Divermarv

Coming up for air.

July 12, 2026

Mighty MO!

For those who have read a few of my blog posts, especially the ones from my Out West trip of last year, you’ll likely be aware of my state to get a sort of adventure rig setup for more trips like that.

Well, I have begun. Oh I sort of began with my First Date With Stella post. But that was just a shakedown with Stella, my bell tent. A wet shakedown. A Wetdown? But, I digress.

This year I’m doing a fourteen day trip to Fort Collins, Colorado. My son Ethan and his fiancé Hana are coming in from Korea. And they’ll be leaving as my son Ethan and his wife Hana. Or maybe my daughter-in-law Hana and her new husband Ethan. Whichever you like best. My son Caleb lives in Fort Collins, along with his Mom. So we are going to have a great little get together. Do Colorado things, and all that. But here I am… digressing again.

This post is about Might MO. Not the battleship, but the state. Last night (relative to when I’m writing this), I stayed in Hickory Ridge Campground near Montgomery City Missouri.

I must admit, I was a bit anxious for this overnighter. First time setting up my popup tent on my new adventure rig trailer. The one from CustomKayakTrailers.com. Oh sure I had popped it up in my driveway, but that’s different. That’s not a shakedown. It was barely a popup. No this was a, you’d better do this right or you are stuck somewhere a long way from home, situation.

The tent is a rooftop model but installed on my trailer. It had been a couple of months since my driveway dryrun. It literally just pops up. You unclamp two clamps, and yeah. There is a looped strap that lets you keep it from flinging itself all the way to your destination. That was fun. It kept getting into my face as I was trying to do the two other steps. First there’s a telescoping ladder that hooks onto brackets on the back or sides of the tent. Then there are two poles that hold up an awning.

Sooo… of course I forgot how to put the poles in. I had the basic idea, but just couldn’t remember. I did save a picture of the tent from the interwebs and pinch-zoomed the hell out of it. There it is. It’s so simple only I could screw it up. You can always count on me!

Anyway it was simple. My review of my anticipated overnight strategy is 4.9 stars out of 5. I’ll let you know where I get the 0.1 star from. If I ever do.

My review of the campground is thus. The campground is very nice. It has tons of mature trees, but not all the sites have these trees. Look at pictures before you book. The restroom facilities are decent. Could use some cleaning, but I did get there Saturday evening, and left Sunday morning. Everyone deserves days off. All good.

Now. There was one thing. Totally not the fault of the campground. Not really anyone’s fault if you think about it. But there were some—I’m going to try to be nice here—maybe not so socially aware folks. It looked like a large, or extended, family had some adjoining sites. And they were playing the absolute worst country-rock-hiphop-banjo-crap music. And I mean loud. Very loud. Ugh. I dreaded trying to go to sleep. But I’ll give them this. Quiet time started at 10pm, but they had quieted down by 9pm. So all good. It’s not like we were out in the backcountry or anything. It just felt a little rude.

I would stay at Hickory Ridge Campground again. As a matter of fact I will be in a little over a week or so. I’ll let you know if there’s a free concert again.

But for now let’s talk about my rig. Side note: (digression) when I lived in Idaho in the 80s, I dated a woman who had grown up on a ranch. I had a 4-wheel drive Toyota pickup, and she called it my rig. I had never thought of it like that, but loved it. So… my rig. (more of a rig than that truck was honestly)

A picture is worth a thousand words. So here are several thousand words.