Days 56-58: CICO & Nauvoo, IL

We had a great time at the 12th Annual Camp Inn Camp Outt at Castle Rock (Juneau) County Park, getting a chance to meet a few people that we'd gotten to know a bit on the Unofficial Camp Inn Forum over the past few years.  It gave us a chance to see how others have adapted their campers/accessories to fit their particular lifestyles and to hear some of their war stories.  We found a few gear ideas that appeal to us, though we'll probably wait until we're parked for the winter to make any changes.  And we also have several thoughts about how we'll reorganize parts of the interior of the van to have it better fit our needs.  But we're pretty happy with how everything is working now - all of the planned changes are just minor refinements.

Some of our neighbors at CICO.

When we ordered our van we originally wanted custom leather seat covers, as dog hair and dog smells are not nearly as problematic with leather as they can be with fabric seat covers (and leather is much easier to keep clean).  Due to the delay in getting our trailer, we had requested that the leather order be cancelled, but after we had been on the road for a couple of weeks Corwin Ford called us to let us know that the leather had arrived.  There is a whole long sordid story about what transpired next, but suffice it to say that two months later we ended up buying the leather kit for their cost and will attempt to get it installed while we are in Florida, where it will be waiting for us.

I think we heard that there were about 190 people in this year's CICO (and 30 dogs).  That's about 90 trailers, about 30% of which were not Camp Inns (many were custom built teardrops, though some were tents).  Of the 53 Camp Inn Trailers that were there, I think there were just slightly more 500/550 teardrops models than there were 560 raindrops (which are two feet longer than our 550).  It sounds as though the 560s are becoming the more popular model, but for our money, the 550 is a much better design (bigger isn't always better).  That probably sounds like heresy to the 560 owners, but the extra loveseat in the 560 to us seems to create more problems than it solves (and no, we aren't just rationalizing the fact that we bought a 550).  We were on the fence about getting a 560 for quite a while before we made our decision, as there were aspects of the 560 that had appealed to us.

We bugged out of the campground fairly early this morning, opting to skip the 8 am group breakfast.  With nearly 300 miles to cover to get back to our route, plus another 36 miles of cycling to get us to Nauvoo State Park, we figured that it might be hard to break away from the breakfast in a timely manner.  It was good that we left early, as we arrived at our return point about the time that we thought we would have gotten there if we had left the breakfast by 9:30 am (OK, we did get a little lost on some Wisconsin backroads).

It was up to me to ride the 30+ miles to Nauvoo State Park ($20 with electricity and showers).  And about 5 miles out of town I got a sharp nail through my rear tire, and so stopped to fix it.  While making the repair I noticed several cracks in the rim of the wheel, and it was slightly out of true.  So that wheel has to be replaced, as if one of those cracks fails catastrophically that wheel could fold up like tin foil, meaning the bike would instantly stop moving and I'd likely be propelled through the air in an undesirable manner.  

One of our jobs in the coming days will be to track down a replacement.  We tried calling the bike shop in Fort Madison, IA late this afternoon, but somebody must've been talking to their girlfriend, because we got a busy signal for a solid half hour before we finally gave up.  We might be able to find something downriver in Quincy, IL.  If not, then a St. Louis suburb will be the next best bet.  We are thinking that on the days that I ride I'll try using Alea's rear wheel, as I'm pretty sure the gearing is fairly similar (though I may need to adjust the derailleur a bit for that to work optimally).