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.
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