On the second day of OOBRAI (John started calling it that for: Our Own Bike Ride Around Iowa), our friend Burne met us in Burlington.
We had about 90 miles to go on Tuesday and it was a beautiful start. We rode past Lake Geode.
Up some decent sized hills on roads that cut through gorgeous bluffs.
It was a day where we crossed many bridges when we came to them...
We stopped our bikes at this little gas station/store and they had little plastic cups filled some of the best home baked mini chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. It was also a good thing we were burning so many calories that I didn't even think about washing them down with chocolate milk.
As always, there was much checking maps of the route.
And incredible clouds hanging over bucolic scenery.
the people we met were so nice too. this guy helped us back on our way, after we missed a turn and was able to tell us what the roads were like and how busy and that they were paved. Whew!
Sixty'ish miles later, we were in Fairfield.
The great thing about Fairfield, is that they have the Maharishi University there, which means there is amazing, organic, veggie East Indian food to be had. In other words, Our lunch was amazing.
As we left Fairfield,we found this cool but rugged bike trail out of town. part of it was closer to single track, and there were a few cool looking bridges we got to ride over as well.
We left the trail and headed out on beautiful paved roads...That disappeared into gravel...
And then turned into this beautiful, narrow, dirt road. If it had rained, it would be unrideable, but as it was, it was perfect.
Apparently, it was a lot of fun too.
We got into Ottumwa at around 5. We got to stay at the hotel Ottumwa, so we all showered and changed into civies. We called my sister and met her and her family at the brew pub downtown. The food was amazing.
We also got to hang out with my niece and nephew and check out downtown and the plaque that was an homage to the old arcade that was in Ottumwa when I was in high school. There is a documentary called "King of Kong" about the first video game olympics in 1983.
Since my brother-in-law's job meant he was in charge of RAGBRAI for Ottumwa, he drove us around town to show us all the places where things would be happening and to his house, to let him know what our group would need when they stayed there on Thursday night. So great of him.
We ended the night at the Tom Tom Tap. It didn't look much different than it did when I was in the 80's, except the beer was better.
The next day we would be meeting up with RAGBRAI and our new adventure would be over. We were calling it a raging success.
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