Jen and Rebecca Get Really High

R: Jen and I had a fun-filled, exhausting day in Quito. Quito is known for its high elevation in the Andes Mountains (¨high,¨ get it?) as well as all its churches and we made sure we experienced both today. As our hotel is in Old Town, we decided to focus our tourism attention on Old Town today and were able to see about three sites of interest to us within three blocks of the hotel. We started out at la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus. (I love that we have an ñ key!) This church has an ornate gold interior that, as one guide book put it, could raise Liberace from the grave. It was very pretty and very shiny.

J: Sadly, none of the churches would allow us to take photos inside the sanctuaries, so we can´t show you any of the golden walls or flashing Christmas lights on the altar. You´ll just have to trust us. The church had a small museum attached displaying a variety of scientific instruments that you all know we had to tour. And then I discovered something amazing- all of the signs in the museums were in Spanish which severely limited Rebecca´s ability to read them. She could only look at the objects and pictures (normally she reads every word printed - which takes considerably longer). We made it thru in record time! After the museum, we proceeded on the
Monastery of San Francisco. It also had an adjoining musuem of religious artifacts and artwork. Once again, we set a new museum speed record. However, we both got distracted by a collection of nativity scenes on display for the Christmas season. Granted, part of the distraction may have been due to the many settings on our cameras and our experimenting with our photography skills.

R: The Franciscan Museum had a nice courtyard (again good for photography) and I also made a new monk friend. See below:




R (cont.): Next, a quick stop at the Casa de Sucre before lunch. This is the home of one of the military leaders who helped Ecuador gain its independence. Too bad we couldn´t read all the placards to learn exactly what this dude did. Onwards to lunch. We picked out a lovely restaurant from the guidebook located near the Monastery, but it didn´t seem to exist anymore. We headed to the other guidebook-recommended restaurant instead, only later in the afternoon I realized that we´d eaten at an entirely different restaurant. It´s okay. The food at this one was good too, though we exposed ourselves as complete tourist morons by not ordering at the counter as we should have, causing much confusion for the poor waiter later. It turns out we don´t really understand much Spanish. Next we headed to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, or as Jen started to call it, the ¨scary church.¨ I told her all about how you can climb to the top of the clock towers, a jounrey which also included walking across a precarious wooden plank path. Since Jen has a bit of a fear of heights, she was a little apprehensive about this. I, however, insisted we go! Here´s Jen crossing the plank path which turned out to be the least scary part given all the skinny metal steep stairs that came next!

J: I was not nearly as excited to climb to the top of the belfry as Rebecca, but I made it most of the way. The photo below is where I chickened out and sent Rebecca on ahead:

J (cont´d): But, I´m glad I made it as high (hee hee...get it...high) as I did because the views were awesome. We could see almost all of Quito from the top, plus, if it hadn´t been cloudy and we knew exactly which direction to look, I´m guessing we could have seen Cotopaxi as well. The Basilica is different from most other churches (at least on the outside) because instead of gargoyles, it had animals carved into its walls (see the bird below):

R: The weather had been sunny and hotter than expected up til we got to the Basilica--yes I know we´re at the equator, but we´re also high in the mountains! And weather.com had me believing it would be 60 and rainy. But in the afternoon, the clouds rolled in and in a very beautiful way. But yet it never rained. Yay! After climbing back down all the Basilica steps, we took an over-priced taxi ride to the Parque Itchimbia for more over-the-city views. (Guide book said the ride shouldn´t be more than $2 and we were charged $7. But when Jen handed him a $20, he only gave us $10 back. Ack! Stupid language barrier again!) After wandering in the park, we headed to a recommended restaurant across the street (Cafe Mosaico)where we got to see the sunset behind the clouds.

R (cont´d): We had a more reasonably-priced taxi ride back to our hotel where we got our bags organized for leaving again tomorrow - we have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am, ugh! And we´re exhausted. But to add to the day´s excitement, Jen got the memory card of my brand new camera stuck in her computer. Good thing I take crafting supplies with me everywhere I go. We managed to get two sewing needles in the drive the pry the thing out. And all the pictures were intact! I think we were both too tired to realize the folly of putting the small memory card in. Oh well. It all ended well. And speaking of endings, we need to get to bed. After our long travel day yesterday, the 6:00 am unintentional wakeup call this morning and another early day tomorrow, we are exhausted! Next stop, Galapagos Islands!

Jen and Rebecca Cross the Equator

We made it to Quito, Ecuador last night, and finally arrived at our hotel around 1:00 AM after our flight from Atlanta left about an hour late. But we breezed through customs. We´re staying at a lovely hotel called Hotel de San Francisco in Old Town. We like that our room has a window into the hallway. We don´t like that some strange alarm went off at about 6:00 AM this morning. It may have been the fire alarm, but as we never saw any fire or smelled any smoke, I think it was just a false alarm. Or maybe it´s the Ecuadorian wake-up call?

Jen at our room´s hallway window.

We´ve just finished breakfast--eggs (Rebecca´s scrambled, Jen´s fried), rolls with butter and jam, watermelon juice and hot chocolate. This should be enough to fuel us as we head out to explore Quito! And despite weather.com´s predictions that we´d been checking for weeks before we left, it is NOT raining, and is, instead, shining bright equator sun down on us. (Can´t forget to bring our hats!)

Jen at breakfast

Tomorrow we head out early for our flight to the Galapagos. YAY! Can´t wait!

