tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10022708633355389162024-03-14T04:33:57.124-07:00Life On A Bike"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." -Gil BailieCari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-17226885030978616282011-10-14T09:47:00.000-07:002012-10-11T14:51:26.753-07:00THE REST OF THE STORY<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This story takes you back a long time in the “Life On A Bike” chronology but it couldn't be written about at the time of its happening as there were some people who needed to hear the news in person rather than read it on the internet or hear it over the phone. It has been a difficult secret to keep but now that we've told everyone in our immediate families in person, I can finally write the story.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rewind all the way back to the U.S. portion of this trip, August 2010, as that's where the story officially began. We were at my parents' house in Minnesota and somehow, though I don't remember this happening, Mike got a hold of the one piece of jewelry that I always wear, a piece made by my sister in a college class and I've never removed since she gave it to me at least 5 years ago. Anyway, he managed to get his hands on it, tried it on himself for size and made a mental note of how it fit.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there's a huge gap in the story. We rode the rest of the distance across the U.S., through South America and some 7 months later, in southern Spain, the story resumed. We were camped by a river with huge boulders that had sweeping, comfortable grooves for sitting in so I took the opportunity to do some writing in such a beautiful and peaceful setting. Mike took off on a walk through the forest in search of the perfect piece of wood for making a sling shot for his brother-in-law. Unbeknownst to me, he was also searching for something else; another piece of wood with tight grains, that was dry and had no cracks. He found exactly what he was looking for, cut 2 small pieces about a quarter of an inch thick from the 1 ½ inch diameter stick, tucked them away in his handlebar bag and waited.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Later that week we were staying at a Couch Surfing house in Granada. While I was in the shower, Mike found a ¼” drill bit in a tool box in the room we were given, quickly drilled a hole through the centers of the wood pieces before I returned and again put them away for later.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another 2 weeks passed and the project remained untouched until we reached Zaragoza, a city in northern Spain. There, we had a Warm Showers house to stay at so while I was busy making phone calls and writing emails, Mike went out to search for some cardboard to send some stuff home. While out and about he bought a utility knife, which he was waiting until he was alone to buy as we documented every penny we spent and he didn't want to have to make up a bogus reason for his purchase. The knife was then used to carefully carve out the center of the wood piece any chance he got to get away from me. It's not an easy task when you live together in a 5x7 foot tent and though he's talented, he hasn't quite mastered the art of wood carving while cycling, which most days is the only time we get away from each other.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again there was a long span of time where nothing happened, through France, Switzerland and on up to northern Austria. It wasn't until we reached the city of Schladming where we again had a house to stay at for a couple of days and Mike had some time to himself. Bike maintenance in the basement of the apartment was what I was told he was doing, which to a certain extent he was, but he was also sanding. With the sandpaper in our tube patch kit, he was meticulously smoothing down the outer surface of his creation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again there was another big break in the progress until we reached Kallstugan in southern Sweden where we stayed with our friend Gisela for nearly a week. There was a lot of down time while we were there waiting for a package to arrive in the mail. I spent an entire afternoon in town with Gisela which left Mike at home alone, and another afternoon he went “fishing” at a nearby lake. Those 2 large chunks of time were spent putting the final touches on his project. First he had to smooth out the inside surface and make it perfectly round which he did by wrapping a tiny piece of sandpaper around a small stick. Once completed, he had to seal the wood so he coated his work with clear fingernail polish that he had found in a bathroom cupboard at the house we were at. It wasn't the perfect sealant but it was the best he could do at the time. After it dried he set it in our tube patch kit, the only small box we have with us, tucked it in his pocket and waited for the perfect moment.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That moment finally arrived exactly 1,567 miles later. Fast forward to Nordkapp, Norway (The North Cape), the northernmost point in Europe to which you can drive (or ride a bike), the place where we saw the midnight sun. There was actually much more to that story than I originally published on the blog, so here's the remaining part.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was a point along the cliffs at Nordkapp that we noticed right away; it was narrow with enough space for one to stand safely on its point or maybe two if you squeezed, it had beautiful views of the surrounding sunset golden cliffs and the Arctic Ocean far below but the best thing about it was there was no fence like most of the area. It was the place where you could sit on the top of the world with your legs dangling free over the ocean below; the place everyone seemed to be waiting to stand. “That's the perfect spot,” I remember Mike saying, but of course it always seemed to be occupied . We stood along the fenced section of cliffs until finally, shortly before 11pm, it was empty. By that time in the night most of the crowd was gathering around the globe, the iconic spot at Nordkapp where people come from around the world to witness the midnight sun. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I sat down on a small, grassy step, let the setting sunshine warm my face from the crisp Arctic breeze and invited Mike to sit down next to me. But he declined and just stood there, smiling at me from the edge of the cliff with his hands in the pockets of his puffy down jacket and replied, “You've been quoted as having said that you'd never marry a man who wouldn't ride his bike across the U.S. with you.” (Which is true, those words have come from my mouth on many occasions; a small requirement in my opinion). Before he finished his first sentence we were both smiling our biggest smiles and crying our biggest tears as he pulled his hands from his pockets. “Well, I hope I made the cut.” And then he asked me to marry him. No, not down on one knee as he would have tumbled down a cliff, and besides, that's a little too traditional for me anyway. Of course I said YES as he placed the perfectly sized, beautiful, hand carved wooden ring on my finger. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since it came from an Oak tree is southern Spain, we like to say it's made out of “Spanish Oak” just to make it sound fancy and if I hold my hand in front of the sun it has more bling than any ring in the world. It is an invaluable ring that shines as bright as the sun and is made with the most sought after elements in the world, hard work and love. Mike has asked me to marry him about 100 times since that night in July, and every time I say yes. Now that he's said it once he can't seem to stop and he'll likely propose another thousand times or more before we actually get married as it's going to be a while. We still have a whole lot of the world to see from the seat of a bicycle and a wedding can always wait.</span></div>
