Planes...
When you need to be somewhere faster than you can drive, or farther away than you can easily drive to and back from, you fly.
In early April, Alison's mother needed some help with post-operative care, so Alison flew from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Texas. Meanwhile, Isabel had made plans to join us for her spring break, so she flew to Albuquerque and joined Doug's travels to Amarillo, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Once again, the rig traveled a portion of Route 66:
After dropping Isabel off at the Oklahoma City airport, Doug was ready to head east, with Alison scheduled to fly into St. Louis, Missouri, to rejoin him. That very travel day, Alison's mom suffered another health issue, and Doug turned south instead, to Texas. The next couple of months, we would be parked in Alison's mom's driveway.
What seems like a break in the full-time RV lifestyle is really one of its advantages: because we are set up to work anywhere in order to support our RV travels, we also were able to be with Alison's mom while she needed our help, which would have been much more difficult (or even impossible) if we were still living a sticks-and-bricks, daily-office-location lifestyle.
We took time in May to fly to New York City to celebrate our younger daughter Isabel's college graduation. Doug and both daughters also walked the High Line and attended a Yankees game (they beat the White Sox, if you were wondering).
In mid-July, Alison's mom was recovered, and we hit the road again.
Trains...
Not riding them, listening to them. So many RV parks are near train tracks - sometimes right next to them! - that the whistle and rumble of a passing train, nearby or distant, is the sound of home to Alison now.
And Bicycles
From Texas, we headed to Iowa for RAGBRAI. The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa grew out of a 1973 ride that two Register writers organized (minimally) after the features writer (a bicyclist) challenged the columnist to ride across Iowa and write about it. The two spent six August days riding from Sioux City, Iowa (on the Missouri River) to Davenport, Iowa (on the Mississippi River), a distance of over 350 miles, accompanied by some 100 to 500 Register readers each day.
Over 49 years, RAGBRAI has grown to be an organized seven-day ride that towns vie to be part of, as hosts of a rolling festival of food, drink, and events. It still leaves from the Missouri River and arrives at the Mississippi River (purists ride a bit extra to actually dip their wheels at the riverbanks; others use the set-up tanks at the start and end points), it still takes place in the heat of summer, and it is still a ride, not a race (although you have to clear certain waypoints no later than certain times to make sure everyone finishes before sunset). For the 2022 ride, there were 18,000 registered participants, plus a few thousand more who rode all or part of the ride without registering. (Registering provides access to official campsites and support services.)
Doug and Eric, a friend of ours from college, rode the entire 462-mile route, divided into days of 53, 71, 57, 105, 48, 63, and 65 miles. Eric rode a lightweight, well-geared touring bike; Doug rode his Tern e-bike, but tested himself on the last, hilly day by using almost no electric motor assist. Alison drove the support RV; we dry-camped most of the nights at a RAGBRAI site (running the generator to power the A/C units), interspersed with a couple of private campground full hookup sites. Shuttle buses ferried riders and support vehicle drivers into the evening endpoint towns for food trucks, beverage stands, local history museums, and concerts.
Doug and Eric saw lots of farms and livestock along the way; one enterprising gentleman set up an "Ask a Farmer" stop along the route! Other sights from RAGBRAI XLIX are below:
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