Jen and Rebecca Head for the Equator

R: Jen and I had intended to blog a reflection on our RAGBRAI experience, but as our many loyal readers may have noticed, it took me until last week to actually update the the blog with our last day of the ride, let alone actually think deep thoughts about it. So we'll just chalk that one up to, "Oh well!"

And now Jen and I are heading out on our next adventure--the Galapagos islands! After months and months of hemming and hawing about the expense, looking at all of the cruise options, we made the decision to go! I'm guessing our internet connection will be fair to non-existent while actually on the islands (though I could be surprised) but we're planning to update the blog as soon as we can, when we're back in mainland Ecuador, or, like RAGBRAI, perhaps in the weeks (months?) following the trip.

Mini-Darwin prepares to make a return trip to the part of the world he made famous:

Jen and Rebecca Finish! AKA Day 7 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: After our near-miss storm the previous night, and resulting later bedtime, we were still able to pack up the wet tent (for the last time!) and get on the road relatively on time. As they always make the last day a short one to get people done and on their way home, we weren’t too concerned with the 43-mile day ahead of us. But as a bonus, we had a tail wind!

J: Tailwinds are a beautiful thing. We made excellent time on our way to New London - the first stop of the day. The first two food vendors had long lines, so we rode in to the town square hoping for a better option. And we found one. One of the local restaurants (perhaps the only restaurant) was serving skillet breakfasts – scrambled eggs, sausage, cheese biscuits and juice or coffee for $5. I think the youngest waitress was 75. But the food was yummy and more than I could eat in one sitting. The ride was pretty flat today, so we didn’t need to stop and rest much, but we were making good time and so when we saw the signs for Peanut Butter Jam and Turkey Tom’s, we couldn’t resist stopping. There’s nothing quite like a glass of chocolate milk and pb&j after a day on the bike. I’m not exceptionally adventurous when it comes to my sandwiches, so I went with a plain peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I had the option to add marshmallow cream, potato chips, graham crackers, sprinkles, and a bunch of other odd things I never would have imagined putting on a sandwich before.

R: On a last minute impulse, I added the graham crackers, and it added a pleasant crunch. I might even do it again sometime! I was annoyed, however, that no one was actually jamming at the PB Jam. They have a tent set up with instruments for people to pick up and jam while they wait or while they rest before getting back on the bike. (Get it? “Jam” as in the spread to put on your sandwich with peanut butter and “jam” as in improvising on instruments? How clever! Plus they drive a hippie van. What’s not to like about this picture?) As we arrived, one woman was trying to tune a violin, but she was failing miserably using the metronome’s electronic A. So I hummed an approximation of an A (I’ve certainly heard enough of them in my life) and she STILL couldn’t get it tuned to an A (or to my approximation of an A). Then she apparently gave up and never even tried to play anything. Sheesh. Also while sitting in the shade, an ambulance went by with lights flashing. This had happened several times throughout the week (and, in fact, the day before we saw an accident happen right in front of us, stopped to help, and Aaron was the one to call the ambulance. Fortunately that guy seemed to be okay, just shaken and dehydrated.) But this ambulance may have held what turned out to be the only fatality of this year’s RAGBRAI. By this point, we had already gone up the only hills for the day (outside of downtown Burlington), and one of the down-hills was both steep and had a sharp turn at the bottom. We speculated that this might have caused at least one accident, unfortunately.

But on to happier things, like finishing! The rest of the ride to Burlington was so smooth, that we were at the end by 10:30 am. We had seen a bunch of signs throughout the day challenging us to “Rattle the Snake” in Burlington. I had no idea what this meant, despite the fact that my second RAGBRAI (XVIII) had also gone through Burlington. In my memory’s defense, this was 19 years ago. (Oh my God, that was 19 years ago! And upon reflection, I think we went DOWN the alley that year.) We eventually reached a corner near the river where there were a lot of people yelling at us. (Okay, one might call it “cheering.”) I had no idea what was going on, and sadly didn’t have time to realize that I had the CHOICE whether to ride my bike up the stupid, winding, steep cobbled “Snake Alley” or to bypass the thing entirely. So I went straight and up into the alley instead of turning like normal, rational people. Fortunately I didn’t fall over backwards. I was so winded, I had to take a break in the middle and let my heartbeat catch up. But I persevered and made it to the top without walking. And as a reward, I got a beer can cozy that says I rattled the snake in Burlington. So worth the effort for that can cozy...

J: I was following Rebecca into Burlington, heard a woman yell “You might want to rest a minute before you ride up” and another person say “You don’t have to do it,” so I turned right and headed downhill to the river. I didn’t earn a can cozy, but I’m okay with that. I spotted Aaron as I was headed down the hill and followed him into a big parking lot to wait for Rebecca. Once she was done rattling the snake, we took our places in line to dip our front tires in the Mississippi River (one last RAGBRAI tradition).


J (continued): We said goodbye to Aaron and headed off to find our own charter service to prepare for the trip back to Grinnell. We handed our bikes over to the guys from Bikes to You to be put on the truck, found our clothes bags and then headed off to find our final $5 shower of the week. Once we were cleaned up, it was time for our last guilt-free meal of the trip (we’ll talk about my snacks on the drive home later….). I think this time it was beer and brats. Finally, we boarded the bus for the trip back to Grinnell and I’m pretty sure Rebecca had Hawgs flashbacks since it took awhile for the driver to get the bus started. I have no idea if anything interesting happened on the drive because I slept the majority of the way back to Grinnell. Once my bike and bags were packed back into my car, I said goodbye to Rebecca, Matt and all of my other new friends and started my long drive back to Denver.

