Tuesday Day 10 - Lake View to Webster City - 109 miles

We got up at 5:15 am to get an early start on today's century ride. I am riding by myself today, since it's easier to flow thru traffic and I can set my own pace.

I rode through the 1st town, Auburn, without stopping, since their KYBOs ( or port-a-potties ) were too crowded. The second town, Lake City, was not so bad, so I stopped to eat a cliff bar and drink a gatorade. The ride is going great so far !

I kept going thru the next two towns, Lohrville and Farnhamville, stopping only for water and Gatoraid. I had a nice lunch in Gowrie at a Maid-Rite sandwich stand. It's a crumbled ground beef sandwich thats very popular in Iowa. It was good riding food, the secret to my good ride today.

I saw a couple of neat bikes today. One was a guy riding a big wheeled unicycle on the ride. I wonder how he rides down the hills !

The other rider was a little old man dressed in a striped shirt with a beret and scarf - and he was rolling down the road pedaling backwards on his pedals. Later I saw him pedaling forwards on his pedals. In the next town, Dayton, I ran into him and asked about his bicycle. It is a 100-year-old French 2-speed, and he came over from England to ride it across Iowa.

There were some fantastic headwinds today. Also a lot of climbs. We went to the town of Stratford on the "Karras Loop", which adds on enough miles to make the days ride a century, 100 miles. They had a luau theme, and passed out leis and hugs. I got my patch from Mr. John Karras himself, quite an honor. John Karras was one of the two founders of RAGBRAI, way back in 1973.

Today I ate some chicken on a stick, a maid-rite sammy, homemade ice cream, and had a nice dinner at the Webster City Golf Club.

We had a bad accident at the golf course in the late afternoon. A lady from team sprint ran into a guy from another team. She was driving a golf cart and he was riding his bicycle. There was an ambulance, police, and everything. It's terrible how everything changes in a moment like that. I sure hope the rider is alright.

Great day - and a Great RAGBRAI !!

Monday Day 9 - Cherokee to Lake View - 62 miles

We had another nice ride today, starting out from our Cherokee farmhouse at about 8:30. Most riders hit the roar early today, since the weather was so hot. Since we left late and rode slow, the RAGBRAI crouds were not do bad.

We eat breakfast at Farm Boys in Aurelia today. I took off with Doc, Barbara, Mike and Kendra. At breakfast we ran into the Brooks Family, Bob, Karen, Sarah & Patrick.

The second town was Hanover Village, where we stopped and went in an old country store at their heritage village. Next stop was Schaller, the halfway meeting stop. We ate our first corn in the cob here. I had been wanting some corn all week, and it was great. We also had a few beers and some popcorn. Schaller is the popcorn capital of the world.

On the way out of Schaller we saw a big bicycle made out of beer cans - interesting, but not all that inspiring. This was the last photo I took today, it was so hot the second half of the ride I was in survival mode. We also got split off from Mike & Kendra, so it was just me, Barbara and Doc for the rest of the day.

We stopped for Gatorade in the next stop, Nemeha, then took a nap. Doc bought me a brisket sandwich. The last town we passed through was Sac City, where we had watermelon going in, and hamburgers on the way out.

It was a great day, and the town of Clear Lake is really nice, kind of like an Iowa Beach town. We saw lots of interesting people today, but I guess I was too busy gawking to take photos. There were riders dressed up as Elvis, girls in lace stockings, leather hats and handcuffs, bat-girls, muscle men in kilts, and on and on.

Tomorrow we go on the century ride, 100 miles. It's time to toughen up !!

Sunday Day 8 - Sioux Center to Cherokee - 55 miles

Today, Sunday, is the first day of
RAGBRAI, the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. We were a little slow packing up today, but there is no hurry at RAGBRAI.

The first city we rode into was Orange City and it was a beautiful little Dutch community. People were dressed in period costume with wooden shoes. There were floats on the streets and we saw a big wooden shoe in the park. The streets were so clean you could eat off them.

I started the days ride with Doc, Barb, Mike and Kendra. We stopped at Farm Boys for breakfast and at Mr. Pork Chop & Kelly's Pies for lunch. These three are old time RAGBRAI traditions, set up on the side of the road in farmers yards. I split a big Pork Chop with Kendra and bd an delicious piece of Rhubarb Pie, all for my good buddie Rita Ann back in Tallahassee - HI RA !!!

We ran into Danny Dunn and the Brooks clan, Bob, Karen, Patrick and Sarah, along with TJ & Darcie with son, Randy, Kathy and many more Sprinters at a little bar in Granville or Marcus.

I rode the final leg in to Cherokee with Danny Dunn, stopping in one family's yard for free beer. I had a great spaghetti dinner at the Mason Shrine, near our camp.

Our camp today is beautiful, a lovely farm house way up on a hill. I took an outdoor shower by an RV, drank too many draught pale ales and had a good nights sleep, getting up at some point to zip up the tent fly when it started to rain.