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Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-73041756401205182792011-10-07T12:48:00.000-07:002011-10-09T07:48:35.466-07:00ADJUSTING<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While we were out on the road, people often told us that some day we'd have to come back to the real world. The thing is, we never left it. Traveling by bicycle is anything but an endless hay-day; we have daily chores to do, finances to budget and balance, days of boredom, days of no motivation and days when we have more to do than is feasibly possible in 24 hours. It was simply a different world and just as it took some time to figure out how to live while in constant motion, it also took a while to adjust back to the lifestyle that we once considered normal.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Things were overwhelming at first and suddenly the quiet, simple existence which we had been living for over a year seemed very far away. The peaceful country roads that we called home were replaced with bustling freeways, honking horns, vehicles everywhere and no escape. The days of solitude where the only people we had to talk to were each other, where we were free to watch the landscape pass by at a snail's pace without ever speaking a word at all while lost in our own thoughts were replaced by people. People everywhere. People wanting to know how our trip was (but I have to ask in return, is anyone able to sum up their last 15 months in a few sentences?) and people wanting to schedule a time to see us. I cannot hold it against them, as I would do the exact same thing if I had a friend who had been away for that long and though it was a bit exhausting, it was wonderful to see our friends again. The nights of drifting off to sleep to the sounds of a rushing river, the wind flapping the fabric of our shelter or the rain pitter-pattering on our tent was replaced by whistling trains, rumbling planes and passing cars. The only familiar sound that carried over was Mike's snoring which is anything but peaceful. The constant commotion and clutter enveloped us the instant we landed in San Francisco and sent me into a desperate desire to become a hermit. I don't think I'd make a very good hermit but during those first few days I wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and return to the quiet, zen-like existence I had come to love.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In retrospect, our first couple of weeks back in the States were really quite comical. Mike's Mom took us to the grocery store to pick out some food we wanted to have at the house. We gathered the items we needed for dinner and were ready to go when Ruth reminded us that we now have a refrigerator, don't have to carry everything on our bikes and could therefore get enough food for a few days rather than a single meal.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On our second day back, Mike and I went out to run some errands and were startled when we could understand what everyone around us was saying. It had been one year since we had been in an English-speaking country and I had grown to love the fact that I couldn't understand what people were saying. It meant that I didn't have to listen to parents pleading with their children to get them to cooperate, teenagers talking about the upcoming weekend's party or people's one-sided conversations on their cell phones because I didn't care, or want to hear, any of it anyway. Everywhere else in the world it was white noise that I could completely tune out, now if I could only figure out how to do that with English. As we approached the checkout counter and, as we have become accustomed to doing every time we wanted to talk to someone, I began saying, “Do you speak English?” before I realized everybody here understands us and we no longer have to preface every conversation with that question.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When we got home, we each dug out a box of our clothes since we left most of what we had with us in a trash can in Denmark. As you've seen in our pictures, we each really only wore one shirt; Mike a bright orange one and me bright pink. While we were shopping we separated to each go grab a few things. I found what I needed and then began looking for Mike. I scanned the entire store for his orange shirt but couldn't spot him anywhere and it wasn't until he was literally a foot in front of my face that I did a double-take and finally recognized him.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Driving was another thing that caught me off guard. I used to be somewhat of a lead-foot but apparently I've turned in to a Granny Driver. While cruising down the freeway feeling like I was moving outrageously fast, I noticed that everyone around me was going considerably faster. I looked down at the speedometer to find that I was only going 50 mph. I guess I've come to love life in the slow lane.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those were just a few of the culture-shock scenarios from our return that made us laugh. Now that we've been home for a month, we finally feel a little less alien and a little more human. We've realized that not a whole lot has changed in our absence; everyone's still over scheduled and works too much, Americans are still powered by obscene amounts of coffee, the newspapers are still full of depressing stories and the pop radio stations still play the same 7 songs over and over all day long, of which we didn't recognize any, but were disgustingly sick of them after a mere 2 hours of listening. As for us, we've once again settled in to the luxuries of sleeping in a bed, showering regularly and wearing clean clothes, though in my opinion, those things aren't all they're hyped up to be. I didn't mind the alternatives and in fact I kind of liked them.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know I haven't updated the blog as often as I said I would but we've actually been quite busy. We seem to have transitioned from bike tourists to home improvement specialists as Mike's repaired his parent's fence and done some major renovations on his family's cabin while I've been working on my parent's property in Minnesota and helping build a shed at their cabin. Between projects Mike's been to Las Vegas for a Bachelor Party and I've been head over heels for my new niece, Amelia, who was born while we were in Europe, the 2 of us already discussing plans for her future as a cyclist as well as her first bike, which she'll likely have before she can walk.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixckSUOwsFl2viwjTSoDO3EQqKYKKoquG9jRygOEAlogSa9vzGgdsHQdksd_bl4Y07C9WBsKXCBEV1s9-j3csq0WY0ekUmtP9y-TK6fjXeeuKrzj1qR6vycUFDzJCG0hlgsFQTBq5KsXsk/s1600/mike+cabin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixckSUOwsFl2viwjTSoDO3EQqKYKKoquG9jRygOEAlogSa9vzGgdsHQdksd_bl4Y07C9WBsKXCBEV1s9-j3csq0WY0ekUmtP9y-TK6fjXeeuKrzj1qR6vycUFDzJCG0hlgsFQTBq5KsXsk/s320/mike+cabin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike's cabin project. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg5-lb9hv9y7wuVqvDU4Z2PFILz0T6mKJd4aeuJM62kkwHoa7m8TzC6kGP9sO3KWHPF4C_4KhG4lqnFRI3YOY4eK4VzUfE_hcF0GiChYV5MgkQeULlkItgzMxNpihyhuOmSpNyEarX8Ka5/s1600/cari+shed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg5-lb9hv9y7wuVqvDU4Z2PFILz0T6mKJd4aeuJM62kkwHoa7m8TzC6kGP9sO3KWHPF4C_4KhG4lqnFRI3YOY4eK4VzUfE_hcF0GiChYV5MgkQeULlkItgzMxNpihyhuOmSpNyEarX8Ka5/s320/cari+shed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari and Merry putting the roof on the shed.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQwgD2zA5PE5j8_XlgJlGH9CfkSSf2x6B61aa3ZqtYXS3_G_r9LN_x1e5dTlnaHdgX1-Zy8awzarFmIMrFMj35oRFO3ecKH7V08Cr00enRRIb37XHv0DkdXpP6Jfi0iplnU7je0qUSkL_R/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQwgD2zA5PE5j8_XlgJlGH9CfkSSf2x6B61aa3ZqtYXS3_G_r9LN_x1e5dTlnaHdgX1-Zy8awzarFmIMrFMj35oRFO3ecKH7V08Cr00enRRIb37XHv0DkdXpP6Jfi0iplnU7je0qUSkL_R/s320/A.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Amelia</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-67896488695506044312011-09-10T00:10:00.000-07:002011-09-10T09:26:04.727-07:00DEFEATED IN DENMARK<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived in Denmark feeling strong after having ridden for several weeks in the mountains of southern Norway, and the fact that Denmark is completely flat only made us feel that much stronger. Sadly, the rain that we had experienced in Norway continued right into Denmark but it's much easier to deal with when the terrain is flat. You don't have to decide between not wearing a jacket on the climbs and getting drenched by the rain or wearing one, overheating and getting drenched by sweat. Nor do you have to deal with freezing on the descents and having the rain drops pelt you so hard in the face you have to squint to the point where you're essentially riding with your eyes closed, following the white lines on the side of the road through eyelash covered slits.