R: Jen forgot to mention that after a week of having to use the same towel that never quite got dry (by which I mean we each had our own separate towels that we each used for ourselves the entire week) plus mine had sat out in the rain the previous night, we were each going to splurge the extra dollar for a clean, dry towel from the shower guys. Only to learn that they were out of towels! Ugh. That was probably the point when I really was ready to be at home again! As we’d made such good time we had to wait several hours before the buses departed, but I concur with Jen that I don’t remember anything of the drive other than the candy bar I bought at the rest stop.

After saying good-bye to Jen (sad!) I had an only slightly more interesting evening than Jen’s spent in her car. Matt and I had decided to stay one last night in Grinnell as neither of us felt up to the task of a 5-hour drive. Grinnell sponsored a Pag’s pizza-feed for the alums still hanging around, after which we walked to the Dari Barn, in large part to keep ourselves from going to bed at 8:00. We managed to chat with our host for awhile before turning in (and, technically, Matt went out for drinks with a new lady friend he met on the team when I turned in).

Given how easy the ride was that day, it kinda made you ready to sign up for RAGBRAI XXXVIII already. But only kinda.

Jen and Rebecca Have an Awesome Ride Until the Headwind Kicks Their...Well...Faces, AKA Day 6 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: Friday dawned beautiful and perfect for riding. There were a few tough hills just to get out of Ottumwa, however--we passed Janelle’s parents walking up the first monster one. (They said they weren’t yet warmed up enough for the hill.) By the time we wound through the Indian Hills Community College campus and officially left the city of Ottumwa, we were halfway to the first town of Hedrick, 16 miles in. Rather than stopping at Hedrick though, we opted to stop at the Farm Boys Breakfast Burrito stand, in one part because going into Hedrick was a mile out of the way on a gravel road, and in the other part because Aaron had been talking about wanting to stop at Farm Boys all week, every time we saw their sign.

J: For the first 30 miles of the day, we kept seeing signs for Dutch letters in Packwood, so we HAD to stop. Most towns on RAGBRAI offer a large variety of food options, but they may or may not be exceptionally organized or even centrally located. Packwood, on the other hand, had an assembly line set up. They had a large offering of food and beverages, so we were worried that it was going to be a huge mess and take forever to get thru the line, but it was an extremely well run operation. And after seeing the Dutch letter ads for well over 2 hours, Rebecca couldn’t resist the urge to try one.

R: This was a day of clever sign advertising. Not only had the advertising worked on me in regards to the Dutch letters, but also the Catholic ladies’ double-entendre-filled signs about “whoopie” in Brighton had me curious to find out what exactly they were selling! So after riding to Brighton and having some walking tacos (mmmm….walking tacos) we headed down the street where I had whoopie. From the Catholic ladies. And it was great. Okay, “whoopie” is actually two chocolate cake-cookies with a frosting filling. But it was actually really tasty! And apparently trendy. Check out this NY Times article on how this delicacy is re-sweeping the nation: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/dining/18whoop.html?_r=1 (I’m glad mine only cost a dollar, not the $4+ in the Williams-Sonoma catalog!)

R (continued): I think we were dragging our feet about leaving Brighton because all day we had felt a southerly breeze/wind. This hadn’t been a problem yet, but we knew that a majority of the remaining 25 miles would take us south, directly into the wind. This was probably the hardest stretch of the whole week for me. Yeah, the hills the first few days were tough, but there were hills here too, with wind blowing in my face. Plus it had gotten hotter out and the sun had caused a really attractive rash to take over my legs from the bike shorts edge to the knees, as well as some on my calves and neck too. The rash, I think, made my body feel even hotter, more uncomfortable, and more tired. We thought we only had about 7 miles to the next town of Germanville, but were dismayed to realize that this was one of those fake towns—only a few houses with no big welcome set up for us! So we had to keep plodding on another 9 miles to Lockridge.

J: The hills wouldn’t have been so evil on Friday, if it hadn’t been for the nasty headwind. On a good day, I could get up to 35 mph or so going downhill and make it partway up the next hill before I had to start working hard. Not so on day 6. I was happy to not come to a complete standstill at any given time – possibly an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like! So, when we finally rolled into Lockridge, we were all ready for a break. I’m sure that we had some tasty RAGBRAI treats, but I have no recollection of that stop other than that we sat under a tree for an hour.

R: Actually, I think we were so tired and I, for one, was feeling too yucky, that we only drank Cokes, and didn’t even eat anything other than Cliff bars from our bike bags. Sad, right? But the shade was awesome. I think I even took a brief nap that helped revive me for the final push.

J: It really was the day of great advertising because the Lutheran church posted signs for free ice cream starting about 10 miles out. After the ride we’d had, there was no way we were passing that up even though they were set up only about 3 miles from the overnight town. Once we finally made it into Mt. Pleasant, we were happy to see that Matt had once again set up our tent for us. Tent service really is a wonderful thing. It was a fairly uneventful evening until we got back to camp after dinner. The police were driving thru the campground telling campers to leave their tents and move to the museums at the bottom of the hill until the storms passed thru. So, we joined thousands of other riders in a couple of buildings shoved full of antique farm equipment. On a happy note, Rebecca finally got to visit a museum. On a scary note, the storms were supposed to arrive with 70 mph winds, heavy rain and hail. Luckily, we ran into our new friend Al again and he had saved bench space for any Grinnell alum that happened to pass by, so we were saved from wandering aimlessly or sitting on the floor. But the best news of the night was that the storms never materialized and we were soon able to head back to our tents to sleep before our final day of riding.

