Here’s the low-down on Day 2 of my RAGBRAI week. If you missed Day 1, you can read about it here. If the rain all morning on Sunday was the price we had to pay for the beautiful day we had on Monday and the rest of the week, then it was totally worth it. We got an earlier start on Day 2, which was good since we had 68.1 miles to complete with 2,044 feet of climb.
After riding for about 13.5 miles, we stopped in Anita for breakfast. It was SUPER crowded there!
I had a coffee, a banana, and my first piece of RAGBRAI pie of the week! I bought it at a booth that was fundraising for their speech and debate team. It was apple caramel pie and was delicious!
Anita’s theme was “A Whale of a Town” and they had a few photo ops supporting that theme.
The same booth that had the photo op above had little kids applying tattoos and accepting donations to help purchase new playground equipment. I couldn’t help but get a tattoo and make a donation.
After Anita, we rode another 8 miles to the town of Adair. I snapped this picture of Lynn just before riding into town.
In Adair they were doing fundraising for a new fire station and a new community center. We stopped by the fire station and shared a plate of pancakes and sausage.
After getting fortified at the fire station, we rode another 8 miles to the town of Casey.
They had a few farm animals there to admire, pet, and learn about. There were two cows named Rose and Bud. Here Lynn is petting Rose.
Our next stop was about 5 miles down the road in Stuart, Monday’s meeting town. We had lunch there. It was crazy crowded, but fun. I didn’t get any pictures there. Next we stopped in Earlham, about 10 miles later. There I had my second piece of pie for the day at a local church. It was a yummy berry pie. We had a long stretch of almost 18 miles ahead of us before getting to the overnight town, so I also grabbed a chili dog snack from the Lion’s Club booth in the city park before getting back on the road.
We didn’t actually ride the daily routes together, because Lynn is a much faster rider than I am. So she would usually be waiting at the beginning of each pass-through town for me to arrive. I guess that’s what she was doing when she snapped this picture of me finally rolling in. Not sure at which town this was taken.
We arrived in Winterset (the overnight town) around 6:20, where we were met by Mike. The course officially closes each day at 6:00. They had a welcoming finish archway for the cyclists to enter the town through, and Lynn had just asked Mike to take our picture under it, when sadly the crew working the finish line deflated the archway. So no picture. (sigh)
We made our way to the motor home, and then went on to a local church where they were having an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner. It was a delicious meal topped off by my THIRD piece of pie for the day…a mouth-watering piece of peach pie.
Lynn had two nieces who met us at the campsite that night and set up a tent alongside the motor home. They were going to spend the night and ride with us the next day. Thankfully their husband Pete drove us to the showers before he headed back home, because they were quite a ways away from where we were camped. We had to walk back afterwards, but we were glad that we had been able to ride with him to get there. So if you’re reading this, Pete…THANK YOU!
After that we were too tired to participate in any of the evening activities in town, so it was shut-eye time for us!