Yesterday we drove from West Lafayette, Indiana to Ottumwa, Iowa, where we met up with Spoke Folk, the Ottumwa cycling club we joined. For a very reasonable fee Spoke Folk rents a Ryder truck and hires a driver who schleps our gear from overnight town to overnight town. And Spoke Folk also arranges transport for us from Ottumwa to the starting town and from the finish town back to Ottumwa. Without Spoke Folk, I’m not sure I’d even consider doing RAGBRAI!
Our camping post is on the grounds of the Cedar Bluffs railroad museum. We have our tents set up between train cars, and the museum is nice enough to keep their doors open all night so we can use the bathrooms. If it rains we can climb inside one of the display trains!
DH and rode our bikes down to tthe RAGBRAI expo. Blah. The ride was hot, dusty, nerve racking. The streets were kind of potholey, and we didn’t know exactly where we were going. Getting on a bike path made things lots better, and we figured out where to go. The expo was big and noisy and frenetic, and we left quickly, but not before I bought some bacon jerky, and some performance drink powder that has caffeine in it.
I had spotted a taco joint to try that was on the route back to the train museum. We went in, and several folks from our group were in there already. So, we sat with them and ate Mexican food and chilled out after the edgy trek to the Expo. Now we’re back at camp, ready to wind down for the evening, and rest up for the big day.
Tomorrow: I’ll report on the rain that everybody keeps talking about. Will it show?