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Riding in Denmark was a completely different experience from Norway. The terrain was flat instead of mountainous, the architecture of the houses was primarily brick instead of wood and the land was covered with corn and wheat fields rather than forests, raging rivers and fjords. Aside from having to deal with the rain, cycling there wasn't all that difficult and we put in big miles our first 2 days, eager to arrive to the house of the family of a guy, Mads, we met in northern Norway and get out of the rain.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, Mads wasn't at home as he had already left for University, but his family in Houstrup was more than welcoming towards a couple of disgustingly dirty cyclists. The first 2 days at their house were great. We enjoyed late night drives through the nearby forest to look for Red Deer, afternoon tours of the surrounding areas with a lot of history about the landscapes, people and wildlife of this region and delicious cakes baked almost daily by Mads' brother, Frederik. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdPapjsnjT93vbOwQzTa8wOYJxsPeABM_0KqnHnsgxEjEIYSRzqkK8aTuzvy1Rcjp1A2kZ4gii9gPwsGwQ_Llbaepot6AycCAz48M-s66srkp2sb2JZdM0M_sdFcbAcH5Xr0GFvOeWl973/s1600/fishing+hut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdPapjsnjT93vbOwQzTa8wOYJxsPeABM_0KqnHnsgxEjEIYSRzqkK8aTuzvy1Rcjp1A2kZ4gii9gPwsGwQ_Llbaepot6AycCAz48M-s66srkp2sb2JZdM0M_sdFcbAcH5Xr0GFvOeWl973/s320/fishing+hut.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike and Frederik next to an old fishing hut.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxaALJ5KEn_D7uyOt0t_dNhvAYcHADvVteH0fhloXglUkMy8d2GUiKTwBwygqvaKkEhSolrmqMCoLwEIDQK2a7otPQrpmDqOJwZ1DiRXUWg58dVXYRS_Q5pbLIJ5ysYOWI_Poc0-DPJxb/s1600/frederik+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxaALJ5KEn_D7uyOt0t_dNhvAYcHADvVteH0fhloXglUkMy8d2GUiKTwBwygqvaKkEhSolrmqMCoLwEIDQK2a7otPQrpmDqOJwZ1DiRXUWg58dVXYRS_Q5pbLIJ5ysYOWI_Poc0-DPJxb/s320/frederik+cake.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Frederik and one of his delicious Banana Cakes.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Monday we had the option to either continue cycling in the rain with a 30 mph headwind or drive across Denmark to Copenhagen to drop off Christoffer, one of the sons, at college, spend a day in the city and then resume riding in a couple of days after the weather improved. We opted to go to Copenhagen as we were completely fed up with the rain, but on the way we ran into trouble. Mike's legs suddenly began to cramp, a phenomenon that had happened twice on this trip already, both times in the U.S. after we had taken 2 or 3 days off of cycling. The fact that he never had any troubles during any of our extended stops in either South America or Europe had us believing that whatever nutritional imbalance, muscular imbalance or other issue had caused it had worked itself out. Apparently we were wrong.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What we had hoped would be a relaxing day of walking around Copenhagen ended up being a slow and painful hobble with frequent stops to stretch and try to get his quads to relax, but nothing seemed to work. We returned to Houstrup on Tuesday evening, gave Mike a muscle relaxer which he'd gotten a prescription for in the U.S. after this happened the second time, and packed up our stuff with every intention of leaving the next morning. Well, it turned out that the pills did absolutely nothing for him and being unable to walk normally meant that pedaling a 100-pound bicycle was completely out of the question.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP36K0XpjBYumlsGilZ-6w0JDRBsL_QIADxx5aLECLf_sfO1cPJu4uvTPYKepQoVM9Jdx0yveX2Ly3hkKsZGAwqUU9SLs8n7vPRkuUgMTZVoDVuDM4Ro9cChOwTIXn9A6Wxo9kwl7pmUp7/s1600/copenhagen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP36K0XpjBYumlsGilZ-6w0JDRBsL_QIADxx5aLECLf_sfO1cPJu4uvTPYKepQoVM9Jdx0yveX2Ly3hkKsZGAwqUU9SLs8n7vPRkuUgMTZVoDVuDM4Ro9cChOwTIXn9A6Wxo9kwl7pmUp7/s320/copenhagen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Changing of the guards in Copenhagen.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw9VcIsPX8UHo6zJVm9nBmpVFMRM_FXYvCr0lqGqPs_OEiNt1GsS3InC2wlhc5csb7omO-FK0wXHScOiytaT1EB1lGvDFZctlQCSdv4Vd_cIOvzI9239uvuHlF4yFsVegrGhvqPtghNmdt/s1600/mermaid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw9VcIsPX8UHo6zJVm9nBmpVFMRM_FXYvCr0lqGqPs_OEiNt1GsS3InC2wlhc5csb7omO-FK0wXHScOiytaT1EB1lGvDFZctlQCSdv4Vd_cIOvzI9239uvuHlF4yFsVegrGhvqPtghNmdt/s320/mermaid.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I went into the house and explained our situation to Niels and Lotte. I was upset and worried that we would have to overstay our welcome; these people, afterall, had only met us 3 days earlier and had agreed to let us stay for a night or two, not to have us move in with them. We loved this family from the time we met them; they were kind and fun to be around and without a moment's thought they told us we were welcome to stay for as long as we needed, pointing out that at least this happened while we were there, at a house with a comfortable bed to sleep in, rather than in the middle of the forest. We had to agree with them and guessed that it would be another day or 2 more until Mike was able to ride again given that the other bouts of cramps lasted a total of 4 or 5 days. That turned out not to be the case this time. Every couple of days it seemed as though he was improving so he'd try to walk down the stairs or pedal down the driveway, but both scenarios only left him with completely seized up muscles again. After a week of being crippled and loitering around Niels and Lotte's house in bad spirits we had reached our wits' ends. Our original plan had been to fly out of Germany at the end of September after cycling through Holland and Belgium but time was a-wasting and if we didn't get moving soon we'd be forced to make a bee line to Dusseldorf to catch our plane. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiQW2HYYSZD6KsDVCOVFdQAugM6e5EslpUFokzG5nGEXjtDonZcM4H_Otbm7l32p2I-3OLc_mds71etlXEjnGwvY6ckfn5c0Pm_c5fdo5qykLewu9l5183waLLBoNX2UQxppr00h55D5vj/s1600/mike+lunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiQW2HYYSZD6KsDVCOVFdQAugM6e5EslpUFokzG5nGEXjtDonZcM4H_Otbm7l32p2I-3OLc_mds71etlXEjnGwvY6ckfn5c0Pm_c5fdo5qykLewu9l5183waLLBoNX2UQxppr00h55D5vj/s320/mike+lunch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lotte and I made Mike lunch in bed.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Saturday morning we made the difficult decision to throw in the towel. I hate quitting, feeling defeated, not finishing what I set out to do and I know Mike hates it too, but sometimes you simply don't have alternative options. We never expected our European tour to end like this; it was horribly anti-climactic, but this was the ending that we got. I spent the day on the phone changing our flight dates and locations while Niels worked out which trains we would have to take to get us to Hamburg, Germany, which was now where we'd be flying from. We said our sad good-byes to all of our gear that was completely worn out, unrepairable and would not be making the trip back to the U.S. with us as there was no way it would hold out for another tour. The list included 2 helmets, 1 pair of cycling shoes, 1 pair of shoe insoles, 4 pairs of nylon thickness see-through cycling shorts, 1 pair of knee warmers, 1 t-shirt, 2 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of socks, 3 water bottles, 3 water bottle holders, 1 emergency/too many bugs pee bucket, 1 frying pan, 1 cutting board, 1 stove burner, 2 pens, 2 buttons, 1 fingernail clipper that no longer cut nails, only ripped them and 4 zip-lock bags that have torn and been taped multiple times but I'm thrilled to say have lasted and been used every day since we left California in June of 2010. Not listed here or pictured below are all of the bike parts that no longer work, which included pretty much everything on a bike that moves but we took those things home with us as we have plans to use them for other projects some day in the future.