to identify him!  I welcomed him to RAGBRAI and said ask if you have questions. 

Little did I know that one of his first questions would be….did you say you have brownies???  Lol Gary a RAGBRAI newbie did not pack snacks for the bus, and did not save a seat, so he ended up sitting with me since I had an open spot. So when he found out I had brownies he knew he needed one!  Gary grew up on a farm in PA, so he didn’t have the same farm type questions as the rest of the Philly boys. We chatted a bit about Ray…since he is the one who got him interested in RAGBRAI. Gary came with 3 other guys from PA, so he should be in good company for the week. 

I’m currently on the bus as we head to Le Mars to start. Do you know what I’m most excited about besides starting to ride tomorrow???  Le Mars is the “unofficial” ice cream capitol of the world!  Home to Wells Blue Bunny!  Blue bunny ice cream. I am totally getting some of that once I get my tent set up!!! 

This week is supposed to be HOT 🥵 I’ve heard predictions of multiple days with heat indices over 100. So there may be a lot of ice cream. I’m hoping there are also lots of friendly families with sprinklers and hoses!!!  Maybe a quality slip and slide too!  Captured this picture of the high temps projected for the week while on the bus. Sprinklers will definitely be needed!!!

I met Steve on the bus. I’ve seen him before and he heard Gary was a RAGBRAI virgin so he said we needed to get the sharpie out for the virgin tattoo. Steve started doing RAGBRAI in 2006 and said it was like picking up a bad habit. He can’t stop. He rides a recumbent bike!  He spent time telling Gary about Ragbrai and all the people he would see. I don’t think Gary knows what he’s in for!!  

When we got to Le Mars we drove through part of the Wells Blue Bunny factory. Our camp site was at a nice shady park. I got my tent right next to a sidewalk so I won’t have to worry about tripping over tent stakes in the middle of the night. Tents are pretty close together tonight because people wanted shade!  Hopefully tomorrow night we can spread out a bit. I’m afraid I may have a chorus of snoring tonight.

After we got camp set up and our bikes out together we took the trolly to the expo. Chris and Emily got some food and then we got in line to get ice cream at Blue Bunny. It took 40 minutes to get ice cream but it was worth it. I went for the “Pie Al A Rode”….cherry pie with ice cream and cherry sauce!  It was delicious!! The whole wait had pictures of various ice cream creations. Chris got a pecan pie al a rode and Emily got a cold brew donut shake!  It had half of a donut and sprinkles on top!  We enjoyed the ice cream and air conditioning for quite awhile. Then we went upstairs to watch the history of Blue Bunny video. Le Mars was declared as the ice capitol of the world in 1994 because it is the largest single site ice cream producer in the world!  

We walked through the expo, listened to a Madonna and Lady Gaga tribute band/singer. She was actually pretty good. Not a great dancer, but good singer. Chris bought a $10 jersey and Emily got some sun sleeves. And I found $10 on the ground!  Winning!  After we spent some time walking around the expo we decided to go back to Blue Bunny to fill our water bottles and use the bathroom. Well this place was packed and now the line was probably an hour to get ice cream!  But since we just wanted water we by-passed all of that!  Unfortunately EVERYONE else wanted water too and the line at the fountain was LONG. At one point a lady behind the counter said “are you all waiting for your ice cream?” We said no, just water and then that’s when this young teenage kid looks up and says “I’ll get some pitchers!”  I started calling him “ingenuity boy” because he immediately saw a problem and jumped into action. Honestly that doesn’t happen much with teenagers. He brought out the first pitcher and we emptied it in no time. He came back with more and there was cheering. The hero for today was Justice!  Justice you are going to go places young man!  I told him he’d be in the blog tonight and people cheered again!!  

We hadn’t gotten dinner yet so decided it was time. Chris and Emily chose to check out the Catholic Church for spaghetti dinner. Now it was 6:00 pm. So I warned them they could be sold out, BUT it was a RAGBRAI miracle. We got there at 6:20 and they still had food. We got a heaping pile of spaghetti, garlic bread, and a cookie. This was $10….I used my street find money for dinner!  Now Chris and Emily were satisfied with dinner, but I was a little underwhelmed. Mostly because the cookie was either store bought or mass produced by a church lady baking cookies from pre-cut cookie dough. I expect more from the Catholics!  I think Chris liked it because he was able to sweet talk the church lady into getting extra garlic bread. I’m not sure emily appreciated his charming ways!  

After dinner we headed back to camp. Talked to Gary for awhile who also got to Blue Bunny!  Camp is a little different this year. We have our own shower truck right at camp. Hopefully it isn’t too busy with super long lines. We also get free bottles of water which has never happened so that’s nice. We spent some times chatting and just relaxing. It’s going to be a warm night in the tent. It’s humid with ZERO air flow. We met Mark who is the husband of Gary’s niece. He seems like a nice guy. 

There is one very large downside of riding this week. I won’t be able to watch the OLYMPICS!  I love the Olympics and I’ll miss women’s gymnastics and a lot of swimming this week. Total bummer. I have set my DVR to record some of the big events but I’m sure I’ll know what happens before I’m able to watch. So please cheer a little extra harder for me as you watch!  Stacey has already been sending me soccer score updates this morning on the bus. Thankfully game 2 went a little better than game 1!  Speaking of the Olympics here is a fun Blue Bunny fact related to the Olympics…they produce 150 million gallons of ice cream a year which would fill more than 225 Olympic size swimming pools. I bet Katie Ledecky could still swim fast in a pool of ice cream.  

So get ready to come along for another week of RAGBRAI. It will be different riding a lot of it solo, but I’ll meet plenty of new people along the way. And remember I’m writing this on my phone so there will be typos!!