Free Day!!

Before I catch you up on last night I have to add a clarification. Ray insisted a clarification be posted. Christopher Columbus is the only one who thought the world was round so therefore that’s why he eats around the corn. He says us non Italians believed the world was flat and that’s why we go typewriter style. I can tell you that typewriter is the prevailing method here on RAGBRAI. Guess there aren’t a lot of Italians on the ride. 

Last night after my freezing shower I decided I would let the Lutherans warm me up with some beef and noodles. They started serving at 4:00 and by 5:15 they had sold out. Of course I got there at 5:30. Lutherans....that is just poor planning!  Be better Lutherans. I got a grilled cheese from the Presbyterians to tide me over and then had a couple tacos from the taco truck!  

We ended up sitting in the park and met two new people. Lori is from the Florida and Brian is from Des Moines. After talking to them for awhile they must have thought we looked thirsty because they offered us  a beer. That one beer led to several stories and over 2 hours of chatting. We added a new guy Rich to our table. At the end of the night we made plans to meet up tomoorw as well because we had so much fun. Brian has ridden 31 RAGBRAI....he started when he was 12!

It was a chilly night in the tent but the rain stopped so that was huge. I think it got down to 60 overnight but it wasn’t wet!! But there was a guy dry heaving all night...that was fun!

This morning I saw Kayla and Shaun from last year!  It was good to see them again. I also got to talk to Bob!  Bob doesn’t sleep under the stars anymore. He has his cot in a big tent now. My conversation with Bob was like nothing nice ever experienced on RAGBRAI and it all is because Stacey got married and isn’t here. Apparently “married” is the the same as dying because me saying she was on her honeymoon made him feel compelled to tell me that he had been planning his own funeral. He’s still trying to decide whether he wants to be creamated or buried...”but why do I care...I’ll be dead”. He then proceeds to tell me that he thinks if gets creamated he would want his ashes spread on RAGBRAI.....hope it’s not a windy day when that happens!!  He then proceeds to continue to tell me all the other things you can decide when you plan your own funerals...the music, the food you want, and who you want to speak...unless you’re Catholic...no choices there!!  This conversation lasted well over 10 minutes and spanned two different time points because he was “trying to keep it short”. I was afraid he was going to ask me to be the executor of his estate if it went much longer. Awkward! 

The ride this morning was beautiful!  We had sun!!!  

 We rode to Anita and I got to show Ray true small town Iowa. When I got into town I stopped at the first booth and asked if any of them new Nate and Terri Hansen. I went to college with them. Nate is the veterinarian in town so I figure they would know of him and maybe even knownif he was in town. While nobody knew where he was they did offer to call him. I said it was ok I’d keep looking. I made it a block and a half and there was a group of older people sitting and watching the bikes. I knew these people might be able to help me out too. Well I just happened to ask Nate’s “adoptive grandparents” so before I could even get my question out the guy was calling Nate!  Nate came to meet me and said I had another call about some girl looking for me. In the span of 5 minutes he got two calls and I never even asked anyone to call him!  Gotta love Iowa nice!  It was good to catch up with him!  Sounds like he and Terri are doing great!!

Today we deemed “free” day because we got lots of free goodies on the ride. We got several bottles of free water at different places. Ray got free coffee. We had free beef sticks, free hard boiled eggs on a stick!, free pickle juice slushies, free sunscreen, free pie and homemade ice cream from the Presbyterian and Methodists churches in Adair, free cooling towels, free honey stinger chews, free sweet corn, and a free popsicle!  It was an excellent free food day!!  But the most plentiful free thing we got was WIND!  Lots of head and cross winds today. We rode for 48 miles before we got a tailwind and that only lasted 1 mile. What a tease!!!  We did get about 11 miles towards the end of the ride with a tailwind but the constant rolling hills really put a damper on that!!  We ended the ride with 6 miles on a strong cross wind and im not afraid to say it but I was spent. Getting beat up by wind all day is tiring. We did a total of 72 miles today. 

Some free photos for all of you!!!  Our camp is in a nice open grass field...no real shade but it’s a good spot. There is a shower truck right across the street and while the line moves slow, it was totally worth it!  I had a warm private shower!  Almost made up for the ice bath last night!!

