County prepares to welcome ‘Road Trip Ringgold’
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Back in March the Mount Ayr Chamber of Commerce and Ringgold County Development announced plans for the first “Road Trip Ringgold,” an ambitious project designed to coordinate a combination of shopping at local brick and mortar businesses, home-based vendors and craftsmen, and county-wide yard sales into one big day of shopping and tourism.
Two months later that project is about to come to fruition as the first ever Road Trip Ringgold kicks off at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 4, rain or shine.
A total of 25 retail vendors and another 18 yard sales are listed on the official Road Trip Riggold map available on their Facebook page. Information can also be found at intheayr.com, the website for Nicole McGinnis’ business of the same name. McGinnis is one of the organizers of Road Trip Ringgold.
“It was a little slow going at first as people tried to understand what it was that we were trying to do,” said McGinnis about response to the Road Trip concept. “But as the message got across, more and more people got involved in the last weeks leading up to the sign-up deadline. We just got a huge influx of sign-ups.”
McGinnis credited Danielle Newton of Diagonal and Priscilla Alvik of Tingley with generating great responses in those communities.
Beyond Road Trip Ringgold, other special activities are set for June 4.
Arispe and Afton are holding their city-wide yard sales that day.
Even bigger yet is the KSIB Annual Tractor Ride which will leave Creston around 8:30 a.m. and stop at Diagonal for a mid-morning break at 10:30 a.m. Then it’s on to Mount Ayr for lunch at the Farmers Co-op at 12:30 p.m.
“We’re just really excited to see how much we were able to garner participation and we hope to build on that each year,” said McGinnis.
She said other communities have reached out to explore the possibility of partnering with Road Trip Ringgold in the future.
“Our goal is to get people here and show them what we have,” McGinnis said. “It looks like we’re going to get that opportunity and then build on it.”
The date for next year’s Road Trip Ringgold has already been set for Saturday, June 3, 2023.
