Bicycling and Geocaching in Quad Cities

The Quad Cities Computer Society discovered Geeks on Tour several years ago when they were looking for a speaker on Picasa.  The digital photography group’s Vicki Wassenhove, called us and made all the arrangements then, and she’s invited us back several times.  This is our 3d visit now!  Here’s our previous blog posts on the first visit, and the second visit.  We found a delightful Corps of Engineers park last time called Fisherman’s Corner, and we’re staying here again this time.  In case you don’t know, “Quad Cities” is what they call the metropolitan area around Moline, Illinois where the Mississippi river separates Illinois from Iowa. 

 

Our RV site is right on the Mississippi river and we have enjoyed some beautiful sunsets!

 

 

We got here a few days before our first ‘gig’ with the Computer Club, so we took advantage of the great bicycle trails and went for a couple of rides.  Headed north out of the park, about 4 miles out, we came to a  town called Port Byron.  I think they’re into bicycling here!

 

We also noticed a restaurant right on the river called Mean Mel’s steakhouse and decided to go there for dinner.  I’ve never been to a ‘grill your own’ steakhouse before.  Jim always grills my steak perfect – he liked this arrangement.

 

And I really liked the view!

Jim checked in on Geocaching.com to see if there were any geocaches near enough to bicycle there.  He found a few just south of the park, so that was our fun for the next day.

We went geocaching for the first time in 2004.  Anyone else who started back then would have thousands of ‘finds’ by now, but we only have 24 according to the tally on our geocaching.com account ‘odie’s roadies.’  It’s been a few years since we’ve been geocaching and the Computer Club invited us to a Geocaching event on Saturday evening, so we needed to get back in practice.  The geocaching app on our phones seemed to work pretty well and we found both of the caches on our list!

So, we were prepared for Saturday night.  Most people used handheld Garmin GPS units with the cache locations previously entered.  We did show a couple people how the app on our phones worked.

 

*Thanks to Vicki for the great pictures!*

That was it for our free, fun time.  Most of Saturday, and all day Sunday I worked on our Geeks on Tour newsletter. Then our “Geek Week” (2014, May 31) started with a seminar at the computer club on Monday night, another one at a local Senior Center on Tuesday, a hands-on smartphone class on Wednesday and Picasa hands-on class on Thursday.  That will be another post!

Happy Fourth of July from Kentucky Horse Park

Since they are Kentucky natives, we asked our friends at RV-Dreams for suggestions of where to stay.  The Kentucky Horse Park was high on their list .. so, here we are!  The Wi-Fi is $15/day! But, luckily, the Verizon Data signal is strong here, so we are both online by tethering our Droids.
We rarely make reservations anywhere, but big holiday weekends bring out the hordes to all available campgrounds – so we like to make reservations and get parked well before the holiday.  Here’s our site.  I’ll take another picture on the Fourth to show you how there are no empty spaces then!

The campground is adjacent to the Horse Park.  It looks like a great place to go bike riding, so Jim spent most of our first day here working on the bicycles.  They’ve just been hanging on the  back of the car getting rusty for quite some time now.
Good Job!

 

 

We’re also spending a lot of time on our websites, trying to get the whole membership site converted to Wordpress and Wishlist member – see our latest “Gabbing with the Geeks”.  It feels kind of sacrilegious to be sitting inside our RV at our computers working so hard, when there are hundreds of people here on a pilgrimage to the outdoor, fun, campground lifestyle for the Holiday Weekend.  But, then again we get to enjoy that lifestyle when they go back to their offices – so we figure turnabout is fair play.
We will take some time off on the Fourth to watch the fireworks which commemorate our wedding day 12 years ago!  12 of the best years anyone could possibly wish!  And, I feel like we’ve only just begun.

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A day in Iowa

Clark and Helen graduated from Yale. The high school in Yale, Iowa that is! They took us to breakfast this morning at the Yale community center where their photos were hung on the wall along with all the other graduating classes. In 1951 the total number of senior students was 6!

Then we went to visit Helen's brother who farms the family land. We got there just in time for feeding an orphaned calf.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

This tractor is all shined up for taking part in a tractor ride with 500 others next week. That would be quite a sight. They're supposed to drive about 180 miles each day for a 3 day event. (see video at the bottom of this post)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

In addition to hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans, they also raise some cattle. Here is just one of the farm machines necessary to run a place like this: Then, in the afternoon, we took advantage of a nearby 'Rails to Trails' and rode our bikes about 8 miles. This is the Raccoon River Valley Trail. If you click on the links above to the album - you can see some more photos. p.s. I have since learned what a big deal the Tractor Ride is that I mentioned above. If you're going to be anywhere near Waterloo, Iowa on June 21-24 it's worth taking a look at the Great Iowa Tractor Ride. Check out this video about the event:

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History and Bicycling in Sedalia

