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Ahhh, the last day of the ride. This day was noticeably shorter distance than any of the others, at 54 miles. The area was a series of gentle hills, none too bad as I recall. The sun was shining brightly after the previous cloudy days. Great day for a ride.
I decided to ride all day with Brian, Josh and Ryan. There didn’t seem to be any need to get to the final town of Clinton in a hurry. I think I was sensing the end of our week together and I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible. Jeff stayed with us most of the way too.
I decided during this week’s ride that I don’t necessarily like the bike riding, but I do enjoy being with my brothers and other family. I don’t see myself doing a lot of riding at home, either by myself or with others, unless I’m going to be doing some training for another RAGBRAI ride with my brothers.
We stopped at a town about 15-20 miles out of Maquoketa for breakfast. I had a biscuit and gravy, and a huge cinnamon roll, along with some orange juice. They had a lot of different stuff to eat, like Egg McMuffins, ham, scrambled eggs, etc.
We did ride through a town named Charlotte. i was told that my brother John’s wife, Connie, has a sister living in this town, right on the main street that we would pass along. I know her sister is named Kate and the husband’s name is Tom, but I don’t know their last name. I also don’t know if I’ve ever met them so I couldn’t recognize them if I saw them. I looked very closely at everyone as I rode through the town, thinking that maybe Connie’s parents might have been there too. I do know what they look like and would have recognized them. Alas, I never saw anyone.
There was one particular food vendor that we saw every day along the side of the road. His name was Mr. Pork Chop, and on the side of his bus he had a note indicating that he had a web site, www.mrporkchop.com. I mean to look up his web site to see what he has on it. I did take a picture of his bus on this last day of the ride. This older man, who may or may not be Mr. Pork Chop himself, actually has a unique call that he yells out every once in a while. It is just a long drawn out Poooooooooork Choooooop kind of yell. I was fortunate enough to hear him yell this twice during the week.
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