[/caption]As I went to bed Thursday night, I contemplated not riding on Friday, but I decided I would see how I felt in the morning. When I woke Friday morning, I was feeling a little better, so I decided to try to do the ride. The first stretch to Brooklyn was fairly good. Mel and I stopped there for breakfast. She went with pancakes. I, on the other hand, found a big fruit cup to eat. We only stopped in Brooklyn long enough to eat and for a potty break before leaving for Victor.
We did not stop for very long in Victor either. Today was going to be the longest day of the ride, at almost seventy-five miles, so we filled our water bottles and posed Petey P. Cup for some photos with tractors, and we continued on our way.
[caption id="attachment_150" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Petey P. Cup drives a John Deere tractor in Victor."]
[/caption]Once we got to Ladora, we stopped again for some food. I had a chicken wrap which seemed to sit well with me. For a really small town, Ladora appeared to have done a pretty good job setting up. Besides the chicken wrap, I had some awesome lemonade from the Boy Scouts.
We did not stop in Marengo, and continued on our way to West Amana. The sun was out by now and we were quite hot. Mel was starting to get worn out. I thought I could continue, so we kept going. Mel was going to stop once we got to West Amana, but there was nothing there worth stopping for, so we made out way to South Amana.
[caption id="attachment_151" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Among those set up in South Amana was Mr. Pork Chop."]
[/caption]In South Amana we both called it quits for the day. Mel was completely worn out. I probably could have kept going, but I did not think I was going to be able to complete the final eighteen-mile stretch of the ride, so I stopped as well. We waited for a few hours for the sag wagon, but never saw it. South Amana was a good place to stop though. We found some shade to wait in, and there were a sufficient number of food vendors set up. One amenity that was missing from South Amana though was kybos. Apparently one of the store owners in town had called to see about getting just four port-a-potties for RAGBRAI and was laughed at, presumably because none were available anywhere near by. There was one port-a-potty in the area though. It was at the edge of a corn field across the street from town. I am almost certain that it was there for use by detasselers, but the RAGBRAI riders were making use of it. Those detasselers will sure be in for a surprise when they return to work Monday morning.
While we were waiting for the sag wagon, Tara, another member of our team who had only ridden a couple of days earlier in the week, called to see if we wanted her to pick us up a coffee as she was driving to our camp in Coralville. After I told her that we were waiting for the sag wagon, Tara volunteered to come to South Amana to pick us up. Within half an hour she was there driving us to Coralville.
In Coralville we stayed at the house of one of my coworkers, Sandy. Because of this, Mel and I got to sleep in a real bed and in air conditioning. Sandy's husband cooked some wonderful food for us and for the other three teams that were sharing their yard. Also Mel's friend Penny came down from Cedar Rapids and took us to dinner in Iowa City. For once this week, I actually felt like eating. So after having a brat and some other food at Sandy's, I ate again at Carlos O'Kelley's. Our service was quite slow there, so it was close to 9:30 before we got back and were able to go to bed.
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