Is it Chicken or Cinnamon Bites???

There's something about the first day of RAGBRAI. You just can't describe it unless you experience it!!  But before we go on to today, let's go back to last night 

We were probably buttoned up in our tents by 9:30. We were tired and anticipating the the start!  Apparently one guy had a little too much fun and we were awoken to violent puking...awesome. It felt like it went on forever. And just when we got back to sleep it started again. No idea who it was....but he had a rough night!!

We also realized that our tents were too close to the porta potties because they smelled...this hasn't happened before. Plus the generator for 5:00 am coffee was a bit much. Mental note we will not camp close to these things tonight. 

The morning was perfect for riding. Great to watch the sunrise with thousands of other bikers. We got pancakes from our favorite vendor in the first town 12 miles in!  Shortly after that they had mile of silence to honor cyclists who had been injured or killed in this last year. Everyone turned off their stereos and was quiet for the mile. It was good reminder of how lucky we are to do something we love. 

As we were riding into our next town we had some pretty tough headwinds and next thing we know we are the leads of a draft line so we decided to try a little shake and bake to get these boys to do their own work! We had one stage 5 clinger who was riding a fat tire bike and would not budge! We pulled him for about 7-8 miles and as we got to the next meeting town he said thanks for the pull ladies...umm how about you come and take the lead in the pace line next time! 

Our next stop was in Primghar (the only one in the world-see the places your bike can take you)...the theme of this town was mustaches! How can you not have fun in a town like that! We went into the court house, walked through the mister fan and talked to one of the volunteers about the theme of mustaches (all of the town's founders rocked the stache)....Dorice then spotted what she was convinced was cinnamon roll bites on a stick when in reality I'm pretty they were pieces of chicken! I won't dash dreams on RAGBRAI but I was concerned she was becoming delirious! I'm telling you...they were cinnamon bites!!

As we rode on we came across signs for FREE sweet corn ahead so of course we stopped, it's Iowa, it's corn, and it's RAGBRAI! We sat at a table with a couple from Missouri and it was their first time on RAGBRAI! As we discussed how great sweet corn is but that the only downside was the need for dental floss when you are done...so the guy across the way then tells us that they give out toothpicks and then proceeded to give his used toothpick to Dorice....she declined....but he still put it on her plate but he said he broke off the end he used bahahaha such an awkward moment! Sooooo awkward! I love that Stacey never takes off her helmet...safety first when eating corn!!

We replaced toothpick couple with members from Team Air Force. If you're faithful readers, you know this our favorite team. But for our new followers Team Air Force has about 130 riders and they make it their mission to enjoy RAGBRAI and help any stranded cyclist along the way. They are not allowed to finish the ride before 2:00 pm and they have to be in camp by 5:00. On the first day the ride out of town in formation 2x2. We didn't see it but we have seen the ride into the finish together. Today one of the guys who is a first timer said it was pretty emotional as everyone cheered and saluted them. These guys were fun to talk to. Stacey is convinced I need to find a guy on RAGBRAI so we've decided Air Force members are a good option!  I struck up a conversation with them, but I guess Stacey wanted me to ask one out right there!! Let's not be fooled by her conversation skills...she missed a great opportunity! Apparently as her wing woman it's my job to do the work but not so much! Let's take a poll....don't you think the wing woman should help more?!?

Next town was where we were going to have lunch...we were both hungry and needed something of substance at this point. As we rolled into town there was a mom and 2 kids selling pickles without hesitation I said I needed one! A fantastic dill pickle complete with lots of pickle juice was just what I needed! We both settled on a pulled pork sandwich for lunch and Dorice got some pie (strawberry rhubarb) from the church ladies complete with a free scoop of ice cream!!! She was pumped some minor pie critique but overall a solid piece. After this we rolled on to our final leg of the journey before the ending town. 

As we pedaled down the road I could tell Dorice needed a pick me up so I sang her a new song entitled God Bless Iowa...I do some of my best performances during RAGBRAI and I write all my own lyrics it's amazing what pedaling along cornfields will do to someone! As we were riding along I told Dorice that she needs to learn to beatbox so that towards the end of the week as we are climbing crazy hills we can rap up them...as she was laughing about it she told some random guy on the road that I was talking to him, he said he was in for beatboxing and then told his friend he needed to look up what that was! 

Shortly after this we encountered a male cyclist in a cat jersey no worries we got a picture it was quite the sight! Then we passed a guy and he passed us again, but when we passed him the 2nd time he said, "are you guys sponsored?"  Now I should have said yes, but I said no....just representing our tri team!!  