We also got to see a really cool veterans memorial wall!  The picture doesn’t do it justice because it was so big. It was a really cool thing to see. 
Farm Camp update...Gabby is having a great time!  She’s been checking cows and living the farm life. Today she may have lived it up a bit too much because the camp director sent me this photo. I’m not sure if she’ll be allowed in the truck anytime soon!! 

If You Don’t Like the Weather....

Well you’ve all heard the saying if you don’t like the weather...wait a day. Well...today was completely different from yesterday! We had thunderstorms during the night and didn’t get a ton of sleep!  Oh and the temperature dropped a good 20+ degrees. After more thunder and lightning I finally decided to get up at 5. This wasn’t your am I going to die type lightning but I probably was the type you shouldn’t stay in your tent for! Once I got up the rain stopped and so we decided we’d try to head out. Of course right as it got time to take down the tent the skies opened up and it started raining again. Nothing like packing up a newly wet tent!!

Ray’s choice of campsites proved to be even better this morning. After all the rain over night the hay field was now a mud bog. Everyone’s shoes were caked with mud and their bikes were a mess. Score one point for Ray that we avoided all of that!!

We made the trek to Missouri River to dip our rear tire. This is a RAGBRAI tradition but I’ve never actually gotten my tires in the Missouri. Now maybe today doesn’t count but we actually were in the Missouri at a Casino parking lot because the river is so flooded. You can see the bank in the background and can see just how much the water is up!  

Now it would have been really cool if we got the lightening in the background. But we couldn’t time it right!!

It rained practically all day!!  I stopped for pancakes about 20 miles into the day and what was right next to the pancake vendor but the mini donut ladies. If you remember last year...you never pass up

Mini donuts and you definitely never do that on a rain day in Ragbrai!! Mini donuts are the best!!!


Now after the mini donuts it started raining harder. Ray had been looking for out for pie but not having good luck. The. We were coming up to me pork chop and he had a pie last with him. I was excited and Ray decided to stop too. This lady advertised her place as the place for berry pies. I was hopeful to see if she had the holy grail of pies....and she did...gooseberry pie!!!  This is a rarity in Ragbrai!  So the girl  said you can have one of these pieces or if you want to eat this last piece of  the pie tin...it’s yours!!!  Of course I chose the pie tin!!! Joke was on me though....that piece wasn’t gooseberry but rhubarb instead. It was still good but I felt a bit cheated. Rain and not getting my sacred pie...not cool Ragbrai. 

As we left Underwood about 30 miles into the day...ray says “man we haven’t had many hills”. Well in the next 30 miles we had plenty. Way more than necessary actually!  My Indiana flat land training did not prepare me. While Ray and his “new” bike and his PA hill training did just fine. Rain and hills....what a way to be demoralized and speaking of rain!  The temps were about 72....hard presss to find the 95 from yesterday. Actually it wasn’t that bad riding. But when we stopped for pancakes...or pie...or pie....or pie...it got cold until we got going again!

We got our picture taken with Uncle Sam in Avoca and we got some great Iowa seeet corn. I love the corn tent because it is free corn dipped in glorious butter!!

Th corn was really good!  I can’t wait for the next few corn stops!  Yes that’s a roaster full of melted butter!!!
Oh and we need a poll. How do you eat corn on the cob?  Do you eat it typewriter

Style with a row the length of the ear....or do you eat it circumference style by eating around th ear and the working your way down?  Ray and I need to settle a bet!  He says that because he’s Italian he has to eat it circumference style because Columbus was Italian and he believed the world was flat therefore he has to eat circumference....this logic does not make sense to me but hey...never argue with the Italian!

 After we ate corn...and maybe some more pie we headed into the last 15 miles of the day. It “sort of” stopped raining which was a huge bonus....but we got some cross winds and other pleasantries....like more hills!!

We got to Atlantic and it wasn’t raining. I think the only worse than packing up a tent in the rain would be setting up a tent in the rain!!!  Of course our campsite was further into Atlantic than some and it included this lovely, steep, want to fall over hill. I’ve heard some people say it was a 10% grade and I don’t think their exaggerating!!

Our campsite was nice and grassy so no mud bog!!  Victory!  And we were right next to the showers!  AWESOME. And the showers were free will donation, they gave you a towel and a bottle of water....what nice people!!  I was excited....and then they dropped the bomb. The women’s was “a little cold”. The men’s was warm but ours “a little cold”. I decided that despite all day wanting a warm shower that I’d try it out. Well this was an ice bath coming from the faucet. It was not fun at all. Actually most women washed their hair in the sinks because that water was warm....but that’s not an option for this mop of hair!!!  Plus side to a cold shower....not sweating to death as you got dressed!

