RAGBRAI day 7

Because we were not as close to the luggage truck, we slept later than we have a previous days. We woke up at 5:30 instead of 510. We made up for it, however, by moving a little bit faster. And we ate breakfast at the campground, instead of stopping at a roadside stand. 

The first town was pretty far through the ride, in fact it was about halfway. We are quite hungry by then. We stop at the carb hut and got rice vegetable tofu bowls and smoothies.  

That gave me some renewed energy. That particular town did a really good job with a very dangerous railroad track crossing. The tracks crossed the road at about a 60° angle and the gaps next to the rails were very deep and pretty wide. The town had collected volunteers to stand out next to the tracks at the bottom of a pretty decent hill and order people to stop and walk their bikes across the tracks. Considering that there was a very bad accident yesterday due to tracks, this was very wise. There was a second death on the ride today. Somebody went into cardiac arrest and did not recover. 

It was not as hot today, and it was overcast most of the day, giving us really very good riding weather. The bike traffic increased significantly. Many people choose to ride exclusively on the last day so they can ride into Muscatine into the arms of their families who might be a little cold. There were lots of people at the side of the road cheering us on and congratulating us. The baggage truck was not quite were RAGBRAI said it would be, but close. There were small shuttle vans to return you to the long term parking, and I predicted they would get 2 bikes inside in the aisle, but it turned out we had about 10 or 12 people and six bikes plus, I think, six large luggage bags in that little transit van.

We reunited with Patty at the car, and headed immediately home.