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIICkQu-jVuR1z-wciCfrTvd0Ii5qrPAta7UxTc-cRx0nRTQaXElq1m_z8Qb4ObFzdJ_g4UmxyrjJ_61BQhGr0eqUUR1hqXvryxZlnIWsZahXKwsrfULIzwRWUVawzuhuLf8iy5Cvm8hj/s1600/gear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIICkQu-jVuR1z-wciCfrTvd0Ii5qrPAta7UxTc-cRx0nRTQaXElq1m_z8Qb4ObFzdJ_g4UmxyrjJ_61BQhGr0eqUUR1hqXvryxZlnIWsZahXKwsrfULIzwRWUVawzuhuLf8iy5Cvm8hj/s320/gear.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All of our old gear that got left behind.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We left Niels and Lotte's house Sunday morning and spent the day riding the rails, lugging our bikes and gear onto and off of 6 trains over the course of 8 hours. It was an exhausting day but we were fortunate to meet 2 friendly people, Simon and Luisa, from Hamburg and were invited to stay at Luisa's flat until our flight on Tuesday morning. Monday was spent packing and while Mike stayed at the apartment and disassembled our bikes I was out in the city hunting down bike boxes and necessary packing supplies. It was another long and busy day but by 7pm we were completely packed and ready for the next morning.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-NeXsm3-y3HGGLbLfpbgz6eFWdag5jvwqlZWKaRyaHMvlZ6D2r6b6CqMS151PSwUm_JFqy_PGQMGJUztR3nH5582D2z8plbfhR5Tp08-IhRQm2pbyaQgXzfprioL-cGSbabyCx04wgXL/s1600/family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-NeXsm3-y3HGGLbLfpbgz6eFWdag5jvwqlZWKaRyaHMvlZ6D2r6b6CqMS151PSwUm_JFqy_PGQMGJUztR3nH5582D2z8plbfhR5Tp08-IhRQm2pbyaQgXzfprioL-cGSbabyCx04wgXL/s320/family.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lotte, Frederik, Niels, Mike and Cari.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are exceptionally grateful towards Niels, Lotte and their 3 sons, Christoffer, Mads and Frederik in Denmark and Simon, Luisa and her flatmate Anne in Germany for helping us out during our final 10 days in Europe. Neither of us were in the best of moods during our stays but thanks to all of your kindness, understading, hospitality and friendship, you made it much less painful and stressful than it would have been. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So here we are, back in California 2 weeks earlier than we had planned. Though I'm sad we had to cancel the last 3 weeks of our trip and missed out on cycling through northwest Germany, Holland and Belgium, the last thing we can be is upset. We did, afterall, spend nearly 6 months in Europe and pedaled just under 7,500 miles through 12 of its countries; it was quite an impressive ride if I do say so myself and there's no doubt that someday we'll return for another tour through all of the countries we missed this time around.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm sure many of you are wondering what will come next and the answer is we're not quite sure yet. First and foremost we have to figure out what's going on with Mike's muscles. Two straight weeks of debilitating cramps cannot be normal; perhaps it was just his body's way of telling him that he needed to take a little break for a while. And we will listen as we've learned over the years that the body will always overpower the mind no matter how hard you try. So after 15 amazing months on the road the time has come for a brief intermission. We have decided that we'll remain in the U.S. through the holidays calling the next few months “an intermission to repair our bikes, earn some more traveling money, get healthy again and enjoy time spent with all of our very-much-missed families and friends.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is not the end of Life On A Bike; our hearts are not yet ready to quit this adventure and an injury is certainly no way to finish the story. The current plan is to resume riding shortly after Christmas but in the meantime I'll continue to write regularly as we figure out where in the world we'll be heading next, how Mike's legs progress and whatever else I feel moved to write about. Stay tuned.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-53421062113874054332011-08-29T00:24:00.000-07:002011-08-29T00:24:28.074-07:00KONSMO<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On November 16, 1943 an event during WWII forever linked Mike's family to the tiny town of Konsmo in the hills of southern Norway. On that day the B-17 Bomber his Grandfather was piloting was shot down by the Germans and crashed into the hills but all 9 members of the crew managed to safely parachute to the ground. When we began our bike trip in Europe we had no idea we'd be cycling right through that exact area or meet some of the people who witnessed that event, but due to Mike's Mom's interest in uncovering the details of that day as well as a very enthusiastic group of historians in Konsmo, we were treated to 2 days of a very thorough and personal history lesson.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though pieces of the story still remain in question, and perhaps forever will, as many of the characters involved have already passed away, the vast majority of it is certain and it was a unique and interesting experience to learn a bit of history from first hand sources. Along with Jorunn, Tom and Liv who hosted us while we were in Konsmo, we met 10 others from the historical group. Every one of them had their manilla folder full of newspaper clippings, photos, pamphlets and books that they've written about the event, eager to share with us their piece of the story. Whether it was that they saw the plane or the parachutes falling from the sky, had visited the plane in the days following the crash, helped to hide some of the Americans from the Germans or had pieces of the plane, they were fanatics about the event and wanted to tell and show us everything.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJp_y6V19Rd0WZztlyXLo_ezv1oRXf-_BhRoRrXaN5dk2Om2p5r_8Csb524RecPWXnSp9RpTYmI54ntutfNgnZJHZmgKcHjffn0omlheiLt7FplNMyMG-RyFVQXrebORUcvaPeTQ0EV_yJ/s1600/group.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJp_y6V19Rd0WZztlyXLo_ezv1oRXf-_BhRoRrXaN5dk2Om2p5r_8Csb524RecPWXnSp9RpTYmI54ntutfNgnZJHZmgKcHjffn0omlheiLt7FplNMyMG-RyFVQXrebORUcvaPeTQ0EV_yJ/s320/group.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of the group that went to the crash site.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I must say, it was quite exhausting, but interesting nonetheless. We were driven around and shown the approximate locations where each of the members landed, the houses of the Norwegians who took them in and fed them and the barns or sheds in which they were hidden. We got to see, touch and unfold a parachute that one of the crew members used to jump from the plane along with the pack and harness made of heavy canvass. We got to see the door from the plane, a piece of the wing, the compass and pistol from one of the Americans and many other miscellaneous parts that were pulled from the wreckage. We visited the place where the plane landed and though it happened nearly 70 years ago and the forest has covered up most of the wreckage that remained after people took everything they wanted or needed during the war, in the short period of time we spent at the site, we were still able to dig up a fair amount of small pieces from the plane.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDK20jMOFN3qHp-Ac-xawLBROKFW0nLrsc2pA9jzbRt0p701ZCi6GjD0alYmNnpkBLpWgbeMSyAe4t9ADlbl5pzPnh5HpcBm8-GMCDcNoui1xp5-f1PM3bFVPttWjWodNPMJZVm1e7jna6/s1600/shed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDK20jMOFN3qHp-Ac-xawLBROKFW0nLrsc2pA9jzbRt0p701ZCi6GjD0alYmNnpkBLpWgbeMSyAe4t9ADlbl5pzPnh5HpcBm8-GMCDcNoui1xp5-f1PM3bFVPttWjWodNPMJZVm1e7jna6/s320/shed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A shed where 4 Americans were hidden.