RAGBRAI XXIV: July 21 - 27, 1996
Sioux Center to Guttenberg, Iowa
437 miles

The bus is pulling out of the Noah's Ark Motor Inn where Kath and I offloaded my bike and parked the Avalon for the week. We had stopped at the Citgo to hit the ATM and I unknowingly managed to park _perfectly_ so that Kath's foot came out of the passenger seat right into a puddle of puke! Does this bode well? Kath's trip already had one omen when she filled up mom's car with gas last night, only to drive away without disconnecting the hose! Did you know those things are designed to pop the hose off the pump for just such a brain lock? Good thing!

There were tornado warnings in Jefferson County last night (mom's neck of the woods near St. Louis). Mom & I watched the weird cloud formations for a while and I thought briefly about bagging my bike seat but it was already raining and the lightening convinced me not to climb up on the top of a car parked under a tree. Today it poured down rain for half the bus ride so the seat stayed soaked.

Stewart - we stopped at Wyatt's for lunch (virtual Luby's!).

After lunch, back on the bus, "initiation" ensued, whereby Kath, the Bicycle Fun Club (aka "Big F Club") Entertainment Director, enticed newbies up to the microphone in the front of the bus to introduce themselves and respond to questions from the audience - questions such as "Where are you from?" "What kind of bike to you have?" "Boxers or briefs?" "What does KYBO stand for?" and "What's the 4-wheel drive capital of the world?" Bike stories were solicited so I related my only St. Louis biking experience whereby Kath fended off 9 dogs only to have me get bitten by a border collie that had been rescued floating by during the flood of '93.

The bus had TVs so we watched "Tom & Huck" in the morning and "Silence of the Lambs" in the afternoon (the latter at the request of the rowdies in the back). We pulled into Sioux Center about 5:30 Saturday night and, after setting up our tents amidst literally thousands of others, Kath & I set off to explore.

The vendors had set up several booths hawking lots of RAGBRAI t-shirts, cell phone service, cars, you name it. Kath picked up shorts, gloves, shirts and _really_ wanted lots of other stuff. I got a RAGBRAI shirt and head band but couldn't find a coolmax tank to meet D'Ann's specs. Then we went in search of food. It was a festival set-up, with food vendors lining the tent city, and the shortest lines had at least 20 people. I'm beginning to get the feel of RAGBRAI. But it's amazing how good a BBQ port sandwich sounds after waiting for 20 people. And it tasted great!

Kath & I set up our tents separately and I needed some help with the rental dome from REI. It's really roomy for a 2 person tent but I can't imagine doing this without help. Finally we crashed as the temps hit the lower 60's and I slept like a rock, after sneaking the soggy Nilla Wafers over to Kath's tent.