Day 2 RAGBRAI Sunday

Well here we are, Katz and the Dogheads, the first day of riding. You can see all the empty grass in the background...well when we went to bed last night is was a tent city...tents as far as you could see. When we finally got on the road, the tents were all gone. We were pretty much the last bunch of 10,000 people to leave this morning!
Sean stayed behind to pack the van, we had WAY too much crap, and to drive it to the halfway town where we would meet up and I would drive the vanto the sleepover town. Naomi, Michelle and I started out with the girls at about 8:30am. We had a great ride, it was hot but we stopped in one town for breakfast burritos and water refills, and coffee. There were LOTS of big hills but it was fun to crank the bike down to "granny gear" climb the hill at the pace of a turtle and then go as fast as I could back down again, cooling off. If anyone ever says Iowa is flat...they are lying! It was a peaceful ride for me and I eventually got ahead of the girls and rode on my own (with 10,000 strangers). I did find Patty and Dave at Mr. Porkchop's stand and sat and chatted with them for a while.
We had a very good meet up Karma this trip. We always managed to find each other, in all the towns without much effort. When I pulled into the halfway town I pretty much ran right into Sean and the kids. Wierd. 10 minutes later Michell and gang showed up so we all got something to eat and drink and did the big switch. It took forever and we were boiling in the heat and sun but eventually they all took off and I drove to the sleepover town, found team RADPAN to camp by, cruised around town on my bike and waited for our team to get in. When the finally did we rode ove to the local pool, cooled off, showered (freezing) and found something to eat. Most of the vendors were done since it was so late (around 8:30pm)so we had to scrounge a little. I had my first of many pork burgers to come.....no losing weight on this trip! Back to the tents, by the time we got the kids ready for bed and ourselves...it was easy to pass out!

RAGBRAI Day 1 Saturday

RAGBRAI.....the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa....6 months ago I had never even heard about this thing...Sean's sister Michelle had just moved back from Alaska and she wanted to try to register for it. Her good friend Naomi had done it 15 years ago and she always wanted to try it....but it was a lottery, they only allow about 9000 people register so we weren't sure if we could even get in...so Sean and Michelle came up with a team name, Katz and the Dogheads (long story), we sent in our $ and waivers....sure enough they cashed our checks and we were in. Ugh! I kinda hoped we wouldn't get in...I don't really like bicycling.

The first day:
I am still thinking at this point that I must be totally crazy to try this. I've only ridden about 10 miles this summer and they reccomend that you get at least 500 miles in before attempting RAGBRAI. Well we packed up the van and started on our way on Saturday morning....there really wasn't even room to move in the van...we had way too much stuff! The kids starting fighting right away and the 8 hour ride to the Western edge of Iowa was pretty much miserable. The only peace we had was when the kids watched a movie. Gavin was pretty unhappy to be in his carseat for so long...and he let us know it!

We picked up Dave, my sister-in-law's brother about an hour and a half away from Seargent Bluff, the starting town, so he could leave his car with family. He was an experienced RAGBRAIer so we picked his brain while Gavin kicked him in the shoulder several times and screamed. We think Dave will be waiting to have baby #2 for quite some time! Good thing he is an easy going guy!

We got to town just before 5pm. I figured would spend most of my time in the van so I wanted to go to the driver safety meeting at 5 so I jumped out of the van to find it while everyone else found a place to camp. The expo area was bustling with hundreds of people. I felt so inexperienced and green! I found the meeting at the local high school theatre but I didn't learn much more than I had already learned online...but I was glad I went because I need to feel like I know what I 'm doing. I called Sean after the meeting and he told me where they were, near the city pool about a half mile away...so I went to the info tent, figured out the general direction and started walking. There were hundreds and hundreds of tents... as far as you could see. It was crazy how many people were invading this small Iowa town. But everyone seemed happy and excited...me, I was nervous, I still really didn't know what to expect.

I found everyone at the campsite. The kids were itching to go to the pool so we took them over to swim...it was 8pm before we realized we needed to eat. We didn't really know where to go or what to do and most of the food venders were packed up and gone. We hiked quite a distance (should have been on the bikes) and finally found a spaghetti dinner at the primary school given by the local high school football team. I was either really, really good or we were VERY hungry....but we scarfed it down and headed back to camp. We stopped at the fire station on the way. They had all the trucks out and the kids got to go sit in a few of them and got little plastic fire hats. Gavin was in heaven. We got back after dark and went right to bed. Thank goodness I had read about bring earplugs, the band in the beer garden was about a half a mile away but was very loud....popped those babies in and I slept like a log....just got a little cold in the night because we didn't put the rainfly up....

Floggin

Okay, okay, I know I've been floggin!! Trying to keep up here. We had a fun weekend up in 'da North' with 3 other families. Felt great to get on a jet ski again...been a few years. And the kids had so much fun riding with us on them! Gavin was terrified in the beginning but quickly learned to love it. The only bad thing that happened is that Gabby got Swimmer's Itch all over her tush....must have been all that sitting and digging in the sand on the beach with all the snails...yuck! At least she had fun and it doesn't seem to bother her.

We have been working our butts off getting ready to do this insane thing called RAGBRAI. AKA riding our bikes across Iowa in 100 degree humidity with 10 thousand other crazy people, camping in a different field every night, using portable toilets and showers for 7 days, eating porkchops in a paper towel, hauling the kids in the Burley and keeping them happy, did I mention RIDING OUR BIKES ACROSS IOWA, in JULY?? I am really in for some serious pain. I haven't really trained at all, haven't had time. Luckily dh is a bike riding machine so I can always just drive the support van and be a whimp. Just hope I don't get stuck in the van with all the kids!! We are going with my sis-in-law and her two girls too. We leave at the crack of dawn (ugh!) on Saturday...drive to the Western edge of Iowa and start this crazy journey! I guess all the towns we ride through welcome the riders with amazing hospitality....it's all about the people they say. Of course they make buckets of $ selling corn, pies, pancakes and other goodies.

I am excited to see the Reminisce store in IowaJulie talked about...maybe I can ditch the family and hang out there for a day....hmmmmmm. So anyway, we are bringing the laptop but I don't know how much I will be able to do online....I think I will have serious withdrawals by Wednesday! I will miss you guys! Wish me lots and lots and lots of luck. Hopefully I will come home in SHAPE again!! :)  

Lunch and Cardstock

What more could a girl need? :) 

More CGGT

 

We did it again!

Commando girls get together at Shannon's...another gracious hostess...and we were all drooling over her new scrap room. Sorry about those drool spots on your carpet Shannon!

I think we are all finally getting somewhere with our albums....Shannon and Nicole are practically done and Julie and I....well, we talked about photography too much. :) I just realized we forgot to take a picture of us actually scrapping! It was really fun, went way to fast, we had a great lunch and of course had to squeeze in a little trip to the LSS. Already I can't wait until the next one!