Trip to Atlantic

 Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Tuesday was the next to shortest day on this year's route, with 61 miles of hills and headwinds. Yes, hills and headwinds are the unofficial theme of Ragbrai this year. George and Jesse met up with Will and Mike for awhile and witnessed their shocking sprints up the hills. Will carries an "emergency kit" on his bike that weighs roughly 50 pounds. Exactly, what kind of emergency he is preparing for, we don't know. He still manages to blaze up the hills faster than anyone around and credits this to his practice for soccer sprints. George convinced the others to stop at Tender Toms. For Will, Mike and Jesse this was the first taste of tender toms, and it will now be a regular stop.

In the overnight town of Atlantic, we angered our neighbors early on with our fine choice of music. DJ calmed them down by turning down the music and having a few of their beers. It was a laid back afternoon spent by watching Team Woody paint racing stripes their bus and pondering the existance of the "water nachos" that the locals were selling nearby. Later on we went to the pool, which also serves as a giant cooler full of ice water. Here we watched some guy on Ragbrai practicing his jumps off the diving board. We had seen him at work in the last few towns and his favorite trick could best be described as the "spawning fish" jump. We all give him a rating of 10 at this. While the rest of us spent our time at the pool cooling off in the water, Joe admired the scenery (of the bikini-clad type) around the pool.

That night we all went downtown to check out the scene. Atlantic was in the Ragbrai spirit with a nice beer garden and a pretty good band. George and Jesse made there public debute street performing when they started juggling in the town square. Before long, Alex the 11 year old bag piper, his sister Bonni who was 13 and juggled fire, and Mike the devil sticker who goes to Iowa State had all joined in and there was a bit of a circus going on with a good crowd gathered around. It was quite a show and we're now pumped up to get a real show going next year. Things are underway and the majority of Team Kamikaze now juggles. Once again the night consisted of the beer garden, the bars, and placing Team Kamikaze stickers/tattoos on cute girls throughout the town.