R: Yeah, I think we were back to the tent by 11:00. This was later than we had been going to bed the rest of the week (yup, we’re party animals) but it could have been a lot later if the storms hadn’t conveniently skirted around Mt. Pleasant. I was, sadly, too tired to actually look through the Thresher Museum, and instead preferred to sit, chat, stare at my heat rash without itching it, and finally attempt to nap in a seated position on a wooden bench. It seemed that a giant metal pole barn full of heavy machinery may not have been significantly safer than our tent had the storm really hit hard, but thankfully we’ll never know.

Jen and Rebecca Have Confidence, Muddy Shoes, and Cheese Fries, AKA Day 5 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: Thursday morning, we awoke around 3:00am as it started raining on our tent again. About 4:45, just before the alarm was set to go off, we were both awake listening to the thunder, lightning and even a short burst of hail. We were both doing the math in our heads, trying to figure out how our charter service was going to transport all of us who would want to sag rather than ride in a thunderstorm downpour. But miraculously, it was done at 5:30, and we were able to get going, just a little late. But we were also delayed slightly by the phone calls necessary to congratulate new mom Janelle and her husband! Hannah Lucille was born the evening before, as Jen’s voicemail dutifully reported to us that morning.

J: After the congratulations call to Janelle, we were off. We stopped for Chris Cakes in Millerton and randomly met another member of Team Grinnell. He had the misfortune of being camped next to a drainage spout of the middle school we were camped next to the night before. While Rebecca and I managed to stay dry, poor Al woke up in the middle of Niagara Falls. After we finished our pancakes, we said goodbye to Al and headed back out. Aaron and I somehow managed to lose Rebecca on our way to the 3^rd pass-thru town of Confidence. This led to way too many puns. I won’t repeat them all here, but Aaron and I were positive that we would find Rebecca there. And we certainly did.

R: While whiling away time in no doubt that I would eventually find Aaron and Jen, I settled down in the gazebo with a frozen fruit cup, which I had strangely been craving. At one point I thought I detected a grape in my fruit cup (for some reason, biting into a frozen grape is a bit of a fruit cup pet peeve of mine) but I think it was only half of one, and thus less evil. Having shorn up our lack of doubt in Confidence, we continued on, having decided to stop at Honey Creek State Park Resort. With a name like that, I thought this place would be an idyllic scene for a stop, so we bypassed the town that came 3 miles before. Sadly, the resort itself was about 2 more miles off the main road. 75 miles is plenty for one day for me, so none of us were eager to ride in farther (despite the shuttle bus they had running.) They had food set up at the main road (I had mac and cheese!), but unfortunately, the torrential nighttime rain also created a major mud puddle at the unfinished resort entrance. To console ourselves before having to scrape the mud off our caked cleats, and to celebrate another breeze of a ride as well as the birth of baby Hannah, we each had a beer from a local Des Moines brewery, though a fly sadly gave his life for Jen’s.



J: Yes, so far, day 5 had been a breeze of a day. But, as a compulsive map studier, I knew that would soon end. We had 3 big hills waiting for us once we left the park. Unless, of course, we chose to ride the century loop, then we could delay the hills a bit longer. However, since none of us even wanted to ride 4 extra miles into the actual resort and back out, I figured the odds of us riding the 25-mile loop were slim. And I was right. Before we got to the hills though, we had to stop in Moravia for another of my RAGBRAI obsessions – pie! It was fabulous pie, by the way, made by some local Amish families. It was even tastier with a little homemade ice cream on top.


J (continued): Sadly, I don’t think it improved my ability to climb hills. The first one came shortly after we left town. Luckily there was a steep downhill leading into it that helped me get about halfway up before I had to go all the way into my granny gears. I don’t remember the second hill so well, but I do remember that I was very happy to see the church in Unionville offering free water and the rarest of all things on RAGBRAI – kybos with no waiting lines. We decided to rest our weary legs under the shade tent for a while before tackling the final big hill of the day (a slow roller according to the church volunteers). Two of the ladies enjoying the shade with us had wooden spoons tucked into their bike shorts. This, obviously, required some investigation. We learned that they were riding with Team Gourmet. All team members must keep their assigned utensil with them at all times. If a member cannot provide his or her utensil when asked by another team member, he or she becomes the other member’s servant for the next hour. The big draw of the team is that they get a gourmet meal every evening (sort of self-explanatory, I guess).

R: I think I’ve blocked these hills out of my memory. At any rate, we made it up them all, and rewarded ourselves again with a last stop in Blakesburg for sweet corn and the cheesiest cheese fries ever.

R (continued): As we finished up the day, cruising into Ottumwa, it started sprinkling. At first this felt pretty good as it had gotten to be kind of a warm day. But soon the rain’s intensity picked up, so we also picked up speed to take us through town to our assigned camp spot. We were set up in a really big, tree-filled park area by a lake (quite lovely, actually) and pulled into camp just as the rain really let loose. Teammates were tracking the storm on their Blackberries and reported that the storm was literally isolated just over Ottumwa. How nice for us! Fortunately, tent boy Matt (who had sagged again that day) had our tent all set up for us. Awesome! He’d even inflated our air mattress. And Jen dutifully rewarded him with a promised kiss (oolala! Okay, I admit it was a chaste kiss, because, as we all know, Jen is a chaste sort of girl. Or at least that’s what gets posted here because Jen’s parents are following our blog.) We were also fortunate in that we headed over to the showers just after the rain stopped and beat the line. There was then much debate amongst the team about where to have dinner as the camp was pretty far from the square and the churches serving dinner. Okay, “pretty far” is a pretty relative term, but when your legs are tired, walking more than a mile sounds like torture (as does getting back on the bike!)