Next stop was the craft beer tent in search of Roger no luck on day 1 but we will continue to look! No beers were consumed today at the craft beer stop but I'm sure that will change as the week goes on! It looks like a bike graveyard at the beer stops!  And this isn't even a fourth of them!! 

We then headed for our final stretch into Spencer our overnight town. Found our campsite and started to put up our tents. It was very windy at this point and after we got Dorice's tent up, I suggested that she stake it down before we put mine up she said it would be fine but sure enough we had to chase down a run away tent! After tents were up the next order of business was to take a shower! Always one of the best feelings on RAGBRAI. We showered at the middle school and the first person we saw, we asked if they knew Beth Druvenga. Of course they did!  Marcy and Kent Nelson were super nice and pointed us in the right direction for a shower. Beth is sort of a superstar around here. We showered at her middle school, saw the statue to her at the high school, and drove by her church!!  The shower was GLORIOUS!! It was a individual shower and not freezing cold!!  

When we were walking back from the shower several people said we were looking clean and they needed directions...that's always a good thing when people think you're clean!  We also saw our friend Ralph from a couple years ago. His son in law Grant is with him so we talked to them and then let them finish setting up their tent. We love Ralph!!

Tents...let's talk about them. Yes mine flew away but let's be honest it went about 5 feet. It isn't like Stacey ran a half mile to get it!!  My tent is small, Stacey's is huge, and then we have this....the Taj Mahal of tents.... I hope there is more than one person in this thing!!

We decided to hit up the first Congressional Church for dinner. They were serving beef or pork, cheesy potatoes, green beans, and pie...sounded like a winner!!  Well....they had a bit of a scheme going on. It was $13 for meat,potatoes, and beans. And then $5 if you wanted pie....WHAT THE HECK?!?  $5 for a piece of pie??  We passed on pie. It was a good meal, but a little pricey. So we came back to camp and started eating again!  We're hungry all the time!!

For the day we completed 66 miles!  We're feeling good and we're both doing our rehab exercises!!  Looking forward to another day of fun tomorrow!  Mr. Porkchop day!!  Since we get to entertain all of you, we'd love to hear from you guys. Comments keep us entertained as well!!

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!  

Crises Averted

Well friends it has been an interesting 24 hours since the last blog!!  We haven't even gotten on our bikes yet!

Yesterday morning I went to breakfast with my cousin who was in Iowa from Oregon. I was glad to meet up with him for the brief time we overlapped in the state! 

We had a good time with him, my parents, and Elaina. Stacey stayed home to work on grading and making some quizzes for her students next week. I stopped at the bank and got more cash than anyone should at one time!  On RAGBRAI small bills work best because places can't always make change so I got lots of small bills. I got in the car and told dad to lock the doors so we wouldn't be robbed!  If you've been to Preston, IA you know that's fairly unlikely. 

After we both got our bags ready and did some more things for work we decided we decided we should probably set up Stacey's tent since she hadn't put it up in 2 years. You know...make sure no poles are broken, there isn't a hole in the tent etc. Plus it never hurts to remind yourself how the tent is set up!  This is when we encountered our first "crisis"!!! As we were setting up the tent Dorice was laying it out as I was putting the poles together. As I was working on the poles I discovered a broken pole and thought well crap maybe I can fix it or I might just have to buy a new tent today. So I fixed the pole with my camping repair kit only to discover that this pole didn't even go to this tent and my tent is perfectly fine! 

Another crisis was that when packing in Muncie, I put my camp towel in my bag. It dries quick and folds up small. It's awesome. Well for some reason I (thankfully) decided to take it out of the pouch to find that this wasn't my big town but instead a towel slightly smaller than a hand towel!!  😱😱 That would have been awkward with me trying to "dry" off in the open community showers. Nobody wants to see that!!  Luckily this realization happened on Sunday so I quick ordered a new towel on Amazon and shipped it to my parents. Thanks Amazon prime for 2 day shipping!!  But wait...it still hadn't come by 2:30 Friday....I need a towel Amazon!!  Luckily it came right before we left to take our bikes to the semi so I didn't have to search for one in the Quad Cities and I didn't have to scar anyone in the showers!

We loaded up our bikes to take them to the semi for transportation out to Orange City. When Stacey's bike was on the car she said...I don't think my back wheel is on right. Sure enough...it wasn't sitting fully in the frame. So...we luckily got that fixed before we started out!!  Yet another crisis averted! 