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiE0zrLDgKMnzTaI0a-XVAu5sPKOrEENbg4Id0O31ornFYPPd9ocsKFsPHRe24FleBcxPrDsYDGkJ8AIqnXofNhXHlGKKLSMABHNrSnYESChqO0QPgZ_7dC8SuF5nsGWceZUnIasKpPHq/s1600/parachute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiE0zrLDgKMnzTaI0a-XVAu5sPKOrEENbg4Id0O31ornFYPPd9ocsKFsPHRe24FleBcxPrDsYDGkJ8AIqnXofNhXHlGKKLSMABHNrSnYESChqO0QPgZ_7dC8SuF5nsGWceZUnIasKpPHq/s320/parachute.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The parachute.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58YP0bwmzrLF6GZ28a6LdO68WUaLZgICKfpX_Ajwo4kD35iLWcqdIPgCK5quGRc8ubNhqnigL5hrq9N2PXnld-Xnf6VGaFHTVelELa1kPMTsgpYYYHsnAzXbHf-x6EfJbxF_DIZclmHav/s1600/door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58YP0bwmzrLF6GZ28a6LdO68WUaLZgICKfpX_Ajwo4kD35iLWcqdIPgCK5quGRc8ubNhqnigL5hrq9N2PXnld-Xnf6VGaFHTVelELa1kPMTsgpYYYHsnAzXbHf-x6EfJbxF_DIZclmHav/s320/door.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The door of the plane.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57J1NWgEJJJCsIZZU5k2Pm5LJ-L4aQ68I3TJWuqE_DU5Wk4zphqdvHoYAh2rHHdgdfpZxb7U8DwRW6a0OitrvqWjGVskQdebg0lFanbeQczbYF5phZZ2M-bNEDSX1NwZ9vFP1vehE6M2A/s1600/wing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57J1NWgEJJJCsIZZU5k2Pm5LJ-L4aQ68I3TJWuqE_DU5Wk4zphqdvHoYAh2rHHdgdfpZxb7U8DwRW6a0OitrvqWjGVskQdebg0lFanbeQczbYF5phZZ2M-bNEDSX1NwZ9vFP1vehE6M2A/s320/wing.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A part of a wing.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDm6aIlylyxPAP8K9YDpUwpvgQYf96vY7RuZDffgxFOOICn6fM9Vp1VIYyFlHs1fXSz4HQ25yI74zeVk_QmSTHDlwn6P6vGX4S_UrV_Qx4MMrbqPT4lPjmnmnGymHt_EOwYcM0agrkkbZM/s1600/compass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDm6aIlylyxPAP8K9YDpUwpvgQYf96vY7RuZDffgxFOOICn6fM9Vp1VIYyFlHs1fXSz4HQ25yI74zeVk_QmSTHDlwn6P6vGX4S_UrV_Qx4MMrbqPT4lPjmnmnGymHt_EOwYcM0agrkkbZM/s320/compass.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The compass of one of the crew members.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJEUKYYqFybYcaAE86wtsYdVD-FAReGBdDdxyZ25ulf1oc34JmlvvOR9JFdknSE2kwUeMSBxgCayWr5-UP409OH3JFNU3xkTPJztpMyqCCMIlmMUJu4er3ZBRfULb6gC27n3NpdRCXQGg/s1600/rubble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJEUKYYqFybYcaAE86wtsYdVD-FAReGBdDdxyZ25ulf1oc34JmlvvOR9JFdknSE2kwUeMSBxgCayWr5-UP409OH3JFNU3xkTPJztpMyqCCMIlmMUJu4er3ZBRfULb6gC27n3NpdRCXQGg/s320/rubble.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A pile of rubble we found at the crash site.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Norway was extremely poor and it was difficult for civilians to obtain everyday materials during the war, which made pieces salvaged from the plane wreck very valuable. Bullet casings, bolts and other small pieces were used for such purposes as coat hooks, the bullet-proof seat backing was used as a well cover (and is still in use today), parts of the plane's exterior were used as building materials, the chords from the parachutes were unwoven and used as thread for sewing clothes and one parachute itself was used to make a gown and shirt for a 1944 wedding. I actually got to put on the wedding dress while Jorunn made me a little bouquet of flowers from the back yard and gave me a pair of shoes to wear and had we agreed, this excited group of folks would have liked for me and Mike to get married right then and there.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgO4P_aluBr3DEHb5kvOakP8rzmNdGmBbD11K0G8aD0RMlD-pny-m7pnuLQIdGzuR-HepOdF16PFfdHbQsmyYG3O9ZJqKSQzGwKEnO_CwWemW0vuWVmbvFzNgjE0X3NiEVGtsRQo_eW6-/s1600/dress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgO4P_aluBr3DEHb5kvOakP8rzmNdGmBbD11K0G8aD0RMlD-pny-m7pnuLQIdGzuR-HepOdF16PFfdHbQsmyYG3O9ZJqKSQzGwKEnO_CwWemW0vuWVmbvFzNgjE0X3NiEVGtsRQo_eW6-/s320/dress.jpg" width="147" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari in the 1944 wedding dress.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike's Grandfather was 28 while he was serving in WWII, the same age as Mike is now, and it was a little ironic that they were in the same place on the globe, though in entirely different circumstances, 70 years apart. Though Mike never got to meet him, seeing these places and hearing the stories from that event somehow made us both feel like we knew him, at least a little bit. Many thanks to Jorunn, Tom, Liv and all of the rest of the people in Konsmo who shared their bits of information with us, allowing us to piece together a very special story.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-16095713706298677062011-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:002011-08-22T15:04:56.081-07:00OH NORWAY<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike and I have a serious love-hate relationship with Norway. The cost of traveling here and the rotten weather have beaten us down and we can't wait to get to Denmark where hopefully it will be a bit more pleasant. I know we shouldn't judge a country by its weather but it's hard not to; it's been cold and rainy every day since the last post, mostly a constant rain throughout the entire day, though once in a while it stops for a few hours and if we're lucky the sun even peaks out from behind the clouds for a few minutes before the next rain shower begins. We have become thankful for tunnels, which we once hated, simply because it means we get a break from the rain for a few minutes. We've discovered that they make a great place to eat lunch; though they're not any warmer than the bitter temperatures outside and they're not very peaceful with traffic roaring past, at least we're out of the rain which has lately been our number one priority. Everyone tells us that this has been an unusually cold and wet summer; how could we be so lucky to have chosen this year to cycle here?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOBSrvLb_NVWiwe5acrUAqBUOi6mVLUf1kPouP-5QOYGiyjazeAKn8wBWQ6R1va7Go9NY53KZPMxb-K3VVtFsA6TEddbLVUw92EN1liCgxLS649TUwu9kpWBvq7RHOx_ngCHwtcng3fPz/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOBSrvLb_NVWiwe5acrUAqBUOi6mVLUf1kPouP-5QOYGiyjazeAKn8wBWQ6R1va7Go9NY53KZPMxb-K3VVtFsA6TEddbLVUw92EN1liCgxLS649TUwu9kpWBvq7RHOx_ngCHwtcng3fPz/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The sun peaking through for a moment.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2OanIC2UX5zFRK16k5QT4sXb7KKqEb0vrw_M_oe8JveaImjwLSeasQYiZ1Few_W-vVw_wpZ6Eu0CVGSWmdxC7tvyW1IF-JCzHtIH_EIssfm8RotWO7LE56dwQDLcvb11k_9THdMyIm-u/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2OanIC2UX5zFRK16k5QT4sXb7KKqEb0vrw_M_oe8JveaImjwLSeasQYiZ1Few_W-vVw_wpZ6Eu0CVGSWmdxC7tvyW1IF-JCzHtIH_EIssfm8RotWO7LE56dwQDLcvb11k_9THdMyIm-u/s320/13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike having lunch in a tunnel.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though we find ourselves cursing this place almost daily for one reason or another, wishing we were back home in a warm, comfortable house or dreaming of hot tropical beaches, which neither of us really enjoy, both of us agree that Norway has been one of the most impressive countries, in terms of scenery, that we've visited on this trip. The northern part of the country was spectacular with its dramatic and varying landscapes but the southern portion, from Trondheim south, has simply blown us away, even with the crummy weather. I can only imagine how great it would be if the sky was always blue.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Southern Norway is fjords and mountains, not little ocean inlets and rolling hills but giant fjords that can stretch inland for over 100 miles and mountains that explode straight up from the dark turquoise waters. They are not extremely high mountains, with their passes reaching only 3,000 – 5,000 feet, but the fact that they start from sea level gives them a vertical relief that is truly impressive. This terrain makes for difficult cycling as we spend 2-3 hours climbing from sea level, over a wet and foggy mountain pass, then it's a freezing yet exciting and fast 45-minute drop back down to the next fjord only to do it all again. With terrain like this, you find some insanely massive cliffs, some of the biggest in the world, and equally impressive roads that switchback right up the side of them, many of which we've thoroughly enjoyed riding. I can't imagine how much fun the engineers had who got to design these roads, as literally you come to a vertical wall and just when you think there's no way to get over it, you see the road cut steeply into the cliff's side thousands of feet above and the vehicles making their way up or down the mountain looking like ants in an ant farm. It seems impossible when you look up from the bottom of the mountain, but a few hours later we always arrive to the top. From there we stand on the edge of these cliffs looking down to the water where the enormous cruise and ferry boats look like miniature toys and it takes a minute before we realize those barely visible yellow lines in the water are actually dozens of kayakers taking in the amazing scenery from far below. It quickly became obvious to us why this region of the wold is so famous for base jumping. The sheer cliffs beg to be jumped from, inviting you to fly and if I had a parachute I'd probably jump too. We partly expected, or maybe just hoped, that we'd see a person go buzzing through the sky in a jump suit, but sadly we didn't. Maybe on our next trip to Norway.