Day One of the RAGBRAI Ride started with a time-honored tradition, like all of the 40 previous RAGBRAI rides, with a “back tire dip” in the Missouri River. All of the riders take their bikes down and baptize them for good luck, hoping and praying that the Bicyling Gods will keep them safe until they can dip their front tires into the Mississippi...
Day 3 … on to Iowa and the start of the RAGBRAI Bike Expo (largest in the U.S) … a bicyclist’s shopping dream come true … think Imelda Marcos at a shoe store … Kim Kardashian at a baby-clothes boutique … Tiger Woods at a porn convention, I mean a golf convention. You get the idea …. Philip was excited! We drove about 6...
We started off on our two-week “RAGBRAI or Bust” trip with high expectations (and a great deal of nervousness on my part! think of all the things that could potentially go wrong with a rolling house on teeny tiny tires! we have absolutely no idea what we are doing! Philip refused to read the instruction manual … “real men don’t...
While many might scoff at the idea of camping in an RV, these people also inevitably complain about back pain, insect bites, and critters eating their food in the night. At ages 46 and 59, camping in an RV is heaven … leave the “roughing it” to young adults in their 20’s! On Fathers’ Day Weekend, we took our 6th Annual June Camping...
We were hopeful that our sole remaining child would like the RV and were relieved to find out that he did. So much, in fact, that this year for his 14th birthday party he wanted a sleepover in the RV in front of our house. We could literally hear the stereo bass thumping from inside our house, so apparently they were having fun (though the neighbors may...
Our personalized license plates arrived! Hurray! Teenage son: “Oh Mom, you and Philip just can’t be happy unless there is a pun involved.” Well said, Maxwell. And so we are officially CHARMNG, no matter if Max thinks otherwise. The hope is that drivers stuck traveling behind us will be so distracted by our U.S...
We had been eagerly awaiting this trip for almost a month since we ill-advisedly (while under the influence of a margarita or two) bought an RV over the Internet. We had done enough research to know we wanted a Coachmen “Leprechaun” — however, Max and Philip concurred that no self-respecting heterosexual RV would want to be called a Leprechaun...