Our camp started stirring around 6:00-6:30 in the morning. The Moore-On group seemed to be around 35 people. It seemed were weren't all there all at the same time though. The point is, we were a nice small and quiet group compared to my prior RAGBRAI experiences. When camping out with the Ron Oman group, we were within a group of 150-200 people in a huge field. Sometimes a high school, a park, a fairground, or on one memorable occasion, the grounds of a mental institution. With those huge groups, you would start to hear people getting up and packing up their tents (zip, zip, zipping) around 5 in the morning. Sleeping in until 6:30 is a pure luxury! With the 2-hour time difference, it should have felt like 4:30 a.m., but with the excitement of getting started, it is not difficult to wake up early and get packed up and ready to roll.
It was very good to see Tom again. As I mentioned, I met him on the California Dream Ride and found him to be a wonderful person in general and a great cycling companion. With the loss of my buddy, Debbie, Tom became my RAGBRAI partner this year.
Here's me and Tom - ready to go!
Here's Tom and Jim Gee. Jim is the one who transported our bikes all the way from Sacramento. What do you think of the psychedelic Moore-On jersey? And how do I get one?
And here's my first glimpse of the legendary Moronosaurus! Jim drove a truck and trailer from Sacramento to somewhere in Nebraska where he exchanged the truck for the Moronosaurus. This impressive (somewhat vintage) RV and our trailer followed us through the state of Iowa and delivered us back to the other side at the end.
Here's Tom with some soybean fields. Soybeans and corn is the name of the game in Iowa.
Tom and I stopped somewhere along the way, searching for some coffee perhaps, and I ran into this fellow with half a shaved head. He had been drinking beer for a couple of hours already at this point and was having a ball!
I love the cycling jerseys: Not Dead Yet - we just smell like it...
Bad Choices make Good RAGBRAI stories.
We encountered the baby dolls early on and saw them almost daily. They perfectly embody the RAGBRAI spirit of fun and creativity. Toward the end of the week, I found them dancing their socks off during a rest stop on a 70+ mile day. Impressive!
It's also fun to see the different modes of transportation used for the 400-500 miles across Iowa. I have seen unicycles, modified tandems holding 5 people, penny farthings, skateboards, ellipticals, roller blades, and pure runners. I will stick to my road bike...
Here we are in Tabor, filling our water bottles at one of the free water filling stations. Each town has its own set-up. Some being more efficient that others!
Yikes! While walking through the park in Tabor, my back tire had a loud blow-out! No apparent reason. Tom the gentleman, helped me pump up my flat tire. Good thing Jett packed 2 spare tubes in my bike bag as the stem was broken on the first tube I tried. 
Tom and I were lucky the flat happened at the meeting town. Every day there is one designated "meeting town" where we can meet up with cars/RVs of the non-riders. They also have bike technicians available in the meeting towns. Here's one of the bike tech stations. We used their bike pump to get our tires properly inflated. Tom's ride is his Surly. I am riding Jett's "Ole Blue." My Lightspeed had to stay home for repairs. I rode Ole Blue at RAGBRAI a few years back. It is a great bike, even though it's about 20 years old!
I did not capture any photos of the water slide I enjoyed in this town. Nor the game of chicken poop bingo that was a main attraction. Evidently you put your money on one of the squares. Every 40 minutes they let Rufus the chicken out. If he poops on your square, you win all the money! They assured us repeatedly that Rufus had been fed Taco Bell all week and was raring to go!
Another RAGBRAI favorite - the cycling team "Red Merkins." I had Tom go up and ask this fellow what a merkin was. He came back a bit red in the face. Look it up.
And here are some shots of our 1st overnight town, Shenandoah. It was charming. Tom loved these Iowan towns. We rated them each day and Shenandoah stood out among the nicest all the week long.
Once we found our host home, we immediately signed up for the shower rotation and set to pitching our tents. If we were lucky, we quickly got our showers and tents set up, then headed back into town for some dinner. Although there were some clouds in the sky, I decided I did not need to attach the rain fly on my tent. Later in town, while waiting in line for some food, big, fat, raindrops started to fall... Then they started to fall faster. I know how weather can turn on a dime in Iowa and I knew my tent was totally exposed to a potential downpour. I told Tom to go ahead and buy my pulled pork sandwich, then took off at a run back to the host home and my tent. Luckily it was only 3 blocks away, but running in flip-flops for 3 blocks after 50 miles on the bike was not fun at all. I was totally soaked through by the time I got to my tent. My air mattress was wet, but nothing else suffered much damage. All the Moore-Ons had gathered under the big porch and seemed amused at my wet-rat state. Dear Tom delivered my food directly to me in my tent. Here's a shot of my vantage point from my tent, waiting for the rain to subside.
Here's a shot of the host home, front and back. It was gorgeous! We had full access to 2 bathrooms (= 2 showers), the garage for our bike (= they stay out of the rain), and indoor electrical outlets for our phones and bike computers. Bliss!
Thus ends Day 1 of RAGBRAI. I was super lucky to have Tom to ride with, but to be honest, I missed my buddy Debbie something fierce. I also missed my Jettie. She does not care for RAGBRAI, which is why we decide the best thing for me to do is go without her. But still I miss her when I'm out cycling and she's not with me. That night I was feeling a little forlorn and lonely. I did not sleep very well even though the weather had cooled and was quite comfortable at night.
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