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju98W4vUm6JF1-5RXv2O9IQA3Nw9tX8PXKjVeuLVNryMfbI5NoWdjoZfewG56-5NpHbSlahAu_mSaHRtmrrXaPA6cQQ7seuB5gAr-ER3hIjdYrDQmlonlSuf9WegelZFLU46YJTeXbEfgy/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju98W4vUm6JF1-5RXv2O9IQA3Nw9tX8PXKjVeuLVNryMfbI5NoWdjoZfewG56-5NpHbSlahAu_mSaHRtmrrXaPA6cQQ7seuB5gAr-ER3hIjdYrDQmlonlSuf9WegelZFLU46YJTeXbEfgy/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Trollstigen - one crazy road. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6WBnYfcEGIgb5yXevVxd-r_dzsx7zHqh8Y_SzCYROnZWjc-_jbCIN3hQ_yp3Gg-u3wP5B2sq-3rs8WHbosCqDespbtpSUmctzcQunfvGxZjYzKN1703QuB9stOLiRI_jcraTzRBhyWHz/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6WBnYfcEGIgb5yXevVxd-r_dzsx7zHqh8Y_SzCYROnZWjc-_jbCIN3hQ_yp3Gg-u3wP5B2sq-3rs8WHbosCqDespbtpSUmctzcQunfvGxZjYzKN1703QuB9stOLiRI_jcraTzRBhyWHz/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Looking down on a fjord...can you see the kayaks?</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVl8N22wtx1eqnZkr3IELEf5F8w8SHgd5aGTBSfAzsaUq1jt1Owp_t6evpx0dgSW2GI8x78NzZ3eh5M-y9mQxQdwQzJRg16UZbJ7xgSqU4Phtjm2D5muzij3xG-eYew0rOVOI7sYhpY6cT/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVl8N22wtx1eqnZkr3IELEf5F8w8SHgd5aGTBSfAzsaUq1jt1Owp_t6evpx0dgSW2GI8x78NzZ3eh5M-y9mQxQdwQzJRg16UZbJ7xgSqU4Phtjm2D5muzij3xG-eYew0rOVOI7sYhpY6cT/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We descended down that switchback road in the distance...and then we had to climb right back up the other side. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis_QgutcnOlBq0G_rVWMk0zJtXch6no21oeXzWDspci131qLpbgE38wu-9EibrafDmg2XDaI1m4c35Gwsfzqjy-psiULqoKV0Ui051JFRlJs6TdJucTU1hwqfaTCYOxfQk7sMSnW_GDmuU/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis_QgutcnOlBq0G_rVWMk0zJtXch6no21oeXzWDspci131qLpbgE38wu-9EibrafDmg2XDaI1m4c35Gwsfzqjy-psiULqoKV0Ui051JFRlJs6TdJucTU1hwqfaTCYOxfQk7sMSnW_GDmuU/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once we descend from the mountain passes, we get to take in the scenery from another angle, which is equally beautiful. From high above waterfalls come crashing down from what seems like the clouds as their origins are frequently hidden in the fog; the brilliant white water a beautiful contrast to the charcoal gray and black streaked rocks over which they fall. Looking towards the ocean from the head of the fjords, the mountains begin as midnight blue with each successive one turning a lighter shade of blue until they eventually fade into the same depressing gray as the sky and altogether disappear from sight. Even through the fog and rain this place is beautiful.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GoYeurFrBT9oTGDke1EkSL22rcuGjfDaFa-B9uu2KHOZTHJAzbUD_cuHZzw2MTB1CZst4eG7Sf-fAfYxO0GIzJPmkH2_Xf5vgq6KAEB9aoAdTPt6YLqw_BdzIGwD4CxSHEboMRlUWwd0/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GoYeurFrBT9oTGDke1EkSL22rcuGjfDaFa-B9uu2KHOZTHJAzbUD_cuHZzw2MTB1CZst4eG7Sf-fAfYxO0GIzJPmkH2_Xf5vgq6KAEB9aoAdTPt6YLqw_BdzIGwD4CxSHEboMRlUWwd0/s320/11.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of many waterfalls.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4ivyy5D4vTZLlLPKHh_97Xyt0XsR6xzpAU-pm2ifPYhFEQY-2YgZFtYo_-xKgySDFuImepZ8O51cByqBdqx3UzQB3ObnclbUrcwjJfY0L2CEHtZxs-oribmlOKZA_n4dGmVJkTta4OFs/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4ivyy5D4vTZLlLPKHh_97Xyt0XsR6xzpAU-pm2ifPYhFEQY-2YgZFtYo_-xKgySDFuImepZ8O51cByqBdqx3UzQB3ObnclbUrcwjJfY0L2CEHtZxs-oribmlOKZA_n4dGmVJkTta4OFs/s320/12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The wet weather makes camping rather miserable so we've had some interesting housing experiences over the past 2 weeks. Once evening, after we had been warned multiple times that day that the following day was going to be horrendous rain, we decided we HAD to find shelter for the night just in case we had to hunger down for a day. We didn't have to search very long before we came across an old abandoned shed along the side of the highway. It appeared to be an old structure that was once used for drying firewood as there was scrap wood strewn throughout the place. The shed was far from waterproof with holes in the roof and no walls but there were plenty of supplies laying around, including wood, cinder blocks, bricks and scrap pieces of tarp, so we went to work creating ourselves a home. Once completed we had a solid floor to set our tent on, a fireplace, table, benches, a more or less waterproof roof and walls to block the wind and rain. Though we couldn't exactly stand up straight when we were inside, it was quite a cozy, yet sometimes smokey house and even though the storm didn't hit with quite the fury we expected, we opted to stay a day in our for just because we put so much effort into it and it was so cute. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4wpFxEs1P7f4MqXWxPoI60F0jGELJpBrTFzaaEWFB3EtAyboVgAGIxrmrqcYHJ4WHUE4P88WhGQYv-esc0QKHi1hiFvJllni2Noys76UDdF6ak-HCNTCzjcltsJGO4c36GNwysOU2m1q/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4wpFxEs1P7f4MqXWxPoI60F0jGELJpBrTFzaaEWFB3EtAyboVgAGIxrmrqcYHJ4WHUE4P88WhGQYv-esc0QKHi1hiFvJllni2Noys76UDdF6ak-HCNTCzjcltsJGO4c36GNwysOU2m1q/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The shed as we found it.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcvk9-wK8nraZI2rTI4TdBZQkxzfTjO6x4RxqHFvp2DMYeSA4-ZhHHzFlrXxqF1TGFWONYy80Tmj4IRI38TQbQWTYq8AwUtA4GKzv8VgiTjR5znyQK4k9ODaXq9IHwgGrjnkCcTHnoSn9/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcvk9-wK8nraZI2rTI4TdBZQkxzfTjO6x4RxqHFvp2DMYeSA4-ZhHHzFlrXxqF1TGFWONYy80Tmj4IRI38TQbQWTYq8AwUtA4GKzv8VgiTjR5znyQK4k9ODaXq9IHwgGrjnkCcTHnoSn9/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The finished product.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9lOyf9W7ukscPzEMer-XLpG-NLVzqmP9kTl8E3wGhEiDNgy31fKdzAlgK0WwpxMY27FHvBNLRfMdgzskB5ldjS_PJXUBUyeqleKbgos5v18nd22Gh2GbL05X_3O4poxx4SanWPkCmdnUd/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9lOyf9W7ukscPzEMer-XLpG-NLVzqmP9kTl8E3wGhEiDNgy31fKdzAlgK0WwpxMY27FHvBNLRfMdgzskB5ldjS_PJXUBUyeqleKbgos5v18nd22Gh2GbL05X_3O4poxx4SanWPkCmdnUd/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari inside the fort.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Four days later we had a roof over our heads once again. After a day in the rain we stopped at a house to ask for water before we set up camp. The person who lived there was an old man who didn't speak any English but as he was filling our bottles a big red van pulled up. A guy hopped out with a 6-pack of beer for the old man and we got to chatting with him. Within the first 2 minutes of meeting him, we were invited to stay at his house for the night. “It's a huge old house with only me and hired hand living there. There's plenty of space for you, you can have a hot shower and dry out. It's about 3 Km in the wrong direction, but you're more than welcome.” We couldn't believe our ears. We always dream of something like this happening on days like this and it took us about a half a moment to take him up on his offer.