RAGBRAI... (Part 1)

Well, I have completed another 500+ miles and am ready to tell you about all the fun that was had.

DAY 0 (Saturday) - Awoke at my brothers in Iowa City at 3AM to head out to Bellevue, IA to meet the buses so I can have my bike and self transported to the starting point in Rock Rapids, IA. One may be wondering why so early since Bellevue is only an hour and a half away. Well, I wanted to run over to Wal-Mart and get the new Harry Potter book since it came out at midnight, before heading out.

About an hour into the drive (5:30AM) to Bellevue, on highway 151, I saw and passed Team Mata on the road. If anyone remembers who this is, Syd's blog had posted an article about this woman who had a real nasty accident which separated her teeth and gums from her jaw. The story amazed me, especially how the accident didn't even stop her from racing.

Anywho, I thought I would signal them and see about getting a picture, then I realized I had left the compact digital camera my brother was going to lend me back at my brothers house. Oh well, I just thought it was neat to see them all the same.

Arrived in Bellevue in plenty of time. Unloaded the car and my sister-in-law took my car back to their place in Iowa City. The bicycle was loaded into the truck and I sat down to begin reading. Then I realized I left my sunglasses in my car. Argh...this was not turning out to be good, hopefully I would be able to find some cheap sunglasses in Rock Rapids.

The bus ride was a typical bus ride, uncomfortable and boring. There were a lot of people getting liquored up on the bus. There was a large water cooler filled with margaritas and someone was passing beers around. I don't know how anyone can drink at 8AM. The book kept my attention the whole time so all the drunks didn't bother me. We arrived at the starting point at 4PM. Found my bike and pitched my tent.

There were about 600 people with the outfitter I traveled with the whole week. I decided to find the vendor stands and find some sunglasses and get some much needed dinner. I found the vendors and it was crowded. If you have never been in a crowd of more than 10,000 people, I cannot even begin to describe the insanity. Then again most of it might have been my own claustrophobia that was creating the anxiety. I found some sunglasses for twenty clams. After riding the whole week with them they were definitely over priced by twenty clams.

Found some food, headed back to camp, and did some more reading before calling it a night. At this point I was halfway through the book. Was woken up from the people returning from the bars at 2AM. For some reason I thought I had over slept and missed getting my luggage on the trucks by 7AM. Then I realized what was going on.

It was back to sleep. Tomorrow I will tell you more...