RAGBRAI Day 6

Oskaloosa to Fairfield
52.0 Miles 1,222 Feet of Climb

GLORIOUS!! Really, it was a glorious day. We stayed in a driveway feet from the days route, we had a house to clean up in, I took a BATH!! with Epsom salts, Aaron trucked our locker room infested smelling clothes to the laundromat and we all slept really well.  The camper almost packed itself because we were getting very used to the morning routine. Anna, Jessica's daughter, was there and helped get things stashed, stowed, folded, bundled and squashed.

RAGRBAI route, yep, this is fo reals!! It went right past the front yard we stayed in. 

GLORIOUS!

Meet Anna. What happens on the phone doesn't always stay on the phone!! PURPLE!!

                                   Ready for day 6                                                     

The usual morning starts with checking tire pressure, filling water bottles, packing snacks, checking the route, eating a snack and discussing our stop for breakfast. It was at this point I think we all realized we had 2 days ride left. It felt so normal to drag our weary bodies out of a camper, change, pack, etc, and get ready for the day. It was a strange thought for me to know this would soon end. YES!! This would SOON END!!

And this was a glorious day, it really was. The weather again was amazing, the route was straight and FLAT, people had their music on as we loaded, they were waiving at the village people (haha) as they continued on down the road. Heck, at some point along the route, Aaron and Jessica were singing a song. I was somehow left out...


Anyway, we traveled to Cedar and Fremont stopping along the way for Farm Boy's Breakfast. We hadn't had a chance to talk to the girls the night before so we called while we were eating. Nana said they had some sad news to report and I thought, uh oh, what's up... There was dread in my heart as Sophie got on the phone and said that Sky (their parakeet) died and Nana found her this morning at the bottom of her cage. She was sobbing giant elephant tears and it broke us all. We didn't really care about the bird, we were so sad for the girls. I was in tears, Jessica was in tears and Aaron was very near to tears. It was a super sad day for us all. We asked to talk to Sarah but she was too sad to talk to us and would talk later.  OH MY GOODNESS!! Our hearts broke. Nana was amazing! They found a box and spent the entire day decorating it with pictures, pretty wrapping paper, lined the inside with rose pedals, and put so much work into it. It was a beautiful work of art and it seemed to help them feel better.

The remainder of the day was great in spite the death in the family. We would talk about them and to them a couple of times that day and they seemed to be handling well. Sophie wanted to play "Sorry" because that's how she felt.  Man, BROKE MY HEART!!

The ride took us through Hedrick, Martinsburg and Packwood before ending in Fairfield. We had a mostly Easterly ride with a few miles heading south so we had a tail wind most of the day. When we got into Fairfield, we missed the turn to meet up with Dennis, Mary and Anna, but we course corrected once things seemed off and found the camper and the family. One of the funniest things of the day was riding up to our camper and noticing that 2 doors away were a group of guys that we'd camped next to on the first night of the RAGBRAI. It was fun to sit and chat with them and catch up on their experiences. They were older gentlemen with one guy that was 22 years old. I hate to say this, but I swallowed my pride as I realized their speed was much faster than ours had been. "We were having fun stopping along the way", we said. LIE!! Aaron could have easily kept up with them I'm sure, but for Jessica and I, we were happy to "stop along the way..."

The beauty of taking your own car is knowing that if we wanted to get into town, we could load up in the cars and drive into town. The lines for the shuttle were long and they town didn't know how to deal with the huge influx of people, so we loaded up and headed in ourselves.  Dinner was at the same vendors we'd seen most of the week so it was not the usual excitement of catching a bite to eat that it once way. Regardless, we found some food and wandered around. Apparently the Guinness Book of World Records was at hand to witness the "Most People Wearing Fake Mustaches in one Location." Did they get the prize? I don't know...We didn't feel much like asking the details or pasting a sticker on our clean (er) faces, so we wandered some more then headed back to the camper for our last night on the road!!