Estherville to Forest City. 74 miles sunny, hot, humid

We started at 6:30 am to beat the heat as much as possible. Well, the first half went well. The second half of the day was brutal. The humidity made the air very thick.

Oh well, on to the highlights of the day. The first town we rode into was Armstrong and it was their first time to host RAGBRAI so they really played that up.

The second town was Swea. They had a donut theme and we tried the tractor pull that they set up as a fundraiser. They were pedal tractors.

There was a men’s division and a ladies division. Surprise! Neither of us won, but we did get participation ribbons.

Swea also had Santa at the beach raising money for some local group. Free will donation to have your picture with Santa.

We also stopped in Woden and they had Tape Measure races. Yep, I can’t make that up. It was a board with 8 tracks and you picked a tape measure and they stretched the tape measure from one end to the other and then the pulled the board and the tape measure that retracted the fastest won. Bill won our heat with the red tape measure that he picked to match the color of his bike.

We passed the Air Force service team doing their thing to help fix a flat tire on the side of the road.

Our final town before Forest City was Crystal Lake. I needed a Pepsi to fuel the last ten miles to the overnight spot.

Sorry for the duplicate photo. I don’t know how to delete on my phone.

Crystal Lake is famous for having the world’s largest bullhead. And here it is:

Our campground is the Heritage Park in Forest City, IA.

I have decided that the shower rating will be impacted by the distance I have to walk to get to the shower trucks. Today was a five minute walk. Not good when it is so hot and humid. By the time I got back to our tent, I was already wet with sweat. So the shower rating took a hit and was only a 3.5. The towel was again coarse sandpaper and the water pressure was an all time low for this trip.

And finally, here is another Pork Belly truck… it is outfitted for sleeping rooms with air conditioning.t