Getting Ready to Ride! Outfitting Big Red.

Along with putting in hours of bicycle time (Annie in the foul air quality of Fort Collins, CO, just 10 miles from the wild fire now burning for nearly 3 weeks), we are getting to know what will be our camper home.

It sits on the bed of Big Red, our truck, and it will be my job to move it daily from camp site to camp site along the prescribed RAGBRAI route in support of the riders.

We bought it second hand several weeks ago and have been pouring over the manuals and consulting with experienced campers ever since. It has a sink, stove, refrigerator (currently not working), a bathroom with shower, a queen size bed over the cab, and a pull down single bed. It runs variously on the trucks electrical system, a battery, and\or propane.

Big Red has already been fitted out with new, wider mirrors (Wow this camper is big sitting back there!), and a new electrical hook up plug. Besides learning to operate all its knobs, pump outs, fill ups, and drains, we have been searching tag sales and attics for the camping cookware, plastic dishes, bedding...all the things a rolling family of three might need. (Above is a picture of Big Red all decked out.)

Once it is inhabitable, we will drive it across our hometown of East Haddam for a shake down cruise at the local campground, where patient teachers will help us make sure it is road worthy.

Then, of course, we will pack up the biking gear mid-July and drive Big Red and all to Sioux Center on the west side of Iowa to rendezvous with Annie and 10,000 other crazy people.

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What this blog is about

Hello everybody. In July, Art, Annie and I are headed off to Iowa to participate in the RAGBRAI Bike Tour.

What's that, you ask? The Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is a seven-day bicycle ride across the state.  Heading into its 40th year, RAGBRAI is the oldest, largest and longest bicycle touring event in the world.

Des Moines Register Media has been the title sponsor of RAGBRAI since 1973.

Art and Annie will be bicycling across the state. I will follow the route in a camper, and meet them each evening for their rest and refreshment. I'll also be doing the laundry, provide back-up support, make supper, and so on.

While they are off pedaling across the state I'll get to look at local landmarks, or just find out interesting things about parts of Iowa I never knew and may share with you, dear reader,  while we follow along the trail the the Register has set up for us - and 10,000 other participants.

I invite you to follow our journey at this blogspot site. You can also send an e-mail to us while we are on the trip at merrowsontour@gmail.com

That's all for now, Sue

Where we are coming from

For those of you reading this who know Iowa and other areas but not our home town, here' are some photos (lent to us by Will Brady, who helped set this blog up) of East Haddam to give you some peeks of the town.

 Salmon River Boat Launch

 The East Haddam "Swing Bridge" swung open (it will be 100 years old in 2013)

One of the cabins at Our Father's House, a Retreat and one of the many old resorts in town

The one room school house at Millington Green

One of the many barns in town

The Town Hall, around since the early days of the nation, a statue
by sculptor Heinz Warneke  in the foreground