Yowza! Was it hot last night when Stephanie dropped me off in Davenport. The real temperature was in the 90s, but the heat index even at 9 or 10 PM was still in the 100s. Luckily, or maybe not, a storm blew through and cooled things off by at least 20 degrees. Not before I spent a miserable couple of hours dripping sweat in my personal oven, I mean tent. To top off that misery though, the campground was on Credit Island and we sat about 3 feet above the river level. So it was super humid....and very still (aka no breeze)...and the mosquitos were thick. They ate me alive while I was setting up my personal oven...I mean tent.
It was a bit of a frustrating evening. Stephanie missed a turn on the way out of the Quad Cities and we spent a few frustrated minutes on the phone trying to figure out where she was and how to get back to 67. She finally got there ok and made it home safe, if later than planned.
The drop off point for the bike was up at St. Ambrose University....then we couldn't find Credit Island....which is at least 5 miles from St. Ambrose where I was to meet the bus in the morning. So I had to take the shuttle back up the hill with all my gear. Usually you just load your bike, throw the tent up in a nearby grassy area, wake up in the morning and load the gear on the truck, and hop on the bus. It was a little more difficult this year.
The police did a good job of warning everyone about the approaching storm. Most everybody at the campground packed up their gear and drove to some indoor soccer stadium over by Centennial Bridge. The rest of us schmoes without transportation had to hang out at a club house there at the island, which wasn't so bad since it was air conditioned. I thought long and hard about just riding it out in the tent, but me and another guy were reminiscing about the "Storm of '05" and that kind of clinched it. We headed for the shelter shortly before the storm hit.
Apparantly that storm that we rode out in our tents back in 2005....is legendary on RAGBRAI now. I wore my T-Shirt from that year today and had lots of comments from people who said stuff like...."remember that storm we had in Sheldon that year?".
Anyway....got up this morning after only about 4 hours of fitful sleep, packed up, got a breakfast pizza and free cinnamon roll... they thought my pizza slice looked too small....and I think they had lots extra since so many had packed up to go to the other shelter location during the storm...thanks QC RAGBRAI staff!! Got to the bus pickup location and got loaded fine. Around 8AM we headed out and immediately our bus died. Driver started it back up....climbed up to the stoplight...and it died again. Started it again....turned right and....died again....and again....and again... Ended up they had to call up a new bus from Burlington because ours had at least one bad fuel injector. So after a 2.5 hour delay we FINALLY got underway headed for Glenwood.
Pretty uneventful trip over....but I wasn't looking forward to the predicted 100 REAL degree temperatures here in Glenwood. Thank the Lord however, it stayed mostly overcast all day, all the way to Glenwood. It was still hot and humid, but not what it would have been had the sun been out all day long beating down on us. Of course soon after we arrived the storm sirens went off and you could see a big ominous cloud heading our direction. I don't think there were any tornados, just a severe thunderstorm warning. Towns must have learned a lesson from the 2005 storm in Sheldon and are reluctant to take any chances....so they blew the sirens and had everybody head into the nearby high school. Didn't amount to much but definately got much cooler after the storm. It actually might be comfortable sleeping tonight which would be AWESOME!!! :)
I got all my riding gear put together and should be all set. RAGBRAI officially starts in the morning!!
Should have some pictures starting tomorrow too.
Matt
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