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 3rd 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!)
