RAGBRAI Day 3 - Audubon to Waukee

Today I did not start the day at Mr. Pork Chop, because there was a good-sized town two miles farther along. That town was Guthrie Center. At 8:30 they had the beer garden going, which included liquor, and the guy on the PA was encouraging folks to have shots. Nobody who is going to drink shots on RAGBRAI would be awake at that hour, so he wasn't getting any takers.

Guthrie Center also had a fake Mr. Pork Chop bus! This is a mean pig bus, not a nice one like Mr. Pork Chop.



I got a black bean burrito and a smoothie from Garden of Eden, who are in one of those booths there.



I got to Waukee around 11:30. At Waukee, they are having a Wau-kee-kee Hula Party, so I got a lei on the way in from a cute teenage girl.

It was a pretty easy ride today, but I'm feeling a bit under the weather, so I was kind of plodding along. The wind was a crosswind, and only the first half was hilly. My head is stuffed up and I was feeling a little feverish. I bought some aspirin in Guthrie Center, but I haven't taken any yet.

We are set up next to the middle school. It's supposed to rain tonight, maybe I will be sheltered next to the building. That's also the flattest available space.



After I got a shower I went over to the very extensive vendor area. Waukee is a suburb of Des Moines, and they have abundant food and interesting vendor booths.



Here for example is an anti-war activist booth that have done amazing things to a Honda Element just like Debra's!



And most amazing is this local Iowa business who has invented stick-on flip-flops!



They really work!



I bought them from the girl above wearing a coconut bra. She also lei'd me. Now I don't just go and spend $10 on any ridiculous product pitched by a cute girl in a coconut bra. I asked her lots of questions first. She says they come right off, and they are guaranteed to stick back on for a whole year if you wash them off first.

I also asked her if I could wear them to work, or if I would get in trouble. She said "No problem! We wear them to work all the time!"

I am so damn cool.



So I'm hanging out inside the middle school next to the volunteers who are recharging cell phones (awesome idea!) while wearing my stick-on flip flops and enjoying the air conditioning and open wifi connection. My feet feel like they are stuck in fly paper. But it's worth it to be so cool.

Back in Audubon, I went back into town with Jim in the evening to eat more and hang out in the beer garden. In the middle of the beer garden was a nice statue of John James Audubon.



Being an admirer of John James Audubon, I quickly spotted many inaccuracies and anachonisms in this statue. None of them are as bad as making Babe Ruth with wrong handed glove, but still, the sculptor should know that Audubon himself did not paint the backgrounds in his paintings, he sketched them lightly and had an assistant finish them at his engraver's, so there should not be a completed background on the canvas while he works on the Ring-necked Duck. Also, Audubon shot most of the birds he painted there should be a dead duck nearby wired into a lifelike position.

Here is the route for today. Hard at the start, easy at the end. All morning there was lightning ahead of us, but we had no rain.