J: As a former Iowa girl, I enjoy certain fast food places that I can’t easily find anymore (Taco John’s comes to mind – I know we have them in Colorado, but nowhere near my house). So when I saw the Happy Joe’s sign I started in on my pizza sales pitch.It didn’t take much arm twisting since everyone else was tired and hungry too.I don’t think the restaurant was expecting such a large crowd so we had to wait a bit for our pizza and pasta, but no one left hungry. Since nearly all RAGBRAI teams were camped in the same park, Rebecca and I figured we would be able to find Janelle’s parents to congratulate them on their newest grandchild after dinner.Unfortunately, all tents and Penske trucks start to look alike in the dark.After a bit of aimless wandering, we asked for directions at the information tent and finally found Gary and Joyce’s campground (only 2 away from ours—we had taken the long route to find them). We had a celebratory beer with the Johnsons and then headed back to our tent to prepare for our last long day of riding.

Jen and Rebecca Rejoice in a Blessedly Short Day of Relatively Hill-less Biking, AKA Day 4 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: Woo-hoo! Only 44 miles! And the elevation chart didn't look too bad, with only a little stretch of hills toward the middle/end. (Jen can provide better analysis of this, as she was a very diligent studier of the elevation charts.) I don't think I had to bump down to the granny gear until at least half-way into the day's ride. (Granted, I'm writing this two weeks later, and I could be confusing this with Day 5's route...) Jen's Day 3 break/long nap seems to have done her some good as she was up and ready to go again this morning. Sadly, however, the same could not be said for Matt. He had taken a fall a few weeks before the ride began and re-injured a knee that he'd had surgery on previously. Thus far on the ride, the knee hadn't bothered him at all, and, in fact, we stopped trying to ride with him because he felt the need for greater speed than our pace was averaging on the mass quantity of hills. But Tuesday night, while stepping into his tent, the knee popped out of place briefly, though went back in immediately. But it was a sufficient enough scare to make him want to use caution. He chose to sag on this short day of all days, poor guy.

J: After sagging a day, I understood how upset Matt was at having to skip the ride for the day. It really is a hard choice to make, even when you know it’s the best thing for you. Although Rebecca and Aaron kept mocking me, I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing the elevation chart and route maps for each day (and looking back on Wednesday’s elevation chart, I’m guessing there was some granny gear usage). I liked to know what to expect and what to prepare for each day. It made me a happier rider. And I was a much happier rider on Wednesday than on Tuesday. But when we stopped for one of my favorite breakfast foods (French toast) in Sandyville and I had to force myself to eat and then when Rebecca was listing off all of the fabulous foods that we’d eaten so far and I had to make her stop, I realized that I wasn’t quite up to par yet.

French toast.

Foggy morning bikers.

J (continued): And, I’m glad I did, because our next stop was Milo. And they had the best (and possibly only) theme of the week. The entire town took on a M*A*S*H theme. We hung out with Radar, Hot Lips, Klinger, and the largest Army man I will probably ever meet while enjoying our first lunch of the day.

R: I loved Milo! I recall from past RAGBRAIs that more towns had themes, which really made them more fun and more interesting. Sadly Milo was pretty much the only ultra-organized town like that all week. They even had people saying funny things out of the loudspeaker, announcing the onslaught of cyclists and such. We also were serenaded by some karaoke—some actually not too painful to listen to—as we waited in line for the kybos. We managed to make it to Lacona before 11, leaving us only 15 miles to go for the day. Given the good time we were making, plus the relative ease of the ride, Aaron and I indulged in a mid-ride beer. Hey, they had an option better than Bud or Miller Lite—Fat Tire—so how could anyone pass that up? And they made a great complement to the world’s best taco from Rudy’s. I may go back to Lacona some day, just for another taco.

Beer before noon.

Super heroes in Lacona.

J: One of the things that I was sad about missing on Tuesday was the homemade ice cream at Beekman’s, so I got Rebecca and Aaron to agree to stop again on Wednesday. Not that it required much, if any, begging. As we were pulling off the road, an 84-year-old man fell over right in front of us. Luckily, an E.R. nurse had pulled over at the same time. We provided some assistance, mostly in the form of shade. The nurse determined that the man would be okay with some water and some ice cream (and it must have been true, because he was gone by the time we got back to our bikes). Once we were no longer needed, we took our places in line. The wait was about 30-40 minutes, but it was well worth it for my cup of chocolate and raspberry goodness. As we were enjoying our ice cream, Rebecca’s eyes started bothering her again. It made the last 8 miles to Chariton less enjoyable for her, but fortunately medical services were set up right next door to our campsite.

