The last day

There is a vortex of time that is also called RAGBRAI. On Tuesday it seemed that the end was so far away but now on the last day it seems like it went too fast and whatever day it was you couldn't figure it out unless you looked at the daily map.

Saturday was an interesting day. We began in Edgewood instead of the regular overnight town, Independence. This happened because of a housing choice to be made. There were no houses with the team's specifications in Independence and there was a team family friend in Edgewood and we were glad we did. The house is on over 200 acres of wooded land and had a gigantic yard for my tent with plenty of room inside who are not as insane as I am and sleep indoors when presented with that choice. But the most important perk was that were almost at the end of the ride. This house was right on the route but almost 50 miles ahead of the other 9975 other riders so we had only about 25 miles to ride. This was great for the obvious reason, its the last day and my ass is sore, as well as an important reason, being very hilly towards the Mississippi so the huge hills were nicer (almost enjoyable) not having to ride 45 before tackling them but most importantly, it gave us a huge jump on the mass exodus out of Gutenberg with our choice of all the services. We found a great bar to decompress while we waited for the bus and had food, drinks and listened to music (I still back you on yhe Katy Perry Art!) until our 1 pm departure that was still far ahead of most of the other riders.

As I write this on the bus, which is way less raucous than the ride at the start, I am reflecting back on the week with a huge a smile on my face remembering the great time I just had with Team Cuisine and how wonderful it has been in Iowa. I will have a few more posts about this week as I remember more but for now I need to sleep and begin to adjust to life outside of the RAGBRAI time vortex.