RAGBRAI the finally

Here we are waiting for the bus to pick us up and take up back to Davenport.

After leaving the gang I headed to IA City to see A. Marg and U. Mark. It was great to catch up with them, eat some salad, take a real shower, do laundry, and sleep in a bed. Thanks A. Marg and U. Mark!!! Then it was off to Lenox to visit Gram. It was a short visit but a good one. She's as fiesty as ever. I hope I'm as sassy when I'm pushing 94.

RAGBRAI - part 3

These win the cycling tan of the week award for sure!
We had to get our pictures taken with Vong. He had an incident that will surely do down in Team Shortbus history. I won't get into details, but it involved too much consumption and a trip to the hospital. He made the paper so we had to get our picture taken with him.
Last night of drinking Miller lite. augh, sweat goodness.

Couldn't get to the river to dip my tire in the Mississippi, but this is close enough. Over 500 miles this week and I left wanting more. What a fun vacation!

RAGBRAI part 2

Most people think that IA is flat. In fact, is it not. It is a series of power rollers, which I loved.
We had some adverse weather one day, but we donned the rubber jackets and rolled to breakfast. It turned out to be a biscuit and gravy day - have to keep the blood thick to stay warm :) Nicole and Kristine posed for me in a corn field pee break.
All the cold weather made us thirtsy! Team Cockroach was sponsored by Corona so we stopped along the way to suppoort their cause. Along with free beer, we got free hats. Nice!
We made the mistake of skipping lunch after our monster breakfast, but luckily there was a monster size package of Goldfish to snack on.
There were several beer slides set up along the route. This one happened to be very close to camp so we pulled off to check it out. Nicole is demontrating proper team slip and slide technique.

RAGBRAI - part 1 Missiouri River

I just spent the past 10 days in IA hanging out on the bike. It was an incredible time. Lauren and I rode out to the Missiouri River to dip our wheels since this is a new thing for us.
There was a lot of entertainment along the way. Elvis was at one of the stops on day one. This guy had placed 5th in some contest for his impersonation. Let me tell ya, this guy was good! I am still on the hunt for the pre bloated from being pilled out Elvis, but this guy brought back some fun road trip memories so I had to break out the Elvis t-shirt that night.
I have never riden with so many people! I realized last night that I was not alone for one moment the entire 10 days. I can't believe I didn't go postal. Anyway, this kind of shows what 10K people looks like. It was like this at all times of the day too. That was the crazy part.
We took over these tiny towns like a swarm of locust. The people were all so friendly and accomidating though. There was water for us, food (LOTS of food! I gained 4 lbs this week eating pork products and home made baked goods), entertainment, etc. The people watching was the best.
Here we are at one of our many lunch breaks. We rode with Glenn and Virgil quite a bit at the beginning of the week. They are great guys that are part of the same cycling club that we all traveled with over the week.

RAGBRAI

This has been the best week on the bike! Nicole, Lauren, Kristine and I all met out in IA for 7 days of riding, eating and drinking. It was a great time and I can't wait to come back and ride it again next year.  I have a lot of photos from the week that I'll post when I get back to OR. Now I am visiting A. Marg. and U. Mark. Off to see Gram in the am. 

Cascade Classic

I went up to Bend this weekend to cheer on Sharon the Hammer and the Value Act Team. It was fun to a fun race to watch and the scenery was beautiful. Duc spotted the priemo viewing spot so we camped out there for a few laps.

We saw Kristen Armstrong stand up and ride away from the field on the first lap. Her she goes. Notive that everyone else is standing up and she's just rolling away. Very impressive.

Happy 4th of July

It was a fun 4th of July. We kicked it off on Thursday night with an "American stereotype" party. There were quite a few cowboys, a few dead heads and some white trash types. Pete was David Hasselhoff. That was just down right scarey! I was the stereotypical 50's housewife. I passed out literature with instructions on how to be a good housewife. We all had a good laugh about that one.
Yesterday was the parade. It was an interesting mix of the all American parade with some old cars, random floats for the high school kids, and the school bands. There were a few political floats and the random freak. It was a fun community event. I did think it was interesting that the junior high band wore tie died shirts an their uniform. We had to wear those polyester band dork uniforms and swear our butts off. Times are a changin...


Last night was the fireworks. It was a nice show and a good way to finish off the day. Now I have the entire weekend to do my normal weekend fun stuff. What a deal.