We Have Reached Our Waterloo

July 29 - Waterloo - Mile 387

Several members of Team Simpson seemed to be a bit tired today as we made the 90 mile trip from Charles City to Waterloo. Along the way I had the opportunity to meet the parents of Cory Dawson, class of 2010, who reported that Cory is happily working as an underwriter at Wells Fargo. I also ran into Trevor Sharp '08 who has just started new responsibilities at Target Distribution Center in Cedar Falls. Today we started with breakfast at Hy-Vee in Charles City and had lunch at Tender Tom's along the way. They have a great turkey tenderloin sandwich. Unfortunately we were very close to a bad accident which appeared to involve multiple cyclists and the route was closed for a period of time as they called a Life Flight helicopter which took off with at least one of the injured riders. I know that everyone on Team Simpson hopes that the injured riders make a quick recovery. We are camped at the home of Paul Pechacek '85 (pictured with his daughters). We were warmly welcomed by Paul and his daughters, Shelley Pechacek (in the white shirt) and Kim Higgins. Kim attended Simpson in the late 80s before moving on to complete a nursing degree. We are treated to a huge back yard and as usual our hosts have gone out of their way to make us feel very, very welcome. With only two more riding days in front of us I think we are all feeling a bit sad that this year's adventure on RAGBRAI is almost over, but we certainly look forward to two more days and to our overnight in Manchester tomorrow evening.

John Byrd