We had a play day yesterday. Jim got the bicycles off the car and put air in the tires, and we pedaled off to the Katy trail. It was a sunny, gorgeous day and we had a great time getting a little bit of exercise and learning some history. So, why is it called the Katy? This is the old MKT railroad. The Missouri, Kansas, Texas railroad. 'Miss Katy' became the spokesperson, promoting rail travel in the late 1800s. The dining cars and sleeping cars made it quite a luxurious way to travel. The intersection of the MKT and the Missouri-Pacific railroad is what put Sedalia on the map ... literally. An enterprising man named George Smith bought the land in 1860 when he learned that the railroads would go right thru it. He set about to found the town and named it after his daughter 'Sarah', nicknamed Sed. What started out as Sedville, became known as Sedalia and was a booming railroad town from about 1870 - 1930. The train depot in downtown Sedalia is now a museum. Sedalia was also home to Scott Joplin and the Ragtime music he created. Scott Joplin was a black man who moved from Texas to Sedalia, Missouri to attend college here. A pretty amazing story for the 1860s. The Scott Joplin festival is visited by people the world over. It starts next week, just a little too late for us to stick around. Here is a video of the Maple Leaf Rag - probably most famous of Joplin's creations. But, enough of history from the 1800s - Sedalia is also famous for a rock concert that rivaled Woodstock! Called the Ozark Music Festival, attendance estimates go as high as 350,000! With performances by Jefferson Starship, Eagles, and Marshall Tucker Band among many others, the main attraction was the hippie culture that took over the Missouri State Fairgrounds for four days in July of 1974. Picture from the aftermath of the Music Festival (from the website linked above): Yes! That's the same Missouri State Fairgrounds where we have been parked this week along with 700 other RVs! These RVers were a much more subdued crowd I'm sure - but many of us are still rock 'n rollers at heart! Picture of the aftermath of the Escapade Rally at the same fairgrounds.

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25 Mile Bike Ride

I kid you not! Jim and I pedaled 25 miles yesterday. In the mountains! Here in the Poconos of Pennsylvania.

Ok, so it was all downhill. So what? Is that cool or what? A rafting and bicycling outfitter runs a shuttle to take you and your bike up to the top of the trail. You ride for 25 miles and the bus is waiting at the bottom to take you back to where you parked. It took us about 3.5 hours. I LIKE it! We did have to peddle, it was only barely downhill. The trail follows the Lehigh River through Lehigh Gorge State Park, and the river drops 600 feet over those 25 miles. And, even though lots of people were on the shuttle, once we started on the trail everyone spread out. If you click on the sign picture above, that will take you to the original in our Picasa Web Album, then you can magnify it in order to read about the 29 locks that used to exist here in a canal next to the river so that boats could get back upriver.

We did get plenty of exercise, but the gentle downhill also made for a relaxing day. As you can see from this guy on a recumbent bike. He said, "All I need is a remote and a beer!"

There were plenty of opportunities to stop, rest, and watch the river go by. and even a beautiful waterfall along the way. As always, more photos on our Picasa Web Album ... clicking on any photo above will take you there.

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Florida Bicycle Trails

We woke up to a gorgeous morning at my Dad's in Dunnellon. 75 degrees, clear sky, bright sun, cool breeze. We looked at each other and said, "Let's go for a bike ride." Dad and Candy joined us. But Dad cheated and rode his cute little scooter. Just riding around their neighborhood is beautiful. Every home is different and there are lots of views of Lake Rousseau. According to the scooter's odometer, we rode for 7 miles. When we got home, we called our friends Diane and Andy. They're RVing in Florida right now and they do a lot of bicycling. We wanted to report our ride hoping they would be proud of us! They said, "Oh, did you go on the Rails To Trails that starts right there in Dunnellon?" Uh, no. What Rails to Trails? So, we looked it up, and sure enough ... the longest paved bicycle trail in Florida starts right here in Dunnellon. And, guess what? There are a couple geocaches right on the first section of the trail. So, Jim loaded the bikes back on the car and we drove about 5 miles to the trailhead. Actually, this trail is not a 'Rails to Trails'. It's part of Florida's Office of Greenways and Trails. How cool! What a joy to have a paved trail with no cars! And the geocaches gave us an excuse to stop. Unfortunately we didn't find them. :-( This second cache was called 'Slugger'. I think we were in the right general spot. Don't you? But we didn't find this one either. Oh well, it will give us a reason to go back again sometime. Maybe after Jim gets himself a new GPS huh? We biked 7 miles in the morning and 11 in the afternoon! Pretty good for a couple of computer potatoes. Florida is a great place to bike ... it's flat!

Fredericksburg Wine and Austin Bicycling

After leaving the Rally in Kerrville we needed to come back to Austin for our mail pickup. As we were passing thru Fredericksburg it was lunchtime and we decided to stop. Unknown to us it was a very special Saturday: We not only got some yummy food and wine, but were able to replace the wine glasses I recently broke. The best part was these cool wine glass holders: What a handy way to walk around, be able to eat and not worry about dropping your wine glass! Fredericksburg is also known for it's shops. I just loved the colorful boots. For Austin, we decided to stay at our favorite downtown RV park for a couple nights - Pecan Grove. This park is very convenient to the Town Lake Hike and Bike trail. And, what a gorgeous weekend it was. Hundreds of people use this trail. There were people walking, jogging, alone, in pairs, with dogs, without dogs, pushing baby carriages, biking, sitting on the shore and paddling or rowing in the water. It just gave you the feeling that all is right with the world!

C and O Canal Rails to Trails

Before leaving the campground in Hancock, MD - we tried another bicycle assault on the trail thru the woods. This time we were successful at reaching the paved bicycle path. As expected, it was only a hundred yards or so from where we gave up and turned around the evening before. Yes! This is my kind of bicycling. We will seek out more Rails to Trails on our journey. According to the website, there are 1,359 of them. We rode about 5 miles into town and met these guys who had been biking and camping along the trail for several days. They pulled this homemade trailer to carry all their camping supplies. Then we headed back. That last mile is a killer.