Life on the farm

Well, it’s the last day of the ride and like I said in the earlier post -it’s the day to ride. You put your head down and I just tried to keep up with the rest. It was even a little bit hillier than normal, so as I could still taste the brat’s and sports drink that I had for breakfast, I would take a deep breath and just keep pedaling. I laughed to myself on one of the hills. Now I’ve never claimed to be very good going up hills, but on this one hill there were some Amish ladies selling something. As I was chugging along, one of them looked up and gave me the funniest smile. Now I don’t know if she was being nice or if she was making fun of me. So I tried to speed up to act real cool, but I was still being passed by people telling me that they were ‘on my left’. So much for being tough.

But we did eventually did get to the river and was able to get our picture taken with our front bike tires dipped in the Mississippi River. At the beginning of the ride when you start, you are supposed to dip your back tires in the Missouri River.

Not the best picture I must say of our group!

Now that the ride is over, I never did have a flat tire. Thank Goodness! But in the midst of the week my helmet latch broke so I had to tape it, both my sandals fell apart and I had to tape them, and my new bike bag broke. But I didn’t care as long as I didn’t get a flat tire. I know, I know… I’m a big chicken.

As we’re driving back home, I was thinking how fast the week goes and what a good time it is. Like they always say, ‘If you’re not having fun, then it’s time to lower your standards’. It always seems like we can have a good time no matter what. But for now my bike is in the old milk house safely stored for at least a little while. And it’s back to the real world again 🙂

Well the bike ride is coming to an end and I’m just finally getting to ride on the yellow line. What I mean by that is there are some unwritten rules when you ride this bike ride. The slower riders usually stay on way to the right side of the road by the ditch so they don’t get in anyone’s way. Then you have the little bit faster riders and they get to go in the middle of the road. These people get to tell the slower ones that they are on ‘their left’ as they ride by, but still haven’t graduated up to the yellow line. Now the yellow line people are the riders that are getting much faster and sometimes can even pass others on the other side of the road. And I always feel if I can be by the yellow line, I’ve got it going on and must be pretty cool. Now there are also ones who ride on the other side of the yellow line, and I’ve done that sometimes on this ride. But my position in the bikes is usually by the yellow line. Or if I’m going up the hills, I’m usually in the slow lane.

As ride was coming to an end, there was this awesome party that we went to. It was someone’s farm and it was the most perfect setting. Normally you don’t have an opportunity to have live bands at the farm parties, but this party not only had the live band going on, but they had the best water slide ever! The slide’s water was being pumped out of the large lake in the back yard and when you went down it, you ended up in the lake.

A funny place to put your shoes when you were in the water

Other people were either hanging out in the inner tubes or on the pontoon boat in the lake. With a small breeze blowing, it was just the best way ever to say good bye to some of our friends for another year! Tomorrow is the last day and it’ll be a much different way to ride than the rest of this week. Everyone is just trying to get to the river!

At the later part of the bike ride, your backside starts to hurt and you really try hard to find any spot on your bike seat that feels good. And you are even hoping that it will make it to the end of the day. About now it starts to get numb and starts to kind of sting. So when everyone stopped for watermelon one day, I knew if I got off the bike seat that there was no way that I’d get back on again. But as the days went on, even though you’re getting tired and your backside hurts, it’s still fun. It’s just the hardest thing to explain it, and I think if I could only use one word to try to, I think the word would be ‘freedom’. You can stop for watermelon if you want and eat 8 pieces and no one cares. Or you can go and have a frozen snicker candy bar down the road and then take a nap. Yup, no one cares. As you ride along on the highway you have conversations with people that you’ve never met before, and they’ll talk to you like you’ve seen them just last week. It’s really pretty cool and everyone is riding just to have a good time.

So let’s see, what did we all do these last couple of days? Well, Des Moines had some really cool fireworks over the river. In the past, a lot of the towns had fireworks in the over night towns, but because they’ve gotten so expensive, they’re not as common as they used to be. Some of the fireworks that we saw in Des Moines I’ve never seen before and they were really cool!

We also rode over the Red Rock Dam. Red Rock Lake is Iowa’s largest lake and the ride over the dam was 5200 feet long. I’ve seen this lake from the car, but being on a bicycle gave a whole new meaning to how high and how big it really is!

Another thing that we did was just too funny! There was a group of us standing in a beer garden (I know … your’e surprised right?) And while we were standing there, we saw a wrestling show going on. It was advertised as Midget Wrestling. First of all, I didn’t even know that you could use that word in an advertisement. And second of all, we all thought that this whole thing was just so wrong. But it was a side show and  we figured that there was a couple of thousand people watching it. Then just after we thought that this was so wrong, we decided that we needed our picture taken with them. So up onto the wrestling stage we went and had our picture taken! I don’t think the opportunity to pretend you’re wrestling with little people comes around twice in a life time, so we said yes!

