Team Tandemonium Travelog #1

In the words of Dr. Suess, "Oh the places you'll go and the things you'll see!"

RAGBRAI day 1 started off early from the Hodapp household in Omaha.  Steve and Mary were so gracious in allowing us to spend Saturday night with them so we could rest up in comfort before heading to the starting point in Glenwood, Iowa. Austin and Carter were quite excited for their first official RAGBRAI experience. If you've never personally experienced this crazy bike ride across the state of Iowa before, it's a sight to behold.  Since RAGBRAI had gone through Ames a few years back, the boys had a little bit of an idea of the crazy people they would see, but truly had no idea of the full flavor of RAGBRAI.  

We had to have a diplomatic way to choose which child would ride the tandem with Ace first.  After many unsatisfactory attempts at rock, paper, scissors, we decided to draw numbers from a bowl.  Carter drew  #1 and took the first leg of the journey, which required the ceremonial dipping of the back tire in the river.  Since Glenwood doesn't actually sit along the river and so much flooding has taken place in and around the area, the dipping station consisted of a kiddie pool with river water!

Aren't they cute in their matching UNI RABGRAI jerseys :)  The plan was to send them off on their merry way, and Austin and I would meet up with them at the halfway point, which was Carson.  They made it fairly easily to their first town, Silver City, and partook in Chris' Cakes for breakfast.  It's one of the "must have" experiences of RAGBRAI.

They also found a cool sign along the way for Austin :)  

While Ace and Cart were peddling their little legs off in the heat and humidity, Austin and I were navigating the back roads to our meeting point in Carson.  I'm not necessarily known for my navigational abilities, so the fact that we drove flawlessly there was quite impressive!

I promise it was just a quick picture while driving!  No one was hurt in the taking of this photo - except maybe your eyes.  Once in Carson, we found a nice shady spot to hang out in our lawn chairs and people watch.  The time definitely passed quickly with all the interesting folks we saw!  The most interesting by far was the crazy hillbilly with his hillbilly mobile that was parked next to us.

He was entertaining people with his hillbilly mobile all day long.  It had little areas you would touch and water would quirt at you, interesting pearls of wisdom were painted all around, and the guy had a stuffed skunk on roller skates that sat beside him while he told some colorful jokes!  

Austin was eagerly awaiting his turn on the bike.  He kept waiting and watching with his eagle eyes for Aaron and Carter to roll into town.

Unfortunately for this eager little guy, it took Ace and Cart five hours to trek across 30 miles of steep and rolling hills that never seemed to end.  Once they rolled into town, I could tell that Aaron had met his match with this leg of RAGBRAI, and it seemed to have gotten the best of him.  He was bound and determined that he was going to ride every single mile of this adventure, but  I am so proud of him for making the wise decision to call it a day on the bike at this point in time.  Austin and I had watched multiple ambulance trips with people struggling with the heat and other ailments, and it was clear that Aaron was in no shape to continue.  Austin wasn't real pleased, but he understood and knew that he gets to be the rider first thing tomorrow. I think you can tell by the look on Aaron's face that he was spent!

We loaded up the van and made our way to Atlantic and were so very grateful for the hospitality of the Alexander family.  It's amazing what an air conditioned placed with access to a shower will do for a person after a long day in the heat!  It's almost time to hunker down for the night so we can start the craziness all over again early in the morning.