This year's RAGBRAI adventure awaits!

Tomorrow Team Sloth heads out to Iowa for Ragbrai, or as Kim put it - "your stupid-ass batshit crazy ride across barren wasteland." She may have a point there, at least on the batshit crazy part, because we all know how I love my bucolic countryside and country roads.

But while I know that all of you out in BlogLand are eagerly awaiting a repeat of my idiocy last year, when I fried myself to a crisp on day one, and also severely burnt my lower lip (which led to my sounding like a moron all week - "Ah buhnt ma wower wip!") - you will be gravely disappointed, because I have approximately 12 different kinds of chapstick thingies in my possession. Burt's Bees, Aquaphor, Blistex, ChapIce, some special kind from REI, etc.

I am prepared.

Of course this means I'll just have to find NEW stupid things to do, which for me, won't be very difficult. I'm already planning on doing the Karras Loop - those are the additional miles that take you beyond the regular route's 81 miles that day to not just a century total on Day 3, but to 105 miles. Adding insult to injury, as it were. In the blazing heat and sun amidst Cornlandia. On a Karras Loop that the Ragbrai people are calling "the toughest Karras Loop in the history of Ragbrai."

This is why I have the motto that I do, Gentle Readers. And I never disappoint.

Courage.