We got our bikes loaded and saw some of our fellow RAGBRAIers!  We saw some people we definitely don't want to put our tents by because we remembered their snoring habits from previous years!  We then headed to Clinton for dinner with my great aunt and uncle Carol & Lou. While at dinner everyone's phones in the restaurant start going off for a weather alert and tornado watch. A bad storm was rolling through...little did we know it was only going to get worse. It POURED and the wind was nasty...but we were inside eating an nice dinner, so it didn't phase us much.  Unfortunately Gabby who was at home did not have the same experience. She HATES thunder. I got home from dinner to her still in her crate but she had chewed a hole in it and was trying to escape. Poor thing. I think Bria (my parents) dog thought she was nuts!  Here are a few pics that some friends took of the storm. Thanks Marcia Naeve and Karin Harmsen!

When we got home most of the rain had stopped but there was still lots of lightning. Stacey went to finish up her quizzes. I hopped in the shower because let's be honest it was the last good shower we were going to have over the next week. About 20 min after I get out of the shower...there is a LOUD bang...flash...boom....darkness. Yep! We lost power and blew a transformer. It's pouring the dogs are scared and we have no electricity. Now keep in mind we have a few things to pack yet and we were planning to load the car. Also...stacey hasn't showered yet. No shower for her because we have an electrical well pump for water. 

Just before the power went I got a call from our friend Sarah who is staying at my house in Terredise while she is at teacher camp. She asks me if the door behind my couch randomly opens up I thought she meant the closet door not the front door to the porch area. So another one of our friends Ashley was there and had gone into the kitchen to grab knives in case someone was in the house. Sarah told me they were going into the attic to check I asked her again what door she was talking about and then squashed all fears when I told her that door will always randomly open up! So crisis averted! 

We got everything ready by flashlight and got the car loaded with the help of lots of lightning to light up the sky and our trusty flashlights. The power company got the electricity back on at 2 am....thankfully they weren't hurt doing it in the pouring rain and major lightning. A lot of respect for them and the job they do!  It stormed all night long. Over 3 inches of rain between 10 pm and 5 am. It was still raining, lightning, etc as we left to get the bus. Gabby rode with us so she didn't have to stay home in the crate during the storm. I think she was much happier that way!

We got to the QC to load the buses and thankfully we could wait under the covered parking because guess what?  It was pouring....still!  Once it let up a bit people made mad dashes to the bus!! We got our stuff on and got a seat. Little did we know we should have stayed off the bus because we didn't leave for another hour. Buses were supposed to leave at 7:00 but with the storms and everything we didn't pull out until 7:30. We're already tired of being on the bus and we've only been moving for an hour!  

We've met some new friends already today and we saw some regulars as well. We packed snacks for the bus so we aren't starving!  Yay!  Most of our new friends are newbies so we've been trying to fill them in. We met three guys from Philly. Ray, Vince, and Carlos have not only RAGBRAI questions but farming questions as well. They are in for a great week!

We just stopped for lunch and are now back on the bus headed to Orange City!!  Just remember as you read the blog that we don't always proof read it and we're typing on a phone!!  We also take turns writing, so you get both perspectives. 

We may write again tonight after we get settled. Otherwise, see you tomorrow!!

Return to RAGBRAI - 2017

Welcome back faithful blog readers!  It's time for another year of RAGBRAI!  We know we have lots of returning readers, but a lot of new followers as well!  We hope you all love reading about our crazy week on a bike pedaling across Iowa!

This year we are probably as undertrained as we've ever been. I have gotten in quite a few long rides outside, but I haven't done any consecutive days of riding!  Hopefully my bum will be nice to me this week. Stacey had shoulder surgery 10 weeks ago!  Her doctor said she should be ready to ride a bike in 10 weeks, so here we are!  She's had a lot of rides on the trainer, but only a handful outside. I have no doubts we'll power through and still have a great week!  This is a picture of Stacey's first ride outside. 

Maybe it's because we've been super busy with work or maybe because we feel like we're veterans, but the lead up to RAGBRAI hasn't seemed nearly as stressful as in the past!  We've gotten way better at packing and now we only pack the necessary items. My bags are only 32 pounds each. The first year we struggled to get them under 40 pounds!!

We've got a lot of things we're looking forward to, but our mantra all winter and this spring was #pieandpickles. We can't wait to get some great church lady pies and Stacey is in search of pickles on a stick!! Of course we'll have pancakes, Thelma's cookies, and Mr. Porkchop. Unfortunately Mr. Porkchop passed away last fall so this is the first year that he won't be at RAGBRAI. Thankfully his sons have taken over the business so we'll still get our Iowa chop!  They actually have a whole day in honor of Mr. Porkchop, so I'm pretty sure that will be our day for grilled deliciousness!