We’re going to head up to the main area so this may be all for tonight. Hopefully no rain and some sun Greer is tomorrow. More later!!!

Where are our bags???

The bus is always a great time to get in some blog writing. So for the faithful blog readers I’m happy to report that Ralph is back for another year. I haven’t talked to him much yet but I did see him. While waiting to load the bus this morning one of the guys said air did you bring your air pump?  It was Roy who used it last year so he didn’t have to blow up his matress with just the hot air he had left in his body!  I think I’ll be seeing a lot of Roy this week in camp!  His friend Dale wanted to know where Stacey was because he said he always sees us each year. He and several others have agreed that Stacey should be here. Ireland is no excuse for this faithful RAGBRAIers. 

Ray and I got seats saved on the bus and when we went to sit down...guess who was behind us?  The Magnificent Mullet man. I can’t make this stuff up. There are 4 buses and at least 60 seats on each one and he ends up right behind me. Still no fishnet...but he does have his old school aero helmet with him. I’ve also learned on the bus that he talks to himself...and he sounds very much like Darth Vader!  The legend of the magnificent continues to grow!

There appears to be quite a few “new” people on the QCBC charter this year. Hopefully I’ll get to meet some as the week progresses!  Of course there are lots of returners as well. Bob is still Bob and I’m hoping he packed the sunscreen this year. Otherwise Bob will be a tomato by Tuesday. Chuck is still here too. And I’m not going to lie...every year I see Chuck I breathe a sigh of relief because he looks like every year could be his last. He’s the nicest old man, but he’s frail. Cycling keeps you young though so I’m sure that keeps him going. 

The ride out to Council Bluffs is only about 4.5 hours...the shortest we’ve ever had so we should be setting up our tents right in the middle of the heat of the day!  Lucky me!!!  Nothing like setting up a tent when it’s 95 degrees and 90% humidity!! 

When we got to Council Bluffs we realized that we were supposed to be camping in a really rough hay field...ok maybe not hay field but it was really rough, uncut, and had lots of big rocks and gopher mounds. Actually that gives hay fields a bad rap! Not the ideal setting....BUT....we lucked out. We put our stuff on bus 4 this morning but ended up riding on bus 3. When we got to CB, we couldn’t find bus 4. As we stared in disbelief about the horrible conditions for our campsite and looked around for our bus we realized we were going to have to suck it up and camp here regardless. We finally had to ask the othe bus drivers where Bus 4 was and lucky us....it was on the other side of the campsite.  :( By the time we found it ours were the only bags left and someone had actually took them off the bus because the bus was getting ready to leave!  The only good this about this is that there was a nice strip of grass along the street, so Ray said why don’t we go here instead of the hay field. It was a great call. 

Of course as we went to set up camp it was in the heat of the day.  95 degrees and a feels like temp of 105 meant completely drenched in sweat within 2 minutes. Yay RAGBRAI!  This is fun, right?  We do this because we like it, right?  But my gosh it was hot!  I got my tent set up in record time and decided that this tiny tree across the street provided just enough shade to get my bike ready for tomorrow. We have to take off our pedals and turn our handle bars so they fit better on the truck. That sliver of shade....despite it being across the street was worth it. Oh and Magnificent just happened to be camping here in this grass too...lucky us. He set up his tent while wearing his nice aero helmet!  How is that even comfortable???  He prepared his bike by tying orange streamers on his handle bars.....yes you read that correctly.....he has added at least 20 streamers to his bike. Each individually tied!!!  Oh and Roy came to find me to fill up his sleeping pad....pretty sure I’ll be seeing him every day this week!!

After we sweat through every piece of clothes we had on, we headed to the expo. I got my patch and a new shirt. We talked to vendors and tried to pick up some free stuff. You can never have enough chapstick or tide headbands on RAGBRAI. We sought out some air conditioning in the event center because well...we would have died!  We then thought we’d try to get a Tailwind beer. This beer is the official beer of Ragbrai and is new this year. It’s made by Big Grove brewery. We thought it would be a good way to start the week...apparently everyone else thought the same because by 3 pm it was sold out. Ummmm poor planning RAGBRAI....poor planning!!

