Day 2 of RAGBRAI was quite eventful. It started at 2:00 AM with a loud speaker telling us that there was a severe weather warning and instructions on where to evacuate. The last thing I felt like doing was leaving my cozy tent nest (I was tired yesterday), but I packed all my gear into the plastic bags (I even deflated my air mattress because one side is cloth and I didn't want it to get wet.) I put my bike in my tent and Cathy and I walked over to a nursing home a few blocks away where they set up an evacuation location in the basement. Brent opted to stay in his tent and weather the storm. (Macho or not-so-smart - you decide!) At the nursing home, we found out all we had was a thinly carpeted floor to sleep on. No clots or pillows. I nabbed some cushions off of a bench for Cathy and me, but believe me, there was no way to sleep. People were talking and milling about. Thank the heavens the weather warning lifted an hour later. We headed back to camp and I slept on top of my sleeping bag (I needed the cushioning) - how I missed my air mattress! Especially after I realized I had a tree branch right under me. It was after 4 AM by the time I fell asleep. Luckily our camp did not begin to stir until 6 AM this morning (usually it is 4:30-5:00 AM).
One very lucky thing about the evacuation was that I literally ran into my CrossRoads tour friend, Bill, in the nursing home. He had called my cell phone earlier in the day, but I did not get the message. (Evidently AT&T is not working in this area of Iowa - I haven't had cell phone reception for about 24 hours now.) Bill invited me to ride with our other CrossRoads buddies, Amy and Scott, today. So we donned our CrossRoads jerseys and spent most of the day together. It was great fun to catch up with them and talk about the tour. We all became such good friends, and we all miss the tour experience.
We rode all day in beautiful rolling hills - up and down, up and down we constantly went. It was lovely scenery, but all the climbing made for a long day. We took nice long rest stops in the towns and generally had a wonderful time together.
Towards the end of the day, the skies were once again threatening. We were riding towards a massive set of thunder heads and could see all sorts of lightning in the distance. It was a little disconcerting to be riding towards all that bad weather. When we were about 18 miles from our last town, Scott caught a flat. While we were waiting, Brent and Cathy (who I hadn't see since early morning), blew by me. Scott told me I didn't have to wait, so I set off to chase them down. A few gueling miles of me hammering after them, I saw an amazing double-paceline coming up behind me. There were about 30 people in it - and the guy leading the paceline had Cheap Trick playing on his stereo. Thundering paceline (when you are trying to outride a storm and catch your friends) and Cheap Trick. I thought I must be in heaven. I caught the end of the paceline and about another 30 people jumped in behind me as well. I swear we must have had 60-70 people in this double line. It was so so so fun. We rode for a good long spell. Then some cars up ahead split us up and a bunch of people couldn't accelerate fast enough to hang on - but I did. We were doing over 25 mph at one point - in a head wind. It was the bomb. And especially good because it started to rain. I never caught Brent and Cathy - or so I thought - I actually passed them while Brent was in a corn field.
They caught up with me in town and we headed to our campsite to set up our tents - in a light rain. All went well. I feel I am handling this wacky Iowan weather quite well. Last year was totally different - no rain except that one night.
CrossRoads reunion! Here's me, Scott, Amy, and Bill.
Amy looking cute as can be. (She is a Cosmo Girl after all - explanation to follow.)
Bill and Scott during a short break.
We met another CrossRoads guy on the road. His yellow jersey indicates he did the ride in a different year. Yesterday I saw a guy in a blue CrossRoads jersey. We CrossRoad alumni are well represented here at RAGBRAI!
I love this guy. He plays excellent dance music on his home-made boom box. He always puts me in a fine mood when I hear him on the road. (The stereo is housed in a styrofoam beer cooler - light weight and practical!)
This is a fine example of our beautiful scenery and rolling hills. (climb climb climb and then climb some more)
Since I left my camp in such a hurry this morning, I had not created my personal message for the day. We CrossRoaders decided to do this together. Here's Scott (a doctor with decent penmanship - what a concept!) writing "XC08" (this stands for cross country 2008) on one leg and "evacuee" on the other leg (a reference to my middle of the night displacement). Fun!
We all went with the XC08 message today.
Then we ran into Amy's team, the Cosmo Girls. They are a group of 7 impressive women who do RAGBRAI in an RV. I'll be looking for Amy tomorrow in her Cosmo Girl get-up: skorts and a cute halter...
Then I met this dude with his "reverse mohawk." Very avant guarde. Do you think it will catch on?
One of our towns today was named Coon Rapids, Iowa. This poor guy had to lay on the road all day in the hot sun in his roadkill costume. Cyclists were taking pictures of their bikes on top of the guy. Very nice and patient people in Iowa!
Here are the Bud girls (very hot) in the beer garden. Bill got to dance with them - I wish I captured that on film!
Another beer garden regular. Hmmmmm. I think I pass on this offer. This is what you might call an ick-and-run.
This crazy guy is doing RAGBRAI on his unicycle. I have not seen him on the downhill. How scary would that be???Okay, that's it for today folks. Rumer has it that Lance may drop in tomorrow. I'll keep my eyes peeled. I also heard that after tonight we may have fine weather for the rest of the week. Cross your fingers.
Love to all!
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