This year will be a little different because Roger and Larry won't be camping with QCBC. We were sad when we learned they wouldn't be in camp with us, but they were still going to do the ride. It just means we will have to have more Iowa Craft Beer tent stops to try and find them. Unfortunately, Roger told us that Larry had to have surgery a couple weeks ago so we won't be joining. We are going to miss his daily food report, pajamas, and flowered pillow case!!  Get well soon Larry!!!

We have a few last minute prep things to do today and then we load our bikes on the truck tonight!  We got smart this year and got our pedals taken off before we left Indiana!!  No more struggling to do that ourselves! 

Not to be forgotten...RAGBRAI always means Farm Camp for Gabby. She is so excited for her week at the farm. She's currently checking cows on the pasture!  It's rainy so she may not get lots of other Farm Camp adventures today, but I know she'll have a ton of fun!  

Pie & Cornfields....Mission Accomplished

Another RAGBRAI is in the books!  Thanks for waiting for the final day installment, but we were dead tired yesterday!

We forgot to tell you Friday night that we did a triathlon on Friday.  We biked (obviously), we swam at the pool, and we ran to catch the shuttle!  Never stop training! Friday night was the warmest night of sleeping we had...Stacey didn't even need the Jesus robe!  We were up early again to get ready to embark on the last day of the journey this year and the sunrise over camp was beautiful! It was a little bitter sweet because we felt like we just got started!  We were packed and on the road riding by 6:37....and we made it on truck B!  VICTORY!!

As we left Coralville, we winded through Iowa City and took a cycling tour of the University of Iowa campus.  We could have had a much more direct route, but they wanted us to see all the sights...and of course one big hill by the old capital building.  It was up this hill that two guys with "Don't Mess with Texas" jerseys decided that they would draft off Dorice as she climbed up the hill....well these boys couldn't hang and she dropped them like a hot potato!  A little while later they went flying by her, and so on the next hill she just flew by them again to prove a point!  Maybe they should have been wearing "don't mess with Dorice" jerseys!  Since we had only been on the road about 4 miles we decided to skip breakfast in Iowa City and wait til the next town....this would soon prove to be a not great decision.

As we rolled into West Liberty we asked the volunteer where a good spot would be to grab breakfast, he told us that the local church was serving eggs & stuff so we decided to give it a whirl. We made our way to the church, paid for our breakfast and as we were about 4-5 deep in the line to get served a gentleman announced that they may run out of food before they could serve all of us who were in there...well sure enough they did, so we got on money back and headed back towards to vendors to find some food which we needed bad since we were about 27 miles into our ride at this point. We went in line to grab a breakfast burrito only to come to the realization that they weren't breakfast burritos but just regular burritos. At this point we were so hungry that we just went with it and had a beef burrito and beef gordita and rolled out of town. Now we had some great tailwinds and a mainly flat ride so we hooked on the back of a pace line and were flying. We were going a consistent 20-22 mph and feeling effortless. The trick here is that we sneak in behind some tall person, Stacey tucks right in and then Dorice behind her so most of the time all the cyclist in front sees is Dorice and it doesn't look much like drafting at all. We planned to keep on this draft line but as we rolled into town our lead drafters were making a beer stop and we had decided to keep rolling through.  

 

We continued to use the draft and tailwinds to our advantage and decided that in the next town we would stop and search for some pie. We saw some members of team cow on a tandem fat wheel bike and they were moving....it was impressive!  They play great music so we tried to stay with them for as long as we could, but they stopped at the craft beer tent, so we lost our tunes.  We were starting to see a pattern here...we lose tunes and draft lines for beer!  It had been pretty overcast and cool up to this point, but the sun was starting to come out and we could tell it was going to get toasty. As we approached Wilton, we started seeing signs for the petting zoo sponsored by the FFA.  I challenged Stacey to pet a cow since she chickened out last year.  I mean it's just a cow...they are harmless!  Especially some little FFA members cow!  We got to the petting zoo and they had sheep, goats, dairy cows, chickens, and piglets.  Stacey petted a sheep right away...and seemed to be shocked at how soft it was.

