One Couple’s Quest for Fun Kayaking, Cool Bike Trails and a Great Cup of Coffee
Here we’ll talk about our travels to races and other special events. These might be just a few days or even a week long.
We always look forward to this event. We first started going in 2019 when it was part of a racing point series. We would see everyone we’d made friends with at the other races. The race itself is pretty high-level. The boat classes are packed with excellent paddlers. The event is very organized with a…
If it’s the last week of July, it’s time for a bike ride in Iowa. Only one stage this year but worth it! I had originally planned to ride just two days this year with friends. The last two: day 6 and 7. But no matter how much you plan, life still happens. This year,…
Yes, a Festivus for the rest of us We’re really growing fond of Kentucky. The beautiful country side, the rolling hills and a number of rivers and lakes that we’ve enjoyed paddling. And to get to most places that are worth going to, it’s mostly two-lane winding roads. Such is a risk-reward for traveling to…
We look forward to this event each year. It’s a community event for Cincinnati raising funds for outdoors adventures for city kids. There are food trucks, live music, and vendors. It’s a pretty big deal. There are two groups that paddle this event. The racers, like us, and the leisure paddlers. This year there were…
Coralville to Davenport Once again, we were up an out by 5:30 AM. We decided to catch the route just outside Iowa City, avoiding the traffic in Coralville. The previous night’s storm had brought in a little cooler temperatures but the humidity stuck around. This stage had only 1800′ of climb so we felt real…
Day 2 (Tama to Coralville) Once again, we rolled out of town about 5:30 AM. This time the drive to the start was much shorter. We were off on the ride by 6:45 AM. It was 75 and sunny and as it turned out, we wouldn’t catch a break in the heat the rest of…
One L of a Ride Now just to clear things up at the start, no matter what you’ve heard about the Iowa country side, it is NOT flat! But it is beautiful. I’m not sure when RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) made my bucket list but once on the list, this years’s…
We look forward to this race every year in Iowa City, Iowa. It’s a challenging event-over 9 miles downstream. The river can be very different year to year. We also look forward to seeing family living in the Iowa City area. Sometimes they even come out to cheer us on! We left Friday and found…
Chattanooga Tennessee is an eight hour drive for us. That’s a little far for a race but this one looked particular interesting. So we thought we’d give it a try. The race was on Saturday so we headed out early Friday morning. Our first stop was one of our favorites, Joe Sippers in Effingham IL….
The South Dakota schedule worked out perfectly, so on our way back we stopped at Clear Lake Iowa to do the Paddlefest. This was the second time we’d done this race. Clear Lake (the lake) 3600 acres and is surrounded by Clear Lake (the town). The first time we did this race it was blowing…