We decided to go back to work on some of our tent stuff. It’s so hard to get your stuff situated in your tent when it’s hot. We then went to this brewery called Full Fledge...it was their 2nd day of being open. Talk about a good opening...having Ragbrai in your backyard. It’s a really cool place and good facility. As we were leaving I ran into my BSU colleague Scott. Can’t believe we found each other on day 1! Ray got a t shirt from this brewery...it’s a cool shirt but about a couple hours after he bought it he decided he wanted a different color. So he went back and exchanged it. He’ll be rocking a new gold shirt in Philly soon!!  Only one photo today. This cool sculpture by our campsite!!  

Somewhere over the course of the night Ray decided to rename Magnificent to Skippy. So I may have “skippy” stories too!  Tonight it is supposed to rain and maybe storm. Yay...lucky me. But that means cooler temps. So I think I’ll take it. The high tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid 70s. Lots of hills tomorrow for Day 1. Going to call it a night and hope I don’t get soaked!!!

RAGBRAI - 2109 -- A new twist

Hello blog readers!!  Guess what time it is?!?!  It's RAGBRAI time.  This year's blog will be a little different because I (Dorice) am flying solo.  Stacey decided that she wanted to get married this spring and now her Joey are on their honeymoon in Ireland.  They got there today after an epic travel day yesterday.  I think riding their bikes would have been the perfect honeymoon, but Joey disagreed.  I told Stacey she should write some guest blog posts from Ireland, but I don't know if that is going to happen.  lol  So here's a little celebratory wedding pic for Stacey!

Since Stacey is leaving me to my own devices on this trip, I think you all should know that I’m not nearly as funny as she is. So the blog may be pretty boring this year. Who is going to sing songs to me, be delirious with me, and help me hunt for pie and pickles?  I hope I make new friends!  Lol. More importantly who is going to buy my food when I forget to bring my money for the day?  I may be singing for my supper this trip...stay tuned!

I won't be totally alone though because in addition to the 10,000+ other riders I will have one returning "Philly boy" on the ride with me.  Ray is making the trek to Iowa as we speak.  Paulie was supposed to be joining us but he has some excuse like knee surgery....I say suck it up buttercup....but I'm guessing that isn't going to happen.  Vince will be on his own fishing expedition in Colorado I think....and Ed has a wedding or some other event that was more important than a week of glorious riding.  I haven't heard the excuses from Jamie and Carlos....but I bet they are lame!  I hope Ray knows that he is going to have to keep me entertained all week.  He has to fill in Stacey’s shoes! 

I got to Iowa yesterday and got my BUS SNACKS....priority number 1!!  The best part about bus snacks is that if you buy enough bus snacks...they turn into tent snacks.  Never underestimate the power of a gummy worm after a long day of riding your bike!  Maybe we'll make cookies later today so I can make more friends on the bus!  

Today I cleaned up my bike, oiled the chain, made sure the tires were good and got it all ready to go with it's bright yellow 2019 bike band.  The BBB (my name for my bike) has 5 Ragbrai bands!  It's getting quite the collection.  In case someone is reading from Alaska or Antartica....it is HOT here.  Like holy cow this is fun HOT.  So I'm hopeful that heat will disappear sometime Sunday morning when we head out for day 1.  I actually took some of the air out of my tires today because I am nervous about the tires popping in the truck on the way out to the start.  I certainly don't want to be starting the ride by having to change my two tubes before I even get my butt on the saddle.

This afternoon I loaded my bike and tonight I took my one last shower....although it's hot enough today that I could probably take another one. It’s always a bit bittersweet when you realize you won’t get another good hot shower for over a week. 

Good news....the magnificent mullet man is back this year. I saw him at bike check!  Bad news....his mullet is not as magnificent!  I really hope the fish net comes back tomorrow! That will make everything worth it! 

Tomorrow we leave bright and early for the trek out to Council Bluffs. Here's to a fun week!  I'll do my best to keep the blog going on my own....it's a lot of pressure! 

 Today is also Gabby’s “gotcha” day!  She celebrated by having a pool party with Bria and opening her Bark Box. I think her favorite part of gotcha day though was just being at farm camp!!  She’s been a fun addition to my crazy life the last 7 years!!

