RAGBRAI Day 2 - Atlantic to Winterset

Long, tough day today. It was 73 miles, with lots of hills and headwinds at the start. There was a tailwind for the last 15 miles or so which helped, and it was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70s.

Here I am, in Winterset at last. Winterset is the hometown of John Wayne.

Our first snack of the day was some delicious watermelon, from these ladies selling watermelon by the side of the road.

That's all I ate until the meetup town, when it was turkey leg time!

Like I said, this was a long day with headwinds. Usually a pickle from the Medicine Man will get Max the last few miles, but today the pickle (and a pickle juice shot for me) only got us about five miles out, which luckily was where Beekmans was.

Beekman's ice cream is churned on site with vintage farm engines.

Max was really spent. He was complaining about how far away the spot I chose for the tent was. He carries one of the bags now. While I was setting up the tent, he was very monosyllabic. He walked down to put his phone on the charger and get a Gatorade. Then he sent up his camp chair and sat down it in for about a half hour while I set up camp. He was almost going to do Brancel's once-a-week dinner, which is always yummy turkey cutlets, which he hates, but I told him we could ride into town and have a spaghetti dinner at one of the churches. I figured this would perk him up. I also needed to go into town for the ATM (Max: All The Money), and to get a new water bottle holder because one of mine broke.

So we ride into town, looking for Max's preferred spaghetti dinner, the one with the most signs by the side of the road. There were about five different churches serving spaghetti dinners. Max was annoyed that his was the one furthest away.

Me: Well it probably won't be crowded then.
Max: Why does this town need so many churches?
Me: Church is all about loving your neighbors, so they don't get along and everybody has to have their own church.

Anyway, he was a very happy boy after spaghetti, which he thought was fantastic. (It was not.) Also, there was no pie for dessert, it was all cake and cookies. Back at camp he was all proud that the ride into town would make today a tie for the most miles in a day he has ever ridden, 77. "I feel pretty good now!" Wednesday is an 85 mile day. We are ready.

I really like our camp site. It is under this Kentucky Coffeetree, in a lovely city park. There was a Wood Peewee catching bugs from the branches all night. I think it was worth dragging the bags a bit farther.

Here is the Strava track.