It was early to bed with a 5:00AM rise time and quick bite. Then I drove
the 35 miles to Lansing, IA where my adventure began. Needless to say,
the small town of only 1000 people couldn't really accommodate thousands of
cyclists, shuttle buses and cars descending on its limited streets. The traffic was horrible.
I'll post more on Lansing on the final day of the ride because it is
here that I end my adventure next Saturday and will do the ceremonial dipping of my front bike wheel in the Mississippi River on July 29th! Stay tuned.
I had reserved a week long parking spot from the City of Lansing for $50. First I had to drop off my bike and duffel bag at the Pork Belly Charters staging area in town. It was controlled chaos.
They loaded my bike onto one of 3 huge trucks, and then I went to park. It was a mud pit from the previous night's storms. 2 other lots had flooded, so the one where I parked was overcrowded.
A shuttle brought us the 2 miles back to the charter buses... more traffic... and I boarded a big motor coach, one of about 20 leaving in staggered intervals all morning for the shuttle ride across Iowa to the start town of Orange City on the western border ($165 shuttle fee). Our driver was Ron.
We departed Lansing 30 minutes late, at 9AM, and it took about 6 hours to reach Orange City with a stop for lunch in Blue Earth MN. Jolly Green Giant has a huge statue there and are big buyers of local farmers' corn! Back on the bus, a sat next to a nice guy from Chicago, John, 60, who was a first time RAGBRAIer like me and traveling with 4 guy friends.
In Orange City, population 6,000, I had to leave the charter group and find the official RAGBRAI campground, with my 2 huge duffel bags and bike in tow.. Pork Belly Ventures already had a band, beer tent, phone charging stations, showers and tents waiting for their charter guests. Meanwhile, I waited about 45 minutes for my bike to be unloaded, then Northwestern College ran shuttles to transport us, our bikes and bags to the RAGBRAI campground for those of us not camping with thei charter company. It was a long wait, and the town was chaotic and crawling with cyclists! I eventually found a spot to set up my tent among a sea of others, but right next to the baggage trucks, as I had hoped. Nice grassy knoll... after a week in the 90s and rain, we lucked out and had nice weather for camping and biking!
No lugging anything in the morning! After setting my tent up fairly easily and securing my stuff inside, I biked 1/2 mile into town to get oriented and find the all important things. I picked up my commemorative Ragbrai patch, registered with the official photographer and got an identifying number for my bike, I also visited Moudstra's Meat Shop Wow....dried meats and cheeses of every kind.. and samples!
There was a huge bike expo in town with anything and everything cycling related. I also did the customary dipping of my rear bike tire in the canal at Windmill Park, sadly while still wearing my sweaty travel clothes. .The town trucked in Missouri River water and filled the canals this week! How cool...
Since I showered at the hotel this morning, I'm just going to skip that tonight and deal with that in the AM so I can start off refreshed and with a damp, cool head! Tomorrow is the big day and I hope to get an early start after my first night of camping. the college has wonderful facilities for bathrooms and showers steps from my tent! Free coffee 8n the a.m. too.. My tired, old bones are dreading this, but I can do ANYthing for 7 days, right? Right now, it's just one day at a time. ;) I'm thoroughly exhausted and I haven't even started the ride yet!
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