Day Five - Mason City to Charles City

Today is the shortest ride, 47.9 miles. Stopped at a coffee shop for breakfast. The staff was a bit overwhelmed with all the people who stopped in before the trek of the day!

Cool socks!

The funny thing about the ride is that even though it would take a certain amount of hours to ride, it always took a lot longer for us - there were breaks that needed to happen, just to NOT sit on the bike for a while. And whenever we’d stop in a town to get food or a fruit smoothie, people who lived there would just come up and say hi. They were so friendly. We’d talk for at least a half hour! In Rockford we met Briggs. He was a retired auto mechanic and is now going to teach kids about fixing cars. He told us about his neighbor JT who was killed when his transport helicopter got shot down. It was on the news - JT’s dog Hawkeye laid down by the casket and stayed there.

Also outside of Rockford was a fossil preserve! We talked with Erin who told us all about the area.

During the Devonian age, the area was a beach and parts of it were under water. She showed us where we could find fossils! We found lots of tiny fossilized shells and marine invertebrates.

Aside from the many times we heard “she’s not pedaling” we heard some new ones: a lady sitting in a chair watching us go by…“Is she keeping up?”  (So funny!) and, “God I wish I was on the back of that thing” another struggling rider said going up a hill.  

The hills were intense. And so was the sun. In fact they had sag wagons which traveled the route to pick up anyone who said enough is enough. We called it the sad wagon. Felt so bad when anyone had to stop riding after looking forward to the event.  They were taken to the next overnight camp. We hoped they’d try again the next day. 

Charles City was filled with bicycles, people and long lines for food vendors - we decided to get subs and carried the food to camp on our handle bars. And called it a night. 

Day Four - Emmetsburg to Mason City

Here we go - 105 miles! (I must be out of my mind! Lol)

                       One bunny!

They don’t have much food at the campsite so we stopped along the road - pancakes for Greg and you guessed it, pie for me!

Had “breakfast” inside the warehouse and watched bicyclists go by!

Uh oh the bridge is out from flooding! But it wasn’t too bad- just had to dismount and walk a bit, thank goodness!

It was such a long day I started to fade. Greg bought this, grape powerade - so good! It helped wake me up a little!

There’s no other way to describe it - today was a brutal day. It took us all day to get to the destination. 

Above pic is from Ragbrai facebook.

Unfortunately our camp was at the farthest point in town so it was extra miles. We missed the deadline for dinner 🤷🏻‍♀️ so we ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut and had it delivered to the elementary school we were camping in. 

                            G’nite!

Day Three - Pocahontas to Emmetsburg

Here we go again! Days are starting to blur! What day is it? Tuesday? Wednesday? Where are we? 

Before ride saw this shirt and he obliged in letting me take a pic…mm maybe someone will be selling chocolate chip cookies today!

As we were heading out, remembered we’re in Pocahontas and Greg said there’s a statue somewhere and there was! Once around the river bend! 😉

One of the towns we rode through had a small petting zoo. 

And you’re right Tim, the pig squealed!

This group was great. As they road through town they played Christmas music!

In West Bend was this amazing unusual structure called the Shrine of the Grotto of Redemption.

The story of how the Grotto came into being: a young seminarian, Father Dobberstein became critically ill with pneumonia. As he fought for his life he prayed for the grace of health. He promised to build a shrine if he lived. The illness passed, the student completed his studies and after his ordination, he came to West Bend as Pastor in 1898. For over a decade he was stockpiling rocks and precious stones. The actual work of giving permanence to his promise began to take shape in 1912. The designed purpose of the Grotto is to tell in silent stone, the story of man’s fall and his redemption by Christ, the savior of the world.

And then we had delicious pie (I had rhubarb & Greg had apple crumb) with vanilla ice cream! Yum!

Another fun shirt!  Another day done!  56.4 miles!