Then I saw it...they were letting people milk the cow....this is awesome....I'm going to make Stacey milk a real cow! The cow she milked earlier in the week was a fake cow...she was practiced and ready for the real deal.  As we approached the cow, another rider was milking it and some other riders were hugging the other cow and taking selfies.  Stacey looks at me and says, "I'm not ready we need to come back." So we looked at the goats and I petted the baby calf and then back we went.  Her time had come...she was going to milk a cow!  She got in there and milked it just a few times, but the girl did proclaim her a pro cow milker...due to her practice earlier in the week for sure! We have video so we'll try to add it here!  Stacey would not hold the piglet because he started squealing like piglets do, so we left.  For the record....Stacey still hasn't actually pet a cow!  Next year it's on!

We rounded the corner into Wilton and bam pie stand right there. We parked our bikes grabbed some pie (#6 for Dorice....homemade peach...the first time I had to have the same kind).

Shortly after we finished our pie the stand had sold out. We asked the woman how many pies she baked and she told us 100 pies and they sold out in about 2.5 hours and we were some of the earlier people to arrive in town! So for those of you who think I'm crazy about this pie thing....several others are as well!  Wilton is the first town I've ever encountered on RAGBRAI that had volunteers outside the porta potties making sure the seats were clean and that they had adequate toilet paper...what was this...the Hilton?  Luxury service for sure! On our way out of town as we filled our water bottles we noticed that they were giving out cooling neck towels that we could ride on with...awesome! 

We had some more tailwinds and great riding as we approached Walcott...the final town before the end in Davenport.  As we rolled into town all of the festivities were going on at the town park and in the middle was a little league all-star game.  These girls probably no older than 5-6 had never played for crowds like this before.  All the riders were cheering them on and enjoying the game.  The game was a high scoring affair with a final score 26-25!  As one rider form DC said, "If George Washington were here, he'd be proud...this is America!"  Now at this point it was HOT! It was at this point that Stacey had wished she had packed some salt tabs but to substitute for that she got a pickle on a stick and a bag of chips...no one wants to cramp on RAGBRAI!

 Dorice also got a pickle on a stick and yes folks pie piece #7 (blueberry pie and it was this place's last pie of blueberry....winning!).

We also decided that a cold Gatorade was in order...did we mention it was HOT out?!?! As we rolled out of Walcott Dorice noticed a person wearing a Central Jersey and yelled "Go Dutch" and rode up the road a bit chatting with Matt and Anne Oliver, people she went to college with....before this happened we were trying to decide if we needed to fill our bottles for the last stretch so I still had my cleat covers on so I had to catch up to Dorice...the good thing is that you really can't get lost on RAGBRAI. 

We have figured out that we are really good at making our last miles of the day take longer since we find many fun things to stop and do along the way. While Dorice managed to accomplish eating 7 pieces of pie, about 5 miles outside of our ending town I accomplished the task of peeing in a cornfield.  This is a RAGBRAI thing and in general I'm beginning to think maybe it's a Midwest thing overall. It is freaking hot in a cornfield!

As we were making our way to the dip site taking in our final miles of the ride we spot a slip and slide and had to stop...we were waiting to find a good one of these...we took a slide (not our best performances), had a few laughs, and went on our way. These people were awesome. They had a full spread of food out and a mini beer truck in their driveway to share with the riders....just super nice. We got to enjoy some nice up hills to finish out our ride. When we got to the dip site we were unsure if we were going to dip there or the 7 miles down the road where we would retrieve our bags and get picked up. We decided to dip there and continue on our way...this is where the bonus miles started as they made us ride around the entire island-which felt like it took forever! We took our ceremonial dipping pictures (Stacey was photographed by a local paper and was told she'd be on the front page) and continued on to our final destination. We were told to hop on the bike path and it would take us to Isle of Capri to get our bags. Well minor detail was that they weren't letting the cyclist on the bike path. So we told the volunteers who stopped us that we would need some help then finding our way there....I would say that they gave us general directions but not great ones. Luckily we were able to pick up the bike path further down and get to our final spot. It was another RAGBRAI ride in the books!  We completed a hot 78 miles today and 220 miles for the three days we rode!

Three days of RAGBRAI was better then no days of RAGBRAI. It was great to see some of our buddies from last year we even got to see Larry and Roger at the bag pick up one last time for RAGBRAI 2015. We changed out of our sweaty cycling clothes, packed up our stuff and headed back to the farm. 

So how did we do on our burning RAGBRAI questions:

-Dorice reached her goal of eating 7 pieces of pie only having one flavor (peach) twice

-We saw Mr Porkchop later in the day and he was as awesome as we remember also note it was another rainy Friday that Mr Porkchop made us feel better about life

-We saw 6 of our RAGBRAI friends from last year

-We did not run into the Noblesville creeper

-We only ate dinner at one church and had breakfast at another church so our best church meal award goes to the Church in Hudson....$3 pancakes and sausage breakfast..well done!

