beach cruiser week

Friday night Melinda are planning on embarking on our first trip to the beach in 4 or 5 years. It will also be our first trip to the beach with the ECO. Yes we are going to camp out this time. Most of our trips to the beach we have stayed in some sort of hotel or condo and usually it involved my whole family. We've been unable to coordinate a family beach trip for some time mainly due to job schedule restraints and 2 big black dogs that for some reason are never welcome at the places we've stayed in the past.

We finally found a place that not only allows dogs but they welcome them. We're going camping at the beach, Cape Hatteras to be exact. Our original plan was to leave bright and early Saturday morning but Melinda just found out that she's off Friday so we may leave Friday night and knock half the drive out. I've always wanted to pull into a WalMart and set-up camp for free like I see so many do at our local WalMart. I don't know why this appeals to me but it does and this way it will allow us to arrive alot earlier in the day on Saturday instead of late in the afternoon wasting most of the day on the road.

My biggest issue so far in planning this trip is not whether I should bring my bike or not but rather which bike do I take. I would like to take two but I think that would be pushing it. My bike of choice for this week is my cruiser but the only problem is it has full fenders and bolt on hubs as does Melinda's Schwinn making it impossible to put on the various types of roof racks I have for the truck.

When we haul them around to the CRAWLs we always use the hitch rack which works flawlessly but with the ECO trailer hooked up it eliminates the hitch rack. I really didn't want to take my road bike or mtn bikes because I have a feeling the sand and salt will find it's way into places I don't want it to.

Melinda and I came up with the idea of putting the cruisers inside the ECO trailer. We have a floor rack at home that we use to store them currently and I think with the use of some bungees and towels to protect the insides of the camper from pedals and handlebars I think they will ride upright inside the ECO just fine. Tonight I plan to try this out to make sure it will work. The key to making this work will be securing the bikes so they do not fall over during travel and wreck the cabinets.