Flying V Formation

The last day is always bittersweet...you know you will miss the people and being carefree on your bike but a part of you is ready to be home. We had discussed the night before that we wanted to stick together as much as possible for the last day and to be rolling out of camp no later than 6:30 since we knew not only did we have the 70 miles of the planned route but estimated that we would get about 10 bonus miles that day due to where our campsite was and where our cars were parked! 

We made some food time and had a good pace line going as we made our way out of Iowa City. One lady was being a real jerk and she was mad at us but we just laughed as we climbed past her on every hill. Our first stopping town was about 20 miles out. When we rolled into town we were in need of food and with so many short stops between our next long stretch we also knew it was our best bet to get breakfast here. As we wandered the streets deciding what to eat...we made friends and took a picture with a giant turkey, then we spotted a sign for pancakes at the church 2 blocks off of the main drag....so we thought this would be a good place to go and as we set out to see if we could find the boys they were eating breakfast sandwiches but were game for pancakes as well. Free will donation, no line, and pancakes made with love...it was just what we needed! And aMethodist Church no less...our faithful readers know our history with the Methodists!  They did us well this year! 

As we walked to breakfast though we had a near disaster...Jamie had a banana in his back pocket and he took it out as we were walking down the street and was so proud that he had a banana but he dropped it and just as we were finishing saying banana down...Pauly steps on it squashing it like a bug and almost falling. It was a straight out of the cartoons type moment and we were all dying laughing! We were just glad that Jamie didn’t also get his hand squashed reaching for his banana! Luckily the Methodists were giving away back up bananas so Jamie was able to replace his banana!!  

After we left West Liberty we headed towards Wilton. We went through a few other small towns but we didn’t stop. In Wilton we had some pie. I had raspberry and I think that brought my total to six pieces for the week. At this point our group had split a bit. Ed headed out first, Ray and Vince were together and then the rest of us stay together. As we left Wilton guess who jumps right on Stacey’s wheel???  Matthew!  The kid from the other day. He stuck with us for quite awhile, but he’s kind of a free loader!  He never took any turns pulling his own weight!  I’m pretty sure Matthew has a crush on Stacey as he saw her again later in the day and yelled to her!  

Stacey and I split from the boys when they stopped for Beekman’s ice cream. We weren’t really hungry and just ready to keep rolling. We knew we could catch up with them later. We stopped about 15 miles from the end to get some watermelon and just take a little break. Little did we know this break was right before a big hill. We wouldn’t have stopped had we known we’d have to climb this hill from a dead stop. Oh well...only adds to the challenge!  We stopped in Blue Grass to get some food and wait for the boys to arrive. They all showed up and we got some food and had some good laughs again. Jamie still had his banana!!! As we left Blue Grass we knew we only had 10 miles left!!

The best part of the day was riding the last 10 miles of RAGBRAI together. Flying V formation of badasses! Part of the ending miles were on the highway which made it really important to stay in the right lane as if you wandered into the left lane you would be road kill! Most riders were respectful of this except for this one guy who was yelling that he was pulling a "trailer" and that it was hard to stop...first it was a freaking hand truck ghetto rigged to his bike and second dude what are you thinking! So he made a comment as he rode by us and Vince gave him a little salute and then the same guy struggled to get going after he stopped on the bottom of the hill...karma maybe?! It’s always cool to have people cheering as you ride into the finishing town!  As we came to the dip site the line was super long and since no one really wanted to wait that long we went down the road some more to another spot that we could dip our tires as this is an important RAGBRAI tradition and especially for the new guys in the group. 

After we dipped our tires we rode the few more miles to our meeting point and had officially eneded our ride. We grabbed our bags, packed our cars, said our see ya laters, and said we needed a reunion during the year and it looks like Pittsburgh just may be the spot! We’ll add a bonus blog of stories we forgot to tell admins pics we didn’t get uploaded in a couple days!  

For the week I rode 488.8 miles and Stacey did around 452. We really lucked out with weather this year as there weren’t any unbearably hot days!  It’s always sad to see this come to an end. Until next time RAGBRAI....

Team Dirty

This morning we moved a little more slowly then any other morning. It was a combination of many of them doing the century loop and it being Friday! As Friday hits we all think how we need to only set up our tent one more time and do many of the things we do for one more time. Last night it was super cold like couldn’t get warm type of cold, it made for some challenging sleep. I will also say at this point in the week our tents stink! 