-On the hilly day our legs weren't super happy but I think that would've been true on any day even if these weren't our "recovery rides"

-It took Stacey until 5 miles outside the ending town to pee in a cornfield

-Dorice rode a rubber duck in a pool and Stacey milked a cow.....we also did a ton of other really fun things that you have read about.

We also promised a farm camp update for Gabby.  She really loves farm camp!  Everyday she goes with Marv and Bria to the big pasture to check the cows, and they run in the pasture.  Gabby isn't real afraid of the cows, so she'll run right up to them.  Some cows aren't fond of this tactic, so they start to charge her....well then she retreats to hiding under the truck!  I think she's learning who she can come up to and who not to bother.  Gabby hates being hot and hates being in the sun, but mom said that she will sit in the sun to watch the cows if they are up close to the fence by the garden...she loves cows!  This is the first trip to the farm where Gabby has been able to actually help with chores.  Marv is trusting her more around the cows and Gabby just loves it.  She helps moves the cows from the pasture to the feed lot every night.  She has improved on her herding abilities in just the few days she's been here.  Because it was so hot yesterday Gabby and Bria got to go swimming.  Now Bria loves splashing and laying in her pool, but Gabby just likes standing in it to cool her paws.  She isn't one for splashing, but still enjoys the refreshing days at camp.  She's going to be really sad when farm camp is over.  She loves the farm so much.

Thanks for following our 2015 RAGBRAI adventure....we hope that some of you will join us on the ride in 2016! We have videos to add to the blog...but they take forever to load.  We'll just post those to facebook! 

Boob Deep

So you are probably wondering about the name of the blog...we'll get to that later. So before we talk about the ride today let's talk about all of our snoring neighbors (multiple tents trying to serenade us with their snoring) last night...we made note not to set up camp by them ever again! It was an early wake up this morning as the tent behind me was up at 4:22AM getting ready to roll out...it's a dad & he had his 2 sons with him (ages 7&8) so you can imagine their energy as they were running around the campsite at that time... I for sure wasn't functioning but was up at that point. They rolled out of camp around 5:45 AM just in time for me to get ready to become functional. We actually rolled out of camp at 6:45 this morning & still were on truck C...oh well we're cool with it! 

So that one big hill that we told you about last night well we made it up many hills but never found this long flat stretch that we were told of...really just a preview of the hills that we would face ALL DAY LONG! Ride started off well with some cloud cover & nice temps, we stopped in the first town for a morning snack we had kolaches (a Norwegian pastry) they were a solid choice & super fresh & only a buck! We then peddled onto Springville where we had breakfast again a RAGBRAI favorite PANCAKES & sausage at the American Legion...these men know their way around a griddle! We then headed down the street to the church to get Dorice pie slice #4....homemade cherry...not pie filling out of a can cherry!

We hung around here for awhile as Dorice's parents were going to meet us in the next town & since we were cruising along today (as true beasts do) the only way to slow us down was to keep us from moving. 

When we got into Mt. Vernon is was PACKED!  The town itself is super hilly so it's hard to navigate 15,000 cyclists through the narrow streets. Today was college jersey day, so I was wearing my Central College jersey with pride. I had a guy stop me because he was taking pictures of all the jerseys and he didn't have a Central one!  You're welcome random guy!!  My parents met us here and we found them relatively quickly despite the chaos!  We talked to them for awhile and then headed into the chaos a bit more. I had arranged to meet up at a family friends house about a mile south of town off the route so Stacey and I rode there and my parents met us there. We got to Bill & Donna's right as it started sprinkling....perfect timing!!  They have a large community share garden so they showed us around and we escaped the rain for a bit. It wasn't raining real hard so that was good. After talking with them and getting some zip loc bags to reinforce our cell phones we decided to head out since it didn't look like the rain was stopping any time soon. Yes folks...we had another Friday on RAGBRAI in the rain. It wasn't as cold as last year and it wasn't torrential downpour like last year...yay!  However, we did not have our rain gear like last year because there was no chance of rain when we left in the morning....BOOOOOO....our rain jackets were in the truck...bummer!  