R: Yeah, riding with one eye closed isn’t necessarily the safest riding habit, so after our evening shower, I really wanted to visit the first aid tent, which was particularly convenient because the first aid “tent” was located in the middle school mere feet from our evening’s camp site! The doc there confirmed that it was an allergy issue, and told me to go get drops and allergy meds. We took the shuttle to Chariton’s town square only to discover that there was no pharmacy or drug store downtown. We had to get on the shuttle again to head out to the Hy-Vee on the edge of town. Fortunately, Jen got her first walking taco of the week as a pre-dinner snack to hold her over, which ended up being a good thing as our trip to Hy-Vee took well over an hour. Little did we realize that Chariton had a complex shuttle system—we got on the wrong one! We toured the lovely outskirts of Chariton before finding the right shuttle and finally getting my eye drops (which, fortunately, provided relief immediately.) We rounded out the evening by watching the band Hairball with whom my brother was a little obsessed. Admittedly, they put on a rousing good show!

Jen and Rebecca Have a Parting of the Ways, AKA Day 3 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: As we packed away the Tent-Mahal in Greenfield, it was cloudy, but not actually raining. We were thankful for this, but we weren't overly optimistic about the day continuing rain-free for long. It was a relatively pleasant ride to the first town of Orient, 9 miles in, where we stopped for breakfast. We both got big cinnamon rolls and juice and then happened to run into Janelle's parents finishing up their pancakes. Still no baby at this time, as we confirmed with the grandparents-to-be (technically, their 4th grandchild). I wasn't sure we'd ever run into them while on the ride, knowing them to be early-risers and not town-lingerers, but I guess we were prompt that morning in our own departure time or something. It was fun to chat with them briefly. Sadly, as we left the high school gym to get back on our bikes, the rain had already begun...with 68 miles left to go for the day.

J: The next town was 12.7 miles away and it was possibly the longest 12.7 miles I’ve ever ridden in my life. That’s because weather changes and I don’t always play well together. And today was no exception. The migraine was slowly building before Orient and by the time I got to Macksburg, I wanted to cry (oh wait, I did). So, I made the tough decision to give up the ride for the day and take the SAG wagon into Indianola. For those unfamiliar with RAGBRAI and other long organized bike rides, the SAG wagon is essentially a van with a trailer that takes riders into the next town with a repair shop (for those with mechanical issues) or into the finish town (for those who are physically or mentally unable to ride the rest of the day).

But before Aaron and Rebecca left me to continue on with the day’s ride, we saw the most awesome of small town Iowa games – the skillet toss!

R: Yes, folks, that’s right. Macksburg featured a rousing skillet toss game. The object: knock the basketball head off of a stuffed dummy using an iron skillet from 10 (maybe more) yards away. As we walked up, one skillet came flying out of the enclosed cage in which the competition was happening—no top to the cage, It was quite a crowd-pleasing event! Plus we got to see the Bananaman toss a skillet.

R (continued): Aaron and I proceeded without Jen. It was still cold and still rainy, though not raining nearly as much as before. We stopped next in East Peru. Even though it is apparently home of the original delicious apple, I didn’t have an apple. I did, however, have a pork tenderloin sandwich. And, it may (or may not) be interesting to note, that the town is pronounced “Pee-roo” so I took the opportunity of peeing there.

R (continued): Our day’s ride also took us through Madison County, famed for its covered bridges. St. Charles had a fake bridge on the street, and I was feeling a little disillusioned that they were just taunting us with a fake one and we wouldn’t be seeing a real covered bridge on our RAGBRAI route. But there was one waiting for us just outside of St. Charles. We didn’t stay longer than a photo op, though, since we still had 30 miles to go. I didn’t even walk all the way across!

R (continued): The sun finally came out and I finally took off my jacket in time for our last 15-mile push into Indianola. The route planners saw it fit to have us enter Indianola by climbing the steepest two (or maybe three?) hills we’d yet seen. And then my campsite was on the complete other end of town. But fortunately Jen already had the tent put up when I arrived! One of the benefits of sagging--at least it benefited me.

J: That’s right, I was Rebecca’s tent girl on Tuesday. Although, really, I just wanted a place to sleep off my headache while I waited for my friends to ride in. I had an excellent two-hour nap and woke up feeling significantly better. After Rebecca got in and cleaned up, we headed into town to find Simpson College (Grinnell had kindly sponsored the night’s dinner at the college. Thanks Grinnell!). While be both knew that our campsite was on the edge of town, I don’t think either of us realized that it would take us so long to actually get back to the center of it. And we were under a deadline! We had 30 minutes to get to the dining hall and well over a mile to walk. Never fear, we made it – and each managed to consume the equivalent of two dinners and desert! After dinner, we met up with Aaron and Matt, sent out our last timely blog entry and then went to enjoy the beer garden.

R: As a side-note, in true Grinnell fashion, while walking down the streets of Indianola trying to get to the dining hall by the 6:30 closing time, I ran into an alum with whom I’d been in Grinnell Singers who was not riding with our team (and in fact was not riding RAGBRAI at all. He’s living in Des Moines and had come down to see other friends who were riding. Oh, writing this up reminds me to look him up on Facebook!) Not sure he would have recognized me if I’d not been wearing a Grinnell t-shirt. Glad I have a ton of them in my wardrobe to create more random Grinnell run-ins on the street. Oh, and the dining hall decided to stay open as long as they had food left, so our rushing wasn’t even necessary, though we slipped in under the wire at 6:29!

