I slept on the fold-out couch and it really wasn't bad even though HRH and CaDiva were, as previously described, seriously whiny the next morning. It might explain why we were a little wrung out by Thursday night.
Regardless of the reason, we made a bad decision to try the hotel restaurant a second time. You know how I told you were had an over-priced free-breakfast on Wednesday morning? Well, the food and the service didn't get any better after a 60-mile bike ride. You see how I am being so HRH-focused?
I am not even mentioning CaDiva and I waiting in the sun all day without access to plumbing - or even un-plumbing. Ok, it didn't involve wearing spandex or having a bicycle shoved up our butt. And, ok, she brought us church-lady pie. My guess is HRH-focus was probably the way to go.
So, Friday morning, we were tired and had to pack up the hotel before we found food and caffeine. I think we may have forgotten to tip housekeeping. Which is a shame since they were the only ones we were able to count on during our stay. That's wrong really. We could count on it taking a dozen or more attempts with the card key to open the door. We could also count on the swimming pool occupants being completely unconcerned by the proximity of our room to their party.
But we got on the road with coffee and BK sandwiches.and into Cedar Rapids just after rush hour. When we found a parking lot to drop off HRH we were certain we were near her people. Only it turned out it wasn't really near her people. It was near the place some people who would be her people had camped. The first of several helpful riders stepped up to assure HRH she was on the right path, but that a storm was coming.
The other thing about helpful bikers - if one of them tells you to turn away from the way the rest of them are turning, you need to remember the distress word is lemon. It turned out he was very safe and he alerted her to a storm on its way. But, HRH tends to think she needs a safe word and I don't worry so much when she is safe. I need to know if I'm going all big-sister upside someone's head.
Once HRH let us know there were no lemons, she told us to get her the details on the weather. Note to future selves, if HRH says find out what the weather is doing, try the radio first.
We found a Starbucks with Wi-Fi and set up our maps with both computers and a group of helpful bikers sitting around a patio and started to track a really ugly storm moving up from western Iowa through to mid-Wisconsin. By ugly, I mean winds, hail, and lightening.
HRH kept saying, "I'm riding safe." Ok, that's what we thought she was saying. What she was really saying was, "Am I riding safe." This would have been good to clarify. We finally figured out she wanted us to hold back. So we spent her first 20 miles routing paths we could follow to rescue her without running into 20K wet bicyclists.
We stayed put until she knew she would make it to Mount Vernon. And then we beat feet, in through the back again. We had to share the road with the riders but we found a place to wait for her. She found us, don't ask me how, but she did just as the rain got serious.
We loaded her up in the car and after riding 210 miles between Fort Dodge and Mount Vernon and she told us to take her home.
I have pictures, not many, but some. I will load them up and share them along with some other stories to share. But now I am starting to wind down, I think I'll go to bed and pick this up tomorrow.
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