Now the rain wasn't horrible, but the wind was straight up headwind and it was pelting the rain into our faces. At one point we wondered if it was hail because it hurt so bad. We had committed to eating Mr. Porkchop today so we knew we just had to make it to him which should only be about 5 miles or so. We had some decent inclines into this wind and then there is was a glorious steep downhill. This is a hill where I should have been going about 30 mph, but with the glorious headwind I was pedaling and struggling. I looked at my speedometer and saw 21...then 20...then 19 mph while pedaling downhill....this wind was no joke. And it was keeping us from Mr. Porkchop!  And then we saw it....the smoke rolling from the next hill...he was in sight!!!  Hallelujah!  Of course then we also saw a huge lighting bolt in the distance...perfect timing!!!

Mr. Porkchop did not disappoint, we enjoyed our porkchop in one of the sheds on the property that Mr. Porkchop was located at.

Well since the wind was brutal & the hills were not playing nice we decided to have a Thelma ice cream sandwich now these things are awesome..fresh baked cookies with great ice cream so many fantastic flavor combinations it's a struggle to choose. After we had ice cream sandwiches we decided to hit the road again. It was not really raining anymore at this point but man that freaking headwind was killer. We continued pushing along. We didn't have many great photo ops today or fun activities to do besides ride our bikes of course but we did take a picture with the hawkeye dogs (we'll post that picture at a later time) after this town it was just about 20 miles out from camp but we had a lot of fun in those last 20 miles! 

Did I mention that we had a lot of hills today?!? The last 20 miles had a few hills that I think there were more people walking their bikes up then riding. For our triathlon training buddies...these hills were cousins to the Madison three sisters....not kidding!  They were tough!!! Our first stop on the final 20 mile "tour" was the craft beer tent where we ran into our buddies Roger & Larry, there was a band playing & it was just a great spot to enjoy. At this point the sun was out and it was a great view on top of the hill. There was a band playing and the female singer was awesome!  All the guys Around us were thinking she was about 35+ years old, but we knew she was in mid to late twenties. The guys wanted to bet, so we all get a dollar on her age. Roger being the gentleman that he's is marched right up to her and asked her how old she was...and she wasn't too pleased but we did finally find out she was 28. Winner winner Dorice won the bet in guessing 28!!!  Sorry boys!  We all decided that we needed to head for camp, so we took off and decided that the girls would try to beat the boys to camp.  Well that's all fine and good but Stacey had a little issue. I took off and heard her say she was on the road, but about a half mile down I can't find her. She finally comes and says..." I cant clip in to my pedals...either one". Now Stacey bought cleat covers for when we had to walk around, so I said do you still have the covers on?  Well yes folks...she did...HILLARIOUS!  We busted out laughing because only Stacey would try to keep clipping in with her covers on!!! We stopped at the perfect point though as they were handing out free ice pops...we took our ice pops and rode on. 

Our next stop on the 20 miles of fun tour lead us to meet Dan Gable & take a picture we him..he was super nice & you can tell that he is just a badass...if you don't know who he is you need to learn about him #respect!

We then continued to get hammered by hills to only then come upon the dam it was at this point that we supposedly had about 5 miles to the end town...5 never equals 5 in RAGBRAI miles. We stopped took a few pictures & then peddled on to put another day of riding into the books. 

As we rolled into town we were greeted by a red carpet the bad thing about this is that we were still some miles away from our campsite. We back tracked a little bit to find the signs to our campsite which seemed like it took forever to find today. We rolled into camp after completing 70 miles at our latest time ever not because we rode slow (it was actually some of our hardest and fastest riding ever on RAGBRAI) but because we had many fun stops especially towards the end. 

So our shower tonight consisted of swimming in a pool, going down a water slide(with a lot of speed), and doing a cannon ball off of the diving board. We washed our face & threw some conditioner in our hair post "shower swim" in the outside shower but that was about the extent of that & we are perfectly fine with it. The showers in the pool had super long lines and it was about a billion degrees inside...not worth it! So it's at the pool where the blog title comes from...as we were moving from the shallow end to the deep end I asked Dorice how deep the water was..her response "boob deep" my next question " how tall are your boobs?" We had a good laugh on that one....for the record Stacey can stand in "boob deep" water!!

We then headed downtown to grab some dinner but before getting on the shuttle Dorice had to grab pie #5. Apple pie from the Masons. 

Dinner was nothing special we grabbed a burger at the Backpocket Brewery then came back to camp. We got off the shuttle and grabbed another one of the awesome Thelma cookie ice cream sandwiches before calling it a night! 

One more day of riding to go...bittersweet for sure but today kick our tails a little bit! Until tomorrow...over and out! 

If You're Going to be Jesus, Be Jesus!

