Whew.  We had a mad rush of happenings there for a bit.

RAGBRAI took up the focus of most of last week.  This year started in Council Bluffs, so we stayed at the in-laws house across the river in Omaha.  Nothing like a comfy bed.  Steve, Blake, and a pair of Blake’s co-workers were dropped off a mile from the start of the route, and Reagan and I found our first camping spot in Red Oak.  It was next to the school, so there were showers and toilets.  The Expo was right next to us, and the food vendors were at the end of the block.  Another block away was a Hy-vee grocery, a hardware store, McDonalds.  Everything you need.  We ate well.
The Element was parked near the edge of a parking lot, and we had a line of nice shade trees down the edge.  There was more than enough room for camping between them, and the shade was excellent.  Reagan and I used the Element for our tent, as the seats fold down flat.  The next day Steve drove and I joined the crew on a 74 mile ride to Greenfield.  Pastafari was so much tastier than I remember.
They again found a great camping spot in the shade between the high school and middle school.  It started drizzling a bit in the afternoon, so it was nap time, followed by a great lasagna dinner at the high school.

Small towns do RAGBRAI better than large ones.  Indianola was a nice town, but they seemed to de-centralize everything.  Campground parking was here, and the camping was over there in sporting fields.  No car access, and fences kept people from parking along the streets.  We tried the bigger campgrounds, and found full lots, no shade, and nothing at these sites.  The info center and expo were 6 blocks from downtown where the food was.  The square was also half beverage garden, and had many bars around it.  This was also a college town.  Now I understood why each block had 6 porti-potties on it.  This was going to be the party town.  Dismayed at our camping spot fail and the drizzle, we made other plans…..

The LaQuinta hotel in Des Moines!  We planned to hop up to Des Moines in the morning anyhow, so why not go early.  Hot showers, a real toilet, beds, and waffles for breakfast.  Jan also came out a day early from Omaha and spent the night with us.

The cool part is that Blake and I shot north up the road from the LaQuinta at University and I-80, found a trail connector from a parking lot, cut through a neighborhood and got on the Clive Greenbelt trail.  A mile or so later, we were on the Raccoon River Valley Trail and headed home while the women went shopping and Steve drove the Element to Panora.

The RRVT trail is wonderful to ride, and better in shape than a lot of roads we had just done.  We met Steve at Linden and headed to Panora to have lunch trailside at PJ’s.  Man, they have good burgers and onion rings.  From there, Steve and Blake continued up the trail to Jefferson, and I shuttled the car up, waiting awhile at the farm in Cooper.  At least I found some Romaine and peas to bring home.

After that we’ve been keeping up the farm and house.  Working on the roof fix downtown, and getting ready to finish off siding the crib.  I also built a gate for our fence yesterday.  Coffee production is in full swing again for this week’s Farmer’s Market.

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Strange, but it seems like we don’t update the blog enough.  I think Facebook has stolen our minor status updates, as we keep touch with a lot of friends and family on that site.

Not much has been happening anyhow.  Maintenance is the name of the game.  There have been some injuries, health issues, swim team, and a sloew of little things called life that have kept us from getting a lot of work done.

Still, I have been able to keep the farm mowed, keep the weeds out of the garden, and have had a few bonfires at the farm.  We’ve cleaned up the house in town, and worked on the yard there.  Lately, we added a new fence and and a new back door.  We’ve also managed to clean out the upstairs of the building we bought.  It seems much better now, and we found the source of our leaking roof issue.

We have a big to-do list at all properties.  This week won’t see much work, but we’ll report in from RAGBRAI next week.  We have 3 days of RAGBRAI, and we will use the Raccoon River Valley Trail as the means to get a couple of us home on day 4.

Pictures are also missing.  I should get out the camera and take pictures of all our work this year.

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