Jen and Rebecca Make Excuses for Not Blogging

R: Turns out we didn't really keep up on the travel blog throughout RAGBRAI. In our defense, biking is hard work! Plus Matt was getting really whiny about how he had to wait around for us to blog when he wanted to be out on the town. (Yes, it's our blog, so we can blame others for our lack of follow-through. If Matt really feels the need to defend himself, he can post a comment!) We're hoping to pick up the pieces and get all of our eager blog-fans up-to-date on the rest of the trip in some subsequent posts. For those who can't stand the suspense (spoiler alert: neither of us died from too much biking as we're still here to update you after-the-fact), check my brother's blog starting with this post: http://mathman72.blogspot.com/2009/07/ragbrai-xxxvii-trip-to-council-bluffs.html. He made the time to blog most days (or was at least able to get himself caught up through the rest of the ride unlike me and Jen.) As we pretty much hung out with him the entire time, his blog tells you a lot about our week from his perspective.

But keep checking back here in the coming week(s) for more on our RAGBRAI experience, and exciting plans for our upcoming vacations!

Admittedly, the lack of blogging probably wasn't just Matt's fault. Here, I enumerate other scapegoats for our blog-slacking:

1) Lack of available power-sources to recharge the laptop. All these greedy, power-hungry people seemed to think they needed to charge their phones every night and with a limited number of outlets, we were lucky to find spots for our phones to charge before they died, let alone for the laptop. And the phones were important because if we got separated during the ride, we could best find each other by calling. Plus we were waiting for Janelle baby news.

2) Free wireless was not easy to come by in small-town Iowa, so even when our computer had enough juice, we had no convenient way to upload anything we may have had time to write at the camp site. And dragging the laptop into town to the Iowa Telecom booth just to get the internet soon wearied me, the pack mule carrying the computer in a backpack for the rest of the evening we spent in town. And I'm just not economical enough in my word use (Exhibit A: this blog post) to be able to write up something quickly (and cleverly) while standing at a computer set up in the Iowa Telecom booth. Next time, we'll bring a jump drive.

3) By the time you bike all day, get in, get your camp site situated (okay, I admit we had a tent boy to do some of the dirty work for us for a few days later in the week...more on that in subsequent posts), relax with a frosty beverage and rehash the day's ride with your teammates, find the showers, wait in line for the shower, take the shower, dry off from the shower, decide on a place for dinner, walk/shuttle to said place for dinner, wait in line for said dinner, eat said dinner...well, after all that, you maybe have time for one other evening activity. Some days, finding the beer garden was the one preferred evening activity.

4) But really, it's all Matt's fault. I hate accepting blame.

Jen and Rebecca Bike Up a Lot of Hills in the Rain

R: One of the guys in our group told us as we were setting out on Monday that there was a chance of rain. Yeah, there were a few clouds, but they didn’t look too ominous. Turns out they were indeed rain clouds. Sigh. But it didn’t start raining on us until about halfway through the day. Up to that point, we were able to see Swedish dancing in Stanton, plus Stanton’s famed water towers shaped like a coffee pot and a tea pot!

Hills

J: Then it was on to Villisca - home of the Murder House. We were too cheap to take the $5, 5 minute tour, so we don’t have all of the details, but we did learn that several members of one family plus some friends were axe-murdered in 1912. My bike and I got into several spats yesterday as well. It almost got axed. But, after fixing my chain five times, I’m very good at putting it back on. Plus, I got to meet some very nice bike mechanics on the road who adjusted the cables for me. It appears to have to worked.

The Villisca Murder House

R: Because Jen’s bike pedal bit her and I had some sort of allergy-eye itch issue, we also took a pit stop at the first aid bus (provided by the U of I, thanks Jen’s alma mater) which made our stop in Corning a bit longer than anticipated. We did have yummy sloppy joes AND we got to use the indoor toilet which had a museum/old fashioned bank safe in it. Sadly, the line behind me was too long to spend much time in the museum after doing my business.

J: The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I guess that’s not entirely true. While I was at the bike repair stop to get my chain checked, Rebecca and Aaron 3,050 pound bull headed to the Iowa State Fair. The rain wasn’t much fun, but we survived. I did make a new friend. He kept offering to race me up hills, and then he’d let me win. Hmmm….. But, he was funny and distracted me the pain of climbing.

Rebecca and the bull.

Jen and her repaired bike.

R: He was funny because he said he’d rather Jen won the race because he’s get a better view. Tee hee. The last few “towns” of the ride were those fake towns where it’s pretty much a beer tent and nothing else. But we survived that too. Once we set up our tent in the rain, we headed to the nearby high school for showers, and made it one-stop shopping and had lasagna dinner there too. Where we saw Miss Iowa giving autographs. Sadly I hadn’t brought my camera. (Afterall, I thought we were just going to take showers.) We also wandered around the town square with Aaron where we finally got pie! Jen and Aaron chose rhubarb and I went cherry.

J: Yep, I can go home happy. I had some homemade rhubarb pie. Once I have walking tacos my trip will be complete.

R: More riding set for Tuesday, and we hope the forecasted “intermittent thunderstorms” don’t
come to pass…

Jen and Rebecca Start Biking

R: We made it through day 1! (Sorry for the posting delay. Apparently free wi-fi access isn't abundant in small-town Iowa and we've lacked the energy to get ourselves downtown to the Iowa Telecom booth where internet is free.)