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oddmand and his hired help, Sergej, were absolutely wonderful. We got hot showers, comfortable beds to sleep in, our clothes were able to dry overnight, they fed us, we enjoyed our first beers and ice creams in nearly a month and we got to try, for the first time in our lives, fresh milk straight from Oddmand's cows. I was more than a bit skeptical as I don't really like to drink plain milk but it turned out to be amazingly delicious to the point where I even suggested to Mike that we buy a cow someday. He quickly shot down my idea but perhaps I'll try again in a few years. Oddmand was delighted to take us on a tour of his old house and the smoke shed, tell stories about his family members who immigrated to America and settled in Minnesota, especially after he found out that's where I grew up, and teach us about his farm which was build by his Grandfather in the early 1800s. This was our first time staying at an old Norwegian homestead and the similarities between there and Minnesota were amazing. The way people talk, the style of homes, the way of life; it was obvious that much of the Midwest region of the U.S. was influenced by settlers who arrived from Scandinavia long ago; and I felt right at home.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4B4X-AWLgF_8t-KfDfDfB7CV1_Whnas9Wd41_DzK8n3Gq0quoPm1P5X2tC3YI7iMV_UfaxsCF8pAxay1Rqgsc4qFb6-xUXYElw0DdcvvP59_XP8R7Cy7t-YpOt58IsZ8F3Dw6MtsyaOk6/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4B4X-AWLgF_8t-KfDfDfB7CV1_Whnas9Wd41_DzK8n3Gq0quoPm1P5X2tC3YI7iMV_UfaxsCF8pAxay1Rqgsc4qFb6-xUXYElw0DdcvvP59_XP8R7Cy7t-YpOt58IsZ8F3Dw6MtsyaOk6/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari, Oddmand, Sergej and Mike</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-50898379628943030362011-08-16T07:12:00.000-07:002011-08-16T07:12:11.006-07:00TOO MUCH RAIN, DYING BIKES AND LOTS OF FREE COKE<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why is it that when you really want good weather you don't get it and when you really don't care if it's cold and rainy because you don't have to be outside all day, it ends up being warm and sunny? The entire time we were hitchhiking, it was hot outside, the skies were clear and we were spending our days sitting in camper vans. As soon as we took off riding again the rain began and it doesn't seem to want to stop. Thankfully it hasn't rained every day for the past 2 weeks or we probably would have hitchhiked our way all the way out of Norway. There is nothing more uncomfortable while bike touring than consecutive rainy days. Give us extreme temperatures, wind, bugs, grueling mountain passes, no showers for weeks, anything, but please don't give us constant rain day after day. Not only is it boring to spend all day staring at the white lines painted on the roads and the water spraying off the front tire because you can't see the scenery, but it's also miserable knowing you don't have a warm, dry place to go home to when the ride's over.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One day of rain is okay because even though everything you're wearing gets dirty and soaked, if the next day is dry, we are able to wash our stuff at gas stations or in a river and let it dry on the backs of our bikes while we ride. It's a different story when it rains for days. Everything is muddy and wet, even on the insides of our waterproof panniers. We set up our tent only to find the inside floor is one giant puddle from being on the bike all day. Our sleeping pads are wet because the waterproof bag they're stored in is no longer even the slightest big water resistant. Once we get set up and into our sopping wet house, there's no relaxing. Instead we spend the entire night boiling water for hot water bottles to wrap our wet shorts around, a desperate attempt to dry them out a bit before putting them on in the morning. It usually doesn't do much good and we end up slipping into freezing cold, wet clothes and shoes that squirt water with every step.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After a while the rain gets to you. It simply breaks your soul. The last thing in the world you want to do is get out of your sleeping bag and go back outside. There is no motivation whatsoever. One day last week we stayed in bed until 2:00, grumbling and groaning about the weather for a few minutes before rolling over and dozing back off to sleep. Three o'clock rolled around and we realized we didn't have enough food or fuel to get us through the night so we packed up and ventured out. A few hours into a ride we were both hating, the rain slowed and we were debating whether to set up camp or keep on going. I made the call that if it started to rain hard again, if we found shelter or if it got to be 8:30 we would stop, whichever of those things came first.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At 8:30 on the nose it began to rain so we turned down the first gravel road we found. No more than 50 meters down the road we spotted a hunter's hut which are typically nothing more than a little perch with a roof, no walls and only big enough to fit a single chair. I climbed up the 10-foot old metal ladder that leaned heavily to one side to take a look. There were walls, a sturdy floor, a seamless roof and chairs. We found our home for the night and suddenly the day of riding in the rain didn't seem so bad after all. We hung a clothesline along 2 of the walls to drape all of our wet things on, had a comfortable dinner while sitting on chairs and even though it was very cramped quarters with our tent taking up essentially the entire room, we were happy to be out of the rain for the night.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaijZPiZgw8gjinRS25ekb0rqOl9r8qbLgFmjlbcR40Mu8TfGjiwjhWxjXbrkB2rTCuAw2rokRNJqFllQm5Ize8ZNL5mdiyctdysXGEfNCsXUeWifoL95E0FBirvYCWaK3YCxRUOIPM61-/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaijZPiZgw8gjinRS25ekb0rqOl9r8qbLgFmjlbcR40Mu8TfGjiwjhWxjXbrkB2rTCuAw2rokRNJqFllQm5Ize8ZNL5mdiyctdysXGEfNCsXUeWifoL95E0FBirvYCWaK3YCxRUOIPM61-/s320/1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qf78ZFdsJventeiV2-0HLcm8jyd6UjddAfNGkRwRbFVRP0ISbF-FIdNY2FP1EXqr_fGrE6gL1nlqTiZJUlTZCDYu2N_VNnkhW6YLQ5wX4rtUYUp4eK1z8apH1T1ygJk1vCKLESVpvCDk/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qf78ZFdsJventeiV2-0HLcm8jyd6UjddAfNGkRwRbFVRP0ISbF-FIdNY2FP1EXqr_fGrE6gL1nlqTiZJUlTZCDYu2N_VNnkhW6YLQ5wX4rtUYUp4eK1z8apH1T1ygJk1vCKLESVpvCDk/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNdr47aQY-FZPpKyUxYpWjrQIci0BoPz6N_8AZyjpjp1AiryPP5SFK2sc1xZYIn7iUKpyplD49ClIhFk21p_86C1eAqBp4k_Vvbn6UCN1tZlFzINpkeSmPtrRRjRa7Pznpqnh3i9PYHJX/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNdr47aQY-FZPpKyUxYpWjrQIci0BoPz6N_8AZyjpjp1AiryPP5SFK2sc1xZYIn7iUKpyplD49ClIhFk21p_86C1eAqBp4k_Vvbn6UCN1tZlFzINpkeSmPtrRRjRa7Pznpqnh3i9PYHJX/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The hunting hut.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The following day it was raining again, which was no surprise, but we had sent out a bunch of Couch Surfing requests the day before and luckily had found a place to stay in Trondheim. The city was 65 miles away, a long ride in the rain, but just knowing we had a shower and laundry awaiting kept us going. We arrived at Ronny's house late that night covered in mud, soaked to the bone and shivering. His face was priceless when he opened the door to find 2 drowned rats on his doorstep but he welcomed us and all of our filthy gear in, gave us hot tea and let us stay for 2 nights while all of our clothes and equipment, which we had draped all over his porch and attic, dried. Ronny, we can not thank you enough!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One major order of business we, well Mike since he's in charge of the bikes, had to tend to in Trondheim was fixing our dying bikes. They are seriously ill and I'm not sure how much longer they're going to last. Everything is worn out, except for the brakes because we just changed them, but every other moving part is completely shot. No amount of cleaning or adjusting improves their functionality at all and it's a bad sign when you stop to check out the old, completely mutilated bikes that have been abandoned on the side of the road and realize their parts are in better condition that ours; if only they were the right sizes. The 2 days before we arrived in Trondheim, Mike couldn't shift out of granny gear so he head to pedal with hardly any resistance, which is fine for the uphills but at all other times his legs were going as fast as Road Runner's. I had the opposite problem; I couldn't get into my small ring so there was always a lot of resistance, which was great for going downhill but as soon as we had to climb, my poor legs had to work quadruple time. At the top of every hill I could barely breath, my heart was pounding so hard, and I was positive that if I had to take one more pedal stroke I'd keel over from a heart attack.