Eliza dancing on the float being chased by Fred Flinstone.

Thanksgiving Day parade with ensemble espanol.

1600 and counting. Laura has put 1600 miles on her bike this year.

Our first magnolia tree fire in the back yard. There will be many more.

Eliza and Grandpa under the new pergola. Didn't he do a great job.

Grandpa working on a little project. Cutting a mortise for the pergola.

Roughing it at the Morton Arboretum Rebecca style. Lyle start in 10 minutes :-)

And then there was more pie. Thanks Rebecca.

FINISHED!!!

Field of dreams.

A little church. St. Francis Xavier Basilica.

A little water in Dyersville.

Up and rolling this morning. Chris Cakes for breakfast.

Made it!!! Tent is dry and we are heading for dinner. Wonder which church will get luky tonight?!?!

And ice cream. Raspberry and peach. Yum.

And there was cinnamon rolls...

And then the sun came out.

After 5 miles uphill, had to stop for homemade ice cream. Starting to dry off. Sun is coming out. Thanks God!!!!

Making ice cream the old fashioned way. 1

Rain quit at mile 42. Got 15 more to go.... Into the wind.

35 miles in rain and counting...

Dinning room for 2.

Salmon that looks and tastes fantastic.

And sometimes it rains in Iowa.

Looks like we,re going to ride in rain all day. Stopped at a bar for breakfast....

Up and packing on day 6. Feeling pretty good all told. It did not rain last night. Trying to be prepared for rain today. L

70 of 82 now complete. Final miles are taxing all systems. Good weather is a plus!

A little "meat". And the smoothies are good too.

When they say pork chop on a stick, they mean pork chop on a stick.

Good morning Uncle Sam. In Parkersburg.

5 miles from Parkersburg. A really nice day.

Good morning from Clarksville

We are happy to be in Clarksville this morning. We just enjoyed a great breakfast while listening to a local band. We had a nice tail wind and good road so the first 20 miles of the day were "just super". Average spied was over 18.

Cheers for now. Kevin.

Port a potty heat index is scorchin' otherwise a lovely day.

Strawberry rubarb pie rocks!!!! Love those church ladies!!!

Another reason to ride across Iowa.

Good morning from Swaledale.

Missing team mascot found!

Laura and Don met up mid-ride.

Iowa is damn hot today!!

A little wind power.

Pie and cinnamon roll in Britt.

A taste of what RAGBRAI is like from Britt.

I think she is pretty smart.

Did I mention that our driver is also a message therapist?!?!?!?!

Never in my life have i, gone 81.57 miles! Wow! L

Potta Potti Iowa style. 10 acres, no waiting.

Did someone say PIE!!!

Breakfast RAGBRAI style. Thank you Farm Boys

Too many morning people.

Honestly, there is grass under all those tents.

Had a fantastic day today. We hit 40+ mph going down a hill today. This is an amazing experience. It,s like a carnival on wheels. Wow!!!

Camping tonight at storm lake. Contrary to the name, it is peaceful and calm. Went for a dip after the ride. It was divine!!

40miles in and still alive. We,ve moved from 1% done to 10% done. That is encouraging!!! Go team squak!

Nothing says morning like a cinnamon roll.

Nothing like dinner at Immanuel.

The rear tires have been swimming.

We've gone West.

Welcome to Sioux City. It's raining and I'm texting while Kevin's weaving. Off to a pretty good start, except the part where Kevin's iphone took a swim. Placed in a bin in the console and then it slide right out onto a McDonald's cup of water. It popped the lid of and in it went. We are off to Omaha in the morning to try and get it fixed.

Time for a shower?

Not quite time for the shower actually. This one was in Manchester and we stopped for lunch. I was looking forward to the spotless rinse.

Berry cobbler in galena

Yum, yum. Tasty business! Had to stop in quaint Galena for the doggie bag Jack packed for us. The river was only one and a half feet below the wall and already above street level. That water was moving!!

Lots of rivers are out of their banks, it would seem..

This one's for you, Luli

Elizabeth is a charming town outside of Galena. The countryside is beautiful with green rolling hills. It has a real mainstreet and a population of 700. It appears that there are a couple of Lutheran churches, too.

Looks like it's going to rain again. Kevin says, "This is most certainly true!"

And we are off

We are on our way to Dubuque on the first leg of our adventure. Jack was so kind to bring official Team Squak uniforms directly from our sponsor, In n Out Burger. Definitely sets the right tone!

We will leave our car in Dubuque and then drive to Sioux City where the bike riding will begin. We are meeting up with 4 other riders in our club, which is from Keokuk. The 6 of us will drive west in vans. Our goal is to eat dinner at Don's favorite Italian restaurant tonight. We have lots of rain to drive through to get there though, so we will see what happens.

Laura would like to remind everyone that she's in this for the food!

Cheers for now. Kevin

Training, the hard way...

It was a fine July morning when we awoke in our tent. That's right folks. Laura and I slept in a tent together, not to be confused with sleeping together in a tent.

Anyway, we were in Staunton, IL for the 22st Annual Tour de Donut. A 30 mile bike "Race" where you eat donuts at the rest stops instead of power food and gatorade. For each donut you eat they take 5 minutes off of your time. Yes the winner had a negative time. However, we only had 6 donuts total so we had a positive time. We were in it for the experience and the great t-shirt. And yes, the t-shirt says the 22st (we pronounce it "twenty twost").

The pictures are of us enjoying our first stop.

Cheers to all. Kevin.

Tales from training...

A quick quote from a chat between Laura and I while she was on a training ride. I had cleaned up her bike and lubed her chain the night before...

KM: Gears working ok?

LM: Only slipped once. Generally fantastic. I'd like to thank the good people at team squak for the win today. The Novara Carema Pro ran great today. Gotta give it up to chief mechanic McDaniel for the smooth, powerful ride....

Cheers for now.

We are checking gear and making final preparations (read going to spend more money on more gear) now. We leave Friday morning.

Kevin.