Monday - Off to Algona

Up in the morning and off on the ride to Algona- with my legs feeling much better. After blasting up and down all of those hills on the way to Storm Lake, they were pretty sore and I was worried. After a great night's rest on the shores of Storm Lake, I was in much better shape. I expected things to slow down a bit, since we had a fairly flat day, but the speed stuck around- I was passing people most of the day. Not as crazy as those hills, and I started to relax into it a bit.The big decision of the day was whether to go for the Karras Loop- an optional loop that you could add on this one day to make it a "century ride" of 100 miles. This year, the loop itself was still just a bit shy of 100 miles, but since the Pork Belly campgrounds was farther back than the others, it balanced out. I wasn't really sure what to decide- until I arrived at the decision point, where you had to decide to branch off or not. At that moment, I couldn't imagine not trying it, so off I went and got my Karras Loop patch for this year. Just down the road into the loop, we had the rest stop in Rolfe, where they had some Calliope music going along with fruit, water, and energy bars. Oh, and some delicious Cinnamon rolls, too. It started to look like it might rain, so I buttoned everything up to make it as waterproof as possible, and headed off. We did get a few drops, but I was actually disappointed to miss the rain- I thought a nice little shower would cool things down. The loop took you back around to drop you before Plover, so I got to visit that town twice. Just outside, I discovered another RAGBRAI route food vendor- Kelly's Berry Pies. I'm not that into pie- but this stuff is in a whole different category. I had the Peach pie first- then had to go back for the caramel-apple. Both were amazing. Riding into Algona, there's a final short/steep hill, then on to camp. I had signed up to pay $10 to sleep in First Lutheran Church that night, and it was nice to be in the air, after the supper prepared by those church members. They had printed out a  handout with a description and their recipes- good stuff. And they had pie. More amazing pie. Good stuff. We slept on the floor in a large room, and it wasn't bad once we all got settled in. Packing in the morning was much faster with no tent to take down, and I headed out for Clear Lake.