Journal entries are just that – the digital copy of my hand-written entries in my journal. If you aren’t interested in the daily details of our adventure, feel free to skip on to the next “regular” post.

Woke up to rain on the tent in the middle of the night. Checked on everything and back to sleep. Still raining, harder, when the alarm went off in the morning. By the time it finished, though, we were still in the tent packing. Got our bags on the truck about 6:10, hit the porta Johns and on the road about 6:30.

Didn’t feel like a long trip into to Newell, 11.2 miles down the road. Swung in for an omlette – perfect timing! We were just under the awning collecting our fillings and it started raining. Cooked our omlettes and headed in to the bar next door to sit and eat. Rain came down harder while eating. It slowed a bit as we finished so we headed out, with rain jackets on, in the drizzle.

On the way, while approaching the railroad tracks, we saw a lot of flashing lights and emergency responders. The tracks were at a 45 degree angle to the road and were quite slipery so they were having us walk across them. We heard about a few wrecks that had happened already, so that seemed prudent to us.

Fonda was only 8.6 miles down the road. I was still hungry so I grabbed a pork tenderloin sandwich. Ashley munched on a Cliff Bar. It had stopped raining by now, but we wanted to air dry our jackets a bit more.

Everyone gets out for the festivities

Not too far down the road we were warming up with the sun peeking out so we stopped on the road side and took off our mostly dry jackets.

19.6 miles later we rolled into the day’s meeting town, Manson, the crater impact site from a million years ago. Lunch time, so we scouted out some chicken sandwiches and Thelma’s home-made ice-cream sandwiches. They were delicious and quite filling! After filling our water bottles we headed on our way. Hard to believe we’re 40 miles in already!

Rolled in to Clare, 15.4 miles, and stopped to eat our granola bars and sit for a few minutes in the shade. Listened to the DJ give people a hard time. Poor Greg requested Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girl” and everyone heard about the type of women he likes. Filled our water bottles and headed on out. 

Straight on in to Fort Dodge, 13.6 miles away. We clocked about 73 total today, with 1,308 feet of climb. Everyone was so friendly, cheering us on in. We grabbed our bags and set up camp in the outfield of the highschool. Windy, which helped cool things down.

After resting for a bit we got showers in the school locker rooms and laid in the tent rainfly’s shade. Walked down the road and found a church serving lasagna supper. Met up with Scott from the charter ride in and the first night and ate together. Everything tasted home-made. Delicious! Lasagna, salad, garlic bread and dessert.

A table-mate has ridden 26 RAGBBRAIs! He said that it changed in the early 90s, became more commercialized. It used to be that everyone who lived on the route had food and drinks for sale, and all of the churches had fund-raisers, mostly pie sales. Now they can’t do that – it has to be approved by the Register. And water stations have to be tested and approved – which is nice but also annoying.

Finished eating and we walked down through the vendor area. Scott went in to the mall to find wifi to get some work done and Ashley and I headed back.
Phone seems to have data so we updated Facebook a bit about our trip. Kevin and Jackie came by and we happened to spot them. Chatted a bit before they moseyed along to set up their tent.

Thoroughly enjoyed relaxing in the shade with a breeze. Journaled and prepped for tomorrow’s ride before bed.