Last night after dinner we sat around our campsite & met some new people along with getting to see our friend Ralph from last year.  Lauren is a first timer on RAGBRAI who is here on this journey solo. Lauren is currently looking for a job but also interested in triathlons. Ken & Kathy are a hysterical couple, Ken rides his pace & Kathy  goes at her own pace & sends Ken photo updates of where she is although her selfie skills are lacking as her one only included her forehead. They are not a couple you would expect to be together but it works for them!!

As it was time to head to our tents I was debating whether or not I was going zip and button my blanket as I debated this Dorice says "If you're going to be Jesus, be Jesus"...as we dubbed that blanket in Grad school as my Jesus robe. The Jesus robe is significantly warmer than the snuggie I used last year!  We were able to hear the concert from our tents which was a bonus. 

We decided to hit the road at 7 this morning like we did last year but learned that we were the late kids getting out of our camping site so maybe we'll shoot for an earlier departure tomorrow. We had to use Van C for our stuff and last year we were almost always in A...true slacker status this year. We also realized that our departure time got us riding with some of the slower people...it was a bit of a struggle to change our racing mindset to a RAGBRAI mindset!

We rolled up to the first town and were a little skeptical because we heard that our favorite pancake vendor from last year wasn't in the ride. We rolled into Hudson to find that all the churches banded together to serve a pancake breakfast!  WINNING!  We got three pancakes and 2 sausages for $3.....it was like we were stealing. They also served pie so I had piece #2..berry pie...all before 8 am! We were off to a great start for sure!  

We did a few fun other photo ops throughout the day...they may have involved milking a cow, riding an inflatable duck, being in the movie Up, and Stacey getting a pirate tattoo. We also played Human foosball!  All in all it was a great day!  

As we rode into Vinton I saw some of the members of Team Pie Hunter....they are easy to spot as they wear big slices of pie on their helmets!  I knew a guy from my hometown was on their team, and low and behold it was him. We talked for several miles and then parted ways!  Eric Schulz it was great talking to you!!!  We were set on having a steak from the Cattlemans tent in Vinton but they ran out right as we got there...bummer. We settled for a pulled pork sandwich and Philly cheesesteak....not bad second choices at all!

We continued on our ride & it was starting to get hot...so at the last town stop before our final town we went in the splash park...you knew it had to be hot if Stacey was willing to take off her socks & put the same pair back on to finish the ride. After the splash park we only had about 7 miles of riding to our overnight town as we rolled into Hiawatha they were handing out freeze pops...AWESOME! We tooled around until we found our signs leading us to our  campsite. We got in set up our tents & then checked out the shower scoop. We decided on the shower option at the assisted living center across from our campsite as it sounded better then just using a hose. Having caramel popcorn helps the wait in the shower line as well as some of the entertaining people who are waiting with us. Some of the men in the line were lamenting at how cold the showers have been in past towns...and one of the women said "really I've had all warm showers!"  Us women never have to wait!  She then went on to tell the guys that she highly recommends that they do RAGBRAI next year as a woman!  That got a few laughs!!

A few of our favorite signs from today:

-Pedal faster....like you're in a hurry...everyone in spandex...looks better blurry

-When you find your hottie...we won't tell that you met them on RAGBRAI...while waiting for a porta pottie

We covered 72 miles today, and overall we're feeling good. Riding my road bike is way different than my Tri bike....I'm longing for my aero bars!  I'm also realizing I should have done a bike fit with Travis for my road bike too!  Hahaha  Today's ride had some more hills in it than everyone was expecting but they weren't too bad. I'd say we spent most of the up hills passing people...true beast mode!!  The weather was nice today...but got hot after awhile. Temp was upper 80s with a light breeze most of the time!

So for dinner we veered from our usual church hunt & had dinner at the assisted living place we had beef & noodles, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, a dinner roll & pie (for those that are keeping track Dorice is at 3 pieces of pie) & ice cream....getting vegetables with your RAGBRAI dinner is always a bonus! We ate with our friend Ken from last night....unfortunately Kathy his wife didn't make it into town so she was going to catch a ride with some group!  They are quite the pair!

After dinner we headed to the expo downtown. My friend Laura Bakewell's brother is a fire chief here in Hiawatha so we went to try to find him. We had a nice chat with him and he informed us that early in tomorrow's ride we will have one huge hill....really looking forward to that! We took a picture together to prove to Laura that we saw each other and then we were on our way!  We listened to some of the music downtown and watched kids and adults play in the splash pad!  We then headed back to camp to fill our bottles, charge our phones, and talk with our friends. Larry and Roger are always entertaining for us!