We had 10 miles to the first town and it was crazy getting out of Siguorney as they did not have very good traffic control! As there was not much in the first town we decided to ride the 5 miles to the next town for breakfast. Some breakfast burritos and a cinnamon roll to get the body going today! There was some amateur wrestling going on and a brass band playing that have probably been playing together for a long time! 

As we were leaving Keota I saw a sign that said Snedigar on it. Sure enough it was the mom of a college friend Sami Allen! It was so good to see Sami’s Mom and catch up a bit. 

We got to Wellman and it was crowded going through town. Like bump into each all the time busy. But I was able to make my way over for some delicious peach pie today. It was a piece of pie and a bottle of water for $4...what a steal. We ran into Glen here and talked to him for a bit.  This was the scene mid way through the walk in Wellman. You can’t tell how big the hill of people was. 

As we were leaving Wellman we had a little tailwind and Stacey picked up a stage 5 clinger!  He was on her like a fat kid chasing the ice cream truck. Now the best thing is that he looked like he was about 13!  I think he was attracted to Stacey’s teenage mutant ninja turtle socks! Well this clinger hung with us all the way to the next town. About 7 miles and we tried to drop him but he hung on going 21-22 mph!  When we stopped we gave him kudos and talked to him a bit. Matthew is from Florida and this is his 7th RAGBRAI. He’s 17 and the kid can ride!!  

When we got to Kalona we had to get the famous Kalona homemade ice cream bar!  It was AMAZING!!We ran into the boys and they all had one too. Kalona has a big Mennonite and Amish population so the food was on point. Lots of homemade with love items!!  The town had a great feel and the music was good so we hung out there for awhile!  

We made it to Riverside and there was a human foosball game so stacey, Vince and I played a game. We played awesome defense!  Let’s just call ourselves the Steel Curtain!  The people on the other team were mad that they weren’t getting the ball!  That may be why they started kicking at Stacey when she fell on the ground!!  No worries she was fine!

As we were leaving Riverside I got a message from my parents that they were in the next town. We spotted them and talked to them awhile. But that was after we got our tails kicked by some good wind and hills. How fitting that we had hills as we rode into the town Hills! We talked to my parents for awhile and Vince and Ray stopped to say hi as well. Stacey had a little unclipping incident but she made some new friends as she tried to get herself untangle herself from her bike. 

As we rode into the final town we had some good headwinds to fight and of course a few hills. As we were rolling along in a decent pace line a kid about 11 years old just crashed in the middle of the road on his bike. The kid was super tough and quickly got himself and off of the road. We stopped to make sure he was ok and in true cycling fashion he asked his dad if his bike was ok...well it wasn’t in the best shape but fixable. Thankfully he felt ok and we keep on going. As we came into Iowa City we had quite the ride to our campground. As we were coming around the corner a lady on a recumbent bike stopped and was blocking the road and Dorice had to do some fancy bike handling not to crash into her! (This was after the near death by porta pottie I had earlier. This guy bee lined his bike right to the row of them but didn’t look to see that I was coming behind him. Our shoulders touched but I was able to avoid collision. My RAGBRAI almost ended by being bike checked into a row of stinky porta potties. What a way to go out!!) We finally made it to the campsite and met up with the boys who were getting settled. We slowly settled in to camp and my parents showed up. They got to educate the boys in farming!!  That all took awhile and since we were miles from the nearest shower and we were all hungry we made tonight no shower Friday. #teamdirty. Wet wipes for the win!

We then headed downtown for dinner and some buying of RAGBRAI items...the boys said we couldn’t call it shopping. We decided to do one last family dinner #teamdirty together. Dinner brought us many laughs and some free items such as cooling towels and sunglasses. After dinner we were all beat and decided to catch the shuttle back to the campsite. Now to get back to camp we actually needed to switch shuttles to get there. We went on the first shuttle only to have Ray and Ed not be able to get on so the rest of us stayed on and they took the next shuttle. Well we were on the general campus shuttle that does a campus route before bringing us to our drop off point for our shuttle transfer. We get off of our shuttle after our campus tour only to find Ray and Ed across the street getting off the transfer shuttle that took them to the wrong place twice. With no other shuttles in site we decided to walk back to our campsite. At first there was a lot of tension due to the shuttle mishap which we then turned into jokes and laughs by the time we got back to camp. What is another 3/4 of a mile walking after the all the biking we have been doing! So the night ended on a good note with us all safely tucked away in our tents hoping to not be freezing tonight and rolling out early tomorrow for the final miles! We plan to stick together as a group tomorrow so we can do the tire dip together and see each other off at the end of the ride. 

