Ragbrai! Day 3 - July 24, 1995

Miles- 70 - Terrain- Flat

Today's adventures really began last night as a nasty storm rolled in from the northwest. While eating great Iowa pork at the high school, it got dark and windy. We would find out later that many tents were acting like tumbleweed at various camps around town. The high school Agriculture teacher let us watch his weather video terminal as the data was updated every 15 minutes. We watched as the "red" part of the storm skirted just south of us. We were treated to a pretty good lightning show. Cool weather made for a nice evening. Seventy miles Monday. Flat to gently rolling hills with a good tail wind most of the day made for easy cycling. The people of Iowa are wonderful. There are food and beverage stands everywhere. Imagine, getting your hot little hands on a Dove bar in the middle of a thousand acres of corn. That's RAGBRAI! All the towns really cater to RAGBRAI. Yesterday, Wall Lake dumped a skillion tons of sand on a main street so we could play beach volley ball. Two courts! The hospitality of the folks is wonderful. Last night Dave walked across the street from the campsite to a medical clinic to ask if we could use some electricity and a phone line. Bryan, the pharmicist, let us use his office so we could upload. Dave had a really excellent jet ski adventure`p in Twin Lakes. Five bucks for five minutes was too much for him to resist. Bike shoes were left on the dock and Dave was off for five minutes of cool pleasure. Here are your hosts, Bruce Eilers, George Pitlik, Dave Plummer, and Norm Running at the lake. Tomorrow, we will check with the local Avis folks to see what they have available! Here's a picture of the "dummy" who rode too fast downhill. That's it from the RAGBRAI today. From George Pitlik typing on a laptop in the shade of a Ryder rent truck in Fort Dodge, Iowa.