Day 5 RAGBRAI

Cedar Falls to Dunkerton,
35 miles.

Off again after a night of breathing RV generator fumes. EW. Most of the time the RVs will turn their generators off at night, a little courtsey for the 10,000 or so people in tents...not tonight. The noise doesn't bother me, in fact some people like the "white noise" of the generators humming...plus I had my handy dandy earplugs. It was just the fumes. We must have been in the direct line of one of them...I woke up kind of nauseated...but off we went. We tried to be really quiet and not wake up Gran and Gramps...and we forgot to have anything to eat, we usually grab something to start the ride, especially for the kids. Well, about 3 miles out of town Gavin started complaining about his stomach...poor guy was nauseated from an empty tummy! So he had to stop on the side of the road to try to throw-up. Nice. We had him eat a little Power Bar and Gatorade...luckily he made it to the first big pancake breakfast spot about 10 miles out.

Delicious pancakes, sausage, coffee and juice. Hits the spot. The pancake guy would let the kids try to catch a flipped pancake on a plate... that would have been fun except Gavin had a meltdow when his kept sliding onto the floor. Geeze! This is not turning out to be Gavin's best day! I was really able to keep a calm and open, even happy mood. There was a guy having breakfast here who really put it all into perspective. His buddies carried him from his modified bike to a chair and then got him his pancakes and juice. He was sitting there all happy, joking around, clearly so hapy to be there working his ARMs off in the sweltering Iowa heat. His had no use of his legs. He was doing RAGBRAI on a bike that he pedaled with his ARMS. Amazing, inspiring, wonderful. Seeing this guy, and people like him is, for me, what RAGBRAI is all about....the strong and wonderful Human spirit. Really, really cool.