The full RAGBRAI route would begin in Sioux City and make its way to Charles City on Wednesday night, where we planned to meet up with the Joyriders. Things went according to plan for all of one hour after leaving Dubuque. We experienced, as any veteran RAGBRAI'er eventually does, some unplanned changes. When Larry phoned our old teammate, Darren Van't Hof, to give him an update on our progress, he said their host family for that night had "overbooked" and had no room for us. "No problem," replied Larry. "We'll just camp in town and we can hook up with your RV in the morning."
Ten minutes later, Larry was on the phone again with Darren, this time with a different tone. An excerpt from Larry's side of the conversation:
"So what are you saying?"
"You mean you can't transport our gear in the RV?"
"Darren, this puts us in a really bad spot."
"Backup plan? You are our backup plan!"
Somehow, for reasons not entirely clear, Darren's team had voted us out of their RV. Since we hadn't signed up as "official" RAGBRAI participants, we didn't have the complimentary gear transport provided to those who paid their entry fee. In a word, we were screwed. An uncomfortable tension permeated the cramped air inside the Blazer. Should we call off the whole trip and turn around? Should we take our chances and hope to find someone to help us out? What kind of idiots did Paul McMillan think us to be, coming to Iowa with no backup plan?
We chose to continue on to Charles City, but not before I missed a turn and took us about 30 miles out of our way. This did give us some time to put our heads together and formulate a plan, which in the end went something along the lines of standing on street corners begging for help. Larry called anyone and everyone he knew who could possibly be of any assistance, but when we arrived in Charles City, we still had no gear transport.
In Charles City, we located Team Numb Nutz, a St. Louis-based group who generally takes an extreme approach to RAGBRAI'ing. Larry's adventures with them in 2009 mostly consisted of being kicked out of bars by the Iowa State Police when it was determined by the troopers that all riders must leave, in order to arrive at the overnight towns before dark. The Numb Nutz RV was vacant when we arrived in darkness, so obviously the state police had let them linger a little too long at the last town.
We unloaded our gear and sent Paul back to Dubuque a couple hours later than he probably expected. Most of Team Numb Nutz was calling it a week and heading back to St. Louis on Thursday morning with the RV, so they couldn't help us with our gear. After setting up our tents, we mapped out our plan for the night: Tell our sob story to anyone who would listen. About 50 yards into our walk towards downtown, our first opportunity came in the form of a local resident walking her dog. There is no better way to establish a bond with a stranger than to shower her dog with attention, and we took full advantage, casually mentioning our bad fortunes. As we began to walk away, she stopped us and suggested that we come to her house in the morning if we couldn't find anyone else to help. Her husband had to be in Waterloo in the morning, which just happened to be the next overnight town. She would have him haul our gear there if we had no other options.
So there you have it. Our friends bailed on us, and within 30 minutes of arrival a stranger had offered to help. If ever the full spirit of RAGBRAI could be captured, this was it.