R, still :We had another night of not great sleep in part because of the loud music/party we could hear nearby (sadly for Aaron, it was right by his campground, though down the road from ours.) Plus we could hear trains and it was chilly overnight. Turns out a sleeping bag wouldn’t have been overkill in this weather, and I should have brought one as the blanket didn’t quite cover it. We didn’t get started as early as anticipated either because I hadn’t recalled how long the lines to the kybos are at the main campground--I was spoiled riding with the Hawgs with their attached kybo on the back of the bus. Then I discovered my rear tire wasn’t holding air, so some of the bike shop guys at our campsite fixed it for me. We joined up with Aaron and got on the road at 7:00. We passed grandma’s condo on the way out of town, so I guess Aaron and I took a partial Eilers memorial tour of Council Bluffs

J: I am too dazed by day 1 to write anything! Overall, it was an okay day. I think I started out a little dehydrated and exhausted from 2 nights of bad sleep and it hit me on the first set of hills out of Council Bluffs. Once we finally made it to the top, I chugged a bottle of Nuun and inhaled a quick snack and the situation was drastically improved. On to the first town! We stopped in Mineola for Chris Cakes - my first pancakes of the week! Yummy!

Jen's first bite of pancakes.

Fortunately, no one was thrown into the hoosegow in Mineola during our brief stay.

R: The day was overall a short one, only 53 miles, but there were plenty of hills to keep up occupied. The just kept coming and became very tiresome. We learned that Matt rides faster than us, but Aaron, Jen, and I were able to stay together okay. Matt met us in the towns and at Pastafari for lunch, then rode ahead without us.

Matt being anointed a RAGBRAI virgin by some folks we met in the Pastafari line.

Jen bikes by, looking pretty happy!

Rebecca naps in Henderson.

R: The charter company tortured us with our campsite tonight--we had to climb several more hills in town to get to it. It’s fairly out of the way, and we were pretty tired, so we had dinner at the closest place to us, a church serving ham balls and baked potatoes. I’m wondering how I’m going to manage to stay up until a more reasonable bed time, like 9:00. Hopefully I’m tired enough to actually get a good night’s sleep, and if we go to bed early, we can get on the road earlier for a 70+ mile day tomorrow!

J: I had originally mocked Rebecca for wanting to go to bed at 7:30, but now it sounds like a fantastic idea! Here’s hoping for a slightly flatter day tomorrow!

Jen and Rebecca Get on the Bus

R: The day has dawned to get on the bus for RAGBRAI’s starting location! I don’t think any of us slept very well, being in different surroundings and being on edge about the adventure to come. But we still managed to haul ourselves out of bed at 6:00.

J: That’s sleeping in!

R: After dropping our stuff off at the charter bus and Penske trucks, Matt ditched us for the Lion’s Club pancake breakfast while Jen and I dropped our cars off at long-term parking. Jen and I made due with sweet rolls and fancy coffees from Saint’s Rest (we have to give a shout out to Paul and Janelle’s old bathroom - Saint’s Rest had the same walls) next to the bike store, but I think Jen was disappointed that she was denied her pancakes.

J: I’ll admit it, I was a little sad to miss out on the pancakes and sausage this morning. But, I think I’ll have several more opportunities this week. And my sweet roll was really good. After we loaded the busses, took roll call and got the standard safety speeches, we were finally off! And we got to see one of the most quintessential Iowa events – the antique tractor parade!

R: Granted, the tractors slowed us down, but as Grinnell is conveniently located next to I-80, and from there it’s a straight shot to Council Bluffs, we didn’t lose too much time. We frankly thought they were a little crazy thinking we wouldn’t arrive in CB until 1:00 or 2:00 with a scheduled departure of 8:00.

J: They weren’t too far off with the arrival time - we pulled into the campground at 12:00. We re-enacted the Oklahoma land run and picked the patch of land that would house our Taj Majal of tents for the night.

The land grab.

[Photo coming soon]
The Taj Mahal.

R: After exploring the bike Expo, where we bought some souvenirs (I learned on my last RAGBRAI not to wait until the end of week sales because the cute stuff is all gone) we biked over to the Bob Kerry Bridge to dip our tires in the Missouri River, as per RAGBRAI tradition. The ride was longer than I expected, but it was maybe necessary training. The bridge is pretty new and interesting looking and they had pumped water up to the bridge for tire dipping purposes. We also scuttled down to the banks for an official river dip, but on the Nebraska side, as it wasn’t really accessible on the Iowa side.

Bob Kerry Bridge

Dipping our tires on the bridge

Dipping our tires in the river

Nebraska-born Jen in Nebraska with Iowa-born Rebecca in Iowa.

J: The Bob Kerry Bridge is the second suspension bridge that I’ve been on this year. And, my fear of heights still has not subsided. I was doing okay until Matt got a flat in the middle of the bridge and we had to stop and I could feel the bridge swaying. I only freaked out a little bit…. On the bright side, a very nice man taught Matt how to change a flat.

R: I admit, I am the cause of Jen being on both suspension bridges this year. Sorry, Jen.

J: Apology accepted…unless you drag me onto a 3rd bridge.

R: Matt and Jen ditched me to go take naps back at camp and I met up with my brother where we made a valiant attempt to go see my grandparents’ old house on Commercial Street. I knew Council Bluffs got its name for a reason, but I’m pretty sure most of the bluffs are located all in the area of grandma’s old house. Once we hit the first giant hill, we decided we still had too far to go, and we gave up. The condo by Lake Manawa would have been a lot easier to access!

Aaron at the base of the hill at Pearl and 5th.

Waiting for the train to get back to the campsite.

J: It’s now dinner time and we’re about to head over to Ribfest (for ….well….ribs) and the Barenaked Ladies concert later tonight.

At the Expo. This just made us giggle.