Mullet update...we have added another one!  I think that brings us up to 6 for the week. Majestic is camping near us tonight so that’s always a win!

Vince’s quest for a pig to kiss was accomplished today. He said after he kissed it, it kind of nuzzled up to him! I’m pretty sure Vince loves that pig! 

Ray met a goat named Lucy and Pauly met some nice sheep so I’d say today was a win for animals!

Today was also college jersey day!  We had Vince representing the Marine Corps, Ray representing Villanova, Ed was wearing Drexel, Jamie had Minnesota and I of course was representing the Central College Dutch!!  I think I saw 8 other Central jerseys and I talked to several other alum that didn’t have a jersey. I also saw one Ball State jersey and we had to educate her on Chirp Chirp!  I guess they didn’t do that back in the 70s when she was in school!!  Since Ray and I took a college day picture together last year we had to recreate it this year. 

Victory!

Today’s blog will be a RAGBRAI first as most days we ride together but today after 30 miles in we took separate paths...more on that later. 

We intended to roll out a camp as an entire group today and we were mostly successful in doing so but had a minor hiccup while getting onto the route for the day. Ray couldn’t get clipped into his pedal since it was all mucked up with dirt so he stopped to take care of that so we waited for him on a corner but after some time when we didn’t see him Jamie went back to find him since we thought if it was taking this long then he must have a mechanical problem..we’ll Jaime couldn’t find Ray but he did find Pauly so we decided to roll on. Since there we several ways out of town we suspect that Ray turned off of the road we were on before getting to the spot where we were riding. 

The first town was pretty crowded and didn’t really have anything we wanted for breakfast but we did make a stop at the church in town as some of us needed water and some just needed a quick snack. I’m pretty sure the guy collecting the money despite having a price sheet was just making things up. We had breakfast in the 2nd town, they were these mini Dutch pancakes (Poffergies) and some fresh blueberries...man did I need some fruit in my life! After a some fuel in the system we went on our way. At this point we still had no idea where Ray was. 

The day of SFG 

We rode for some time together before I split off from the group to stay on the route for the day as they went for some bonus miles. In the next town of Montezuma I did some shopping for bridesmaid dresses, had a burger in the town square while listening to this dude playing a tuba...I think playing on RAGBRAI was a highlight of his summer! As I was getting ready to pedal on I came across the best roadside lemonade stand that a 4 y/o could run! She was calling out for customers, had fresh lemons in her fancy containers and had your cup ready to go, not only was she awesome but totally a ham for a picture and then even took a picture of me with my lemonade on my phone and she took a picture of the random guy behind me in line too...she was fantastic and her proceeds were being donated to the local animal rescue. 

Next in Deep River I made a new friend George who is from Gettysburg PA and is on his 11th RAGBRAI. We chatted at the Iowa corn tent while he had some corn and I had some watermelon...he said he has a friend who rides too but who is more the party his way through the week type-he even said he is not sure if his friend brings a change of cycling clothes...gross! After chatting with George it was time to pedal on as there was one more stopping town before the end town. At first I just thought I need some time off the bike in this last town but as I came into town there kids were selling giant freezy pops and well never pass up a popsicle on RAGBRAI had to be followed. They had quite the operation going and just a heads up if the oldest kid goes to get you change you then get the job of cutting the top off of everyone’s ice pop! Hey at least they trusted me with scissors that is more than I can say for some. It was just what I needed to the end the day and head to the final camp...so the day of SFG was a great one! Two more days of riding to keep my leg attached...I might just make it! ...pictures will be posted later for Stacey’s day because we don’t have great service to get them to my phone!

Day of Dorice...ever since I signed up for RAGBRAI this year I wanted to the do the extra century loop. This is when more miles are added to the normal route so you can ride 100 miles in the day. I have never done a century so I thought it be fitting that my first be on RAGBRAI!  Since we knew Stacey’s hip couldn’t handle the extra miles we split up. Some of the Philly boys were planning to do it so I wasn’t totally solo. 