Not sure who is winning in this picture!

Here are a couple of other pictures taken along the way

Ice cream truck in Pella, Iowa

Courthouse in the square at night in one of the towns

As the week goes on, the weather continues to be fantastic. Last year the weather was so terrible that you could hardly breath. And this year you almost need a jacket at night. Just crazy! Well by now we’re getting into a grove and have been able to meet up with most of our friends. We usually have chances to see them during the ride and then we might see them at night when we go uptown and check out what’s going on in the overnight town. One of the unique things that we saw in one of the towns was this water dunking station. When you hit the button, the toilet flushed and drenched the poor person underneath. Now you know that’s pretty funny! As the week goes on, your appetite continues to grow and I’m finding myself being hungry more often than not. This morning a pork tenderloin and a Diet Coke is the breakfast of Champions. And another morning’s breakfast was Dutch letters and raspberry pastry- Yum! One of the things that I make a conscience effort to do is to remember where I put my bicycle when you stop in the towns. As you can see, there are thousands and thousands of bicycles around,  and as the days kind of melt into each other, you have to remember where you parked your bike. If you would forget – not cool. So I usually use the trick of putting it by someplace that is different and that I’ll remember it. Check out this great location! 

It was Sunday, and after the bike tires were checked and we had our helmets on – off we went. Because we were staying at a host house and not the official camp grounds, we had to first find the bike route. It’s never very hard to do, and soon we were on our way and our adventure began for the week. I am just hoping that I don’t get a flat tire this week. In past years I could get two and maybe three flat tires, and I’m not too excited about trying to get them fixed. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

So off  we went riding with about 10,000+ others. I was trying to think how to describe it when I was riding, and I think the only way to say what it feels like is ‘exciting’. You don’t know what you’ll come across in the week, you don’t know what you’ll see, and you don’t know how many of your friends that you’ll run into. You kind of forget that it might be hard riding and hot weather, and you just smile and start peddling. Our first stop of the day was in Sasquatch Country. This town makes the beef jerky that Sasquatch is the spokesperson for (boy doesn’t that sound crazy!) Anyway, I was able to hunt him down for a quick kiss. You can come across the funniest things in towns also. Check out this sign. We were lucky this year because we were able to stay in houses or businesses all week. It usually rains and storms at least once in the Ragbrai week, and this year once again we had a rain and hail. One of the nights of the ride, it started to storm so bad that our host said she had to stop on the road and catch someone’s tent that was rolling in the street. Yuck! We’ve tented for the first 10 years that we rode this ride, and let me just say that staying inside a house, dance studio, or even the mattress business just can’t be beat!

One of our overnight stays – Dance Studio

So the ride today was great! The only issue that I had was that my new bike bag zipper broke, but my brother patched it up and it should be OK for the week. It’s amazing what a small hook and rubber band can do when you need it to. The weather was perfect and it was a good day.

Here we go. Daryl wasn’t able to go this year to Ragbrai, so I have to be honest it was a little weird at first not having him along. I wish that he could have gone, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. So once the trailer was packed and everyone was ‘pretty’ sure that they had everything, off we headed to Council Bluffs. Now I don’t know how to describe the ride out to the overnight town. There’s anticipation on how the ride is going to be, talk about who you know is going to be on the ride for the week and who isn’t, and it’s just a lot of fun. You’ll always see other buses along the way on the highways, packed full with bikes and just stuff for the riders to live in for a week. We were so lucky again that my brother’s have a truck and trailer that we can use, and my one brother had revamped it so all the bikes can be mounted on the wall instead of trying to figure out how to pack the bikes in it. It just works so slick. After a couple of stops along they way, we eventually found ourselves at the host house and were hoping that we could get a good night sleep before the big ride in the morning.

It’s that time of the year again when we take our bikes and join 10,000+ other riders and ride across Iowa on Ragbrai. Only this year will be a little different. This year Daryl won’t be riding. I wish that he could go, and to be honest, it’s a little weird to get ready without him because we’ve gone the last 13 years together.

I wonder what I forgot?

But with my bags packed and bike loaded in the trailer at my brothers, I think I’m ready. There are certain things that you can’t forget – bike, helmet, gloves, shoes,sunglasses,couple of shirts, and bike shorts. After that you can buy just about anything else. So when you’re packing to get ready, you try to guess what you’ll need for 7 days and then will it fit in your tote? Well, I think I’ve got everything ready and now to take a shower and get dressed. I won’t be updating the blog while I’m gone, so I’ll catch up when I get back home. Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t have any trouble along the way and wish me luck!

See you in 7 days!