The final day

With this year's final town being so small we knew Team Cuisine would face many challenges getting us back to reality so we, Lynn, got creative. We cut the route short just outside of Waterville and headed south, off route, to Marquette Iowa to meet with the bus and truck. The route itself was nice and hilly again, which always happens when you get to the Mississippi River valley, but it was a gorgeous day. Once we got to our turn off to go off the official route we were no longer protected by ragbrai but the road was nice and traffic was light since everyone else was at the official finish town, which later we heard was an hour plus traffic jam going in. Once we all met at the truck and loaded our bikes it was a "quick" bite to eat. All 20 of us left on the bus rolled into a small diner and overwhelmed the poor staff. Once breakfast was over it was time to load onto the bus for the much quieter ride home. I'm not sure we crossed the Mississippi before most of us were sleeping.

With the 4 hour trip behind us we rolled into Red's house, the Irish Inn, and unloaded the truck and just like that it was over for another year, well other than the DC Roundtable where we sit and tell stories with the DC crew that would be spending the night at the Inn and that is one of my favorite parts of the week.

Another year done and I'm already missing my Team Cuisine family.