The search for Ray continued ubtil the ride split into two groups. We waited for quite a while at the loop start hoping to find him but to no avail. Ed had gone on already so Pauly Jamie and I started the loop. When you do the century loop you get a special patch. They gave us the patch only 7 miles in to the extra 36....seems a bit premature, but oh well. I actually didn’t even look at it when I got it because I hadn’t earned it yet. We just got some water in New Sharon because we were still on the hunt for Ray. 

As we left New Sharon we had nasty head winds. I mean not fun...have to pedal downhill winds. Jamie and Pauly helped pull me through some of them but many times I couldn’t keep up, plus it was super early and I didn’t want to burn out my legs. While riding in these amazing winds we had a spotting of Majestic mullet!!  He was taking picture of the landscape. So wenknownhe started the loop, but I didn’t see him in camp!  We eventually got a little reprieve on the winds but there weren’t any towns for food, so it was tough. Hydration was key today!

When we finished the loop we still had about 40 miles to go. We had told Ed earlier that we would all meet at Mr. pork Chop on our second time by. I was HUNGRY but a pork chop just didn’t sound great then so I had Thelma’s ice cream instead. 

After a little break in the shade we all decided to roll on. The guys were tired and I was just ready to get moving again!  As we left we had some awesome tailwind!  I was loving it and moving at a good clip. My legs felt great and I was ready to roll. I made it to Montezuma before the boys so I took the opportunity to get a picture to prove I was there and sunscreen up....man we go through a lot of sunscreen!  Ed showed up first and then the other two. The boys really wanted grilled cheese but I couldn’t do it so I had some legit cherry pie from the Methodist Church...they come though again!  I think we can officially take the Methodists off probation now. This wasn’t cherry pie filling...this was grow cherries in your back yard pie!! 

We saw Shaun and Kayla leaving Montezuma and they had just finished the loop as well. It was Kayla’s first century!  Congrats Kayla!  I really wasn’t hungry and just wanted to pedal on so I told the boys I didn’t plan on stopping at the next town. I’m glad I told them as we were leaving because shortly after we left town they ended up in a pace line. I was with them for a bit and then just like that they were gone. I couldn’t hang. I later found out that they were going 28-29 mph...so yeah not going to keep up!  Jamie dropped back too so at this point I just pedaled on. I felt great and the tail wind was a great help!!

At this point there were about 22 miles left so I decided I was just going to power them out. I was having a great ride day and my legs felt fresh. I figured Pauly and Ed were still in front and they’d beat me back to camp. But as I’m going down a hill I passed Ed. He saw me and we chatted a bit. The only thing I was stopping for was a pickle!!  By the time I got to Keswick I absolutely needed that pickle. I got one and I was on my way. I ran into Ed again and he said to go on because he needed to get a slushee. 9 miles Togo and I’d be back to camp. It after that when I finally found Ray...back at camp!  Whomp whomp....he beat us back!  But I did arrive to something else glorious.....Stacey had set up my tent!!  Yay thanks buddy!  That was a very clutch move and much appreciated. Word on the street is Ray helped her do it. Thanks Ray!  The boys all came in about the same time. They met up for Beekman’s ice cream!!

Overall it was a good day!  I got in my first century, I felt great doing it and I had some tasty treats. What more can you ask for??  It was a tough day of wind and hills for sure. Over 4500 feet of climbing. Thankfully the temperature wasn’t too bad but the sun was strong. God bless sunscreen!!

Mullet Update—-I saw the most AMAZING mullet today in one of the towns. Nobody was there to witness it and I couldn’t get a picture so you'll just have to believe me. It’s by far the best I’ve seen and gives Majestic a run for his money!

Farm Camp update - Gabs is loving camp. She especially likes to go check cows at the pasture!  I think Bria is a good mentor!!  While Gabs loves farm camp I think she’d also love RAGBRAI!  Today I saw thrrr dogs being pulled along. I think we could rig up something for her for next year. She’d need an umbrella though...she hates sun!!!  Gotta get the girl some shade!  

I think this could be the perfect set up for her. She’s have her head out checking out all the things!

Vince update. He hasn’t kissed a pig yet but he did go on a fishing expedition...that’s all we’re saying about that!

We’re beat so we’re ending for now. More on all the gloriousness around camp later!