As of last Friday, Kevin had installed a rear view mirror, side mirrors, turn signals and running lights, and a front windshield. He has a rear windshield, lower and upper doors , and a new roof on order. They arrive sometime this week. He also bought a Fire tablet to run the off-road mapping software on, a case for it, and is figuring out the best place to mount it. He’s been busy!
We did go on our first big ride on Saturday. It was a charity ride for some local volunteer organizations in Northeast Iowa, and we started at the Volga River campground in the town of Volga, Iowa. The ride was restricted to 200 rigs, and it closed early last week, amazing to me. The event was advertised on Facebook through some UTV groups, and there were still people who wanted to get in. I have never even heard of something like this, and it was an experience. Cost was $50/rig.
We loaded the rig up with everything we needed on Friday, and we headed to Volga by 8:30 in the morning. We got parked and unloaded the RZR, then headed to the checkin, arriving there about 10:15. We had reserved a sack lunch from a local church (“free-will offering”, and not much!). Next time we will definitely bring our own. Lots of good organization. The parking area was huge and easily handled the crowds of mostly pickups with trailers.
The check in was orderly too, and we were given a numbered tag and got in rows.
We knew we were going to be the little guy, but some of these rigs are as big as cars! Four and six seaters were common, some with full fiberglass doors and roofs with roll down windows. Then there were the true utility rigs that doubled around the farm, a few mud racers, lots of donut maker/racers, and a few like us. I was rather astonished to see people drinking beer and hard liquor at 10:00 am on a Saturday before they were going to drive, but it seemed very acceptable to the crowd. Lots of vaping and cigarettes too. It had been so long since I had seen groups of people smoking that it took me aback.
We got started a few minutes after 11:00, and we had so much fun! It was 30-40 miles with a wide assortment of terrain. A little bit of road (the local fire department and police blocked traffic for us), some cornfields, lots of fallow pastureland with rolling hills, some heavy forest, and a number of stream crossings.
There were three stops along the way. Lots more drinking. Portable toilets were on a trailer that two trucks pulled to each stop. As we went through some farm fields, we actually had the farmers there to open gates and keep their cattle away. It was definitely a community endeavor. That makes sense since the proceeds were going to the local volunteer EMS folks! Each place we stopped for a break had plenty of room for people to spread out.
The ride finished at our starting spot about 4:30. We both had big grins on our faces. The ride had been bumpy and rough, but we weren’t all beat up like we would have been in the Jeep. The soft balloon tires and suspension of the RZR were much gentler on our bodies, though we were feeling a bit worse for wear this morning! It wasn’t anything some Tylenol wouldn’t solve though. I am really very happy with the entire purchase, and I am looking forward to using it a lot this winter in Arizona.