It's Over Already?

I FINISHED IT!! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

This was incredible. Today was so much fun! I think I had a blood transfusion. Someone stole into my tent last night and transfused all of my blood for pure adrenaline.

A large number of people got up at the campground early today. I think everyone wanted to get it done. So therefore there were a lot of bikers out even when I left just before 6 o'clock. And it seemed that the pace of everyone's riding today was just a little bit faster. It's like we could all smell the Mississippi River (which actually sometimes stinks!), and we were straining to get there.

I stopped for breakfast at this Mama Ralphael's, which is a traveling breakfast buffet vendor. It is really good. But I heard two guys commenting on the riders going by. One of them said something about not having to save their energy for tomorrow. Well, that flipped a switch in my brain. I rode hard today. I was scaling hills in 6th gear, and even used my large sprocket a couple of times on downhills, one time getting up to 35 mph. I snagged a couple of pacelines, but there weren't many of those today. It was every man, woman and child for themselves. It was fabulous!

We rounded a turn with about 3 miles to go, and I saw the Le Claire water tower. Right there, as I was riding along, I kind of lost it. I've told someone that this ride was kind of like reconnecting with my 16 year old self, the age I was when I first dreamed of doing Ragbrai. A great deal of "life" has happened to me since then, good and bad, that I feel that I am nothing like I was at 16. And there are so many things along the way that made me lose connections to the my childhood. To fulfill this dream now at 43 kind of connects a cord from the teenage Craig to the middle aged Craig. So it was an emotional moment (and a good moment) for me to be finishing this ride.

There was a giant downhill down to the riverfront. But you had to lay on your brakes because they had you stop at the bottom. It was actually a little chaotic at the end. But I made to the "dip point," and put my front tire in the Mississippi River. I had someone take my picture. I'll have to get more pictures up on my facebook. I mistakenly plunged my left foot into the water, too. So my tire and my foot were baptized in the Ragbrai-ending waters.

It was pandemonium at the riverfront as more and more riders streamed in. I found my family and we managed, with the help of a golf cart, to get me, my bike and my 60 pound bag back to the van. Now I'm typing from my Mom's computer. She lives in Muscatine, Iowa, where I grew up. We'll leave here tomorrow for home again.

It has been a fantastic, unforgettable, incredible and many other superlative adjectives I can't come up with right now, ride!! I'll remember this for a very long time, and I don't think this will be the last time I do either Ragbrai or other rides, as long as God gives me strength.