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We had no choice but to buy some parts to fix the bikes and it's a real bummer that we had to do so in Norway. When we left the bike shop and looked at our receipt we actually went back in as there was no possible way the amount could be correct. These parts should have cost us maybe $20, not $60, but apparently everything was priced correctly. I hope we have no more major breakdowns in Norway. It wold be cheaper to book a plane ticket back to the US and buy a completely new bike than to simply replace our worn out drive trains here in Norway. Fortunately Mike's got the mind of an engineer so hopefully his zip-tie, jury-rigged piece of work will hold out until we're in a different country.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We've discovered that in Norway they have an excellent way to get people to recycle their plastic bottles and cans. They charge you what equates to $0.18 per bottle and can that you purchase but unlike California where you get only a fraction of that back, in Norway you get it all. But of course, just like everywhere else in the world, people still throw beverage containers on the sides of the roads, so we've taken to picking them up and returning them for cash. It's a bit of a dirty job and can slow us down a bit, but we figure we're dirty anyway, don't really have a schedule and without much effort we can easily knock $10 off of our daily food expenses, which helps us stay close to our budget. If we really wanted to I'm sure we could eat for free nearly every day but we're out here riding our bikes, not doing a major clean up Norway project. For the month of August there's an added bonus to picking up bottles. Coca-Cola has a promotion going on where if you collect 6 smiley faces from under the caps you get a free coke. A very high percentage of the bottles on the roads are Coke bottles which is doubly awesome for us as we get money for the bottle and free drinks with the caps. Between what we've collected from the roadsides and Mike's shameless asking at a small town supermarket if he could take the caps from the bottles in their recycling room, we're going to have free Coke every day for the rest of our time in Norway. It might not be the most healthful thing for us but a daily treat is nice and getting anything for free in this country feels really, really good.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJursO5J54KYiTzYBe91CIaRREoHKFvTrtbOWOvVxKW1CjsQNCoIA0ZD0kyKHAMDUPM80VrLvKb4a4oVPTcNaSBELO8rHPfWsAk4lbDAF_XK4QBmvQZod_PCH2gzDJzBi47FMp1-Q3lKEh/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJursO5J54KYiTzYBe91CIaRREoHKFvTrtbOWOvVxKW1CjsQNCoIA0ZD0kyKHAMDUPM80VrLvKb4a4oVPTcNaSBELO8rHPfWsAk4lbDAF_XK4QBmvQZod_PCH2gzDJzBi47FMp1-Q3lKEh/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is worth lots of free Coke.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-38138726347141306302011-08-08T09:22:00.000-07:002011-08-08T09:22:39.158-07:00HITCHHIKING WITH CAMPER VANS<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The night of our first failed attempt at hitching a ride south from Nordkapp, the same night we saw the midnight sun, we met 3 French cyclists who informed us that they were also hoping to find a ride south the following morning. We were very unenthusiastic to hear this news, as the sight of 5 fully loaded touring cyclists on the side of the road looking for a lift is extremely daunting. In hopes that we could catch some early risers the next morning and beat the French to a ride, we dragged ourselves out of bed after only a few hours of sleep and set up our hitching post at the exit of the parking lot full of campers. Much to our surprise there was not a single sign of life in the lot. The shades were all still drawn, no doors were opening and closing, there were no smells of bacon and eggs cooking, it was a ghost town. We sat at the exit for 2 hours before anyone even began to stir, and another full hour passed before the lot was finally awake.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Around 10:00 the campers began to depart, yet no one so much as slowed down to inquire about where we were headed. Suddenly, the leader of the French pack appeared in the parking lot and began walking towards us. Oh man, we thought. He's coming to tell us that they're going to join us; exactly what we didn't want to hear. As it turned out, he had a different message for us. The 3 of them had already solidified a ride by walking around and asking people the night before and suggested that we try to find a ride that way. We had thought about doing that, but simply walking up to people asking for a ride and putting them on the spot like that seems a little bit rude and isn't our cup of tea. “Thanks for the advice” we said with fake smiles on our faces which faded as soon as he turned around. Our chances of getting a ride was rapidly dwindling. There were only about 10 campers with racks left at Nordkapp so we decided to test our luck.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We stood around for the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how we should go about these awkward encounters, what we should say and most importantly which of us unlucky souls would be the one doing the talking. After much debating it was decided that I'd be the one to talk “because you're a cute girl and people will be more likely to agree to give us a ride if you ask” was Mike's argument. Personally I thought that was a bunch of bologna but figured the worst that could happen was we'd get told to buzz off.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so the face to face ride search began. The first guy I asked was super friendly and agreed to take us about 100 km to the point where he'd be turning toward Finland. Well, that was a good start but we thought we'd should ask around some more to see if anyone was going further. We got a handful of “no's,” a yes from a couple of old Finnish burnouts who had just driven 22 straight hours from southern Finland to Nordkapp and an “our camper is only registered to carry 4 passengers because of seat belts and if we get pulled over I'll get in trouble” from a gruff-looking, goatee'd guy in a Harley shirt. We immediately wrote that one off as a no and decided we'd take a short ride from the first guy, try hitching again from where he dropped us off and if worse came to worse we'd hitch with the Finnish guys. Just when we thought we were set, the first guy meandered over, shuffling his feet and informed us that his wife had vetoed his offer so he wouldn't be able to help us. Well, the Finnish guys it was. They weren't leaving until 3pm so we just sad on some rocks, waited and deep down hoped that someone else would pick us up.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As luck would have it, shortly after we sat down, a camper pulled up next to us and out hopped the guy with a goatee asking if we still needed a ride. “Well, we're still here, aren't we?” we replied as we began loading our bags into the camper and bikes on the back. They were headed to Alta that day, some 150 miles south of Nordkapp, a great start to the 750 miles we were hoping to cover. The ride was pleasant, filled with small talk with Roar, his wife Sorfrid, their son Henning and Sorfrid's brother, David. As we neared Alta Roar turned to us and said, “we have a place for you to sleep tonight if you'd like. David lives in Alta and we will stay at his house. There's a small BBQ house where you can sleep and the only thing you have to do in return is play a game of volleyball with us.” We were sold! When we arrived to David's house, we were greeted by his wonderful wife Ninni as dinner was being set on the table. Mike was in heaven eating reindeer stew, we showed our not-so-impressive skills in a humorous backyard game of volleyball, we were treated to hot showers, taken on a personal midnight tour from Ninni at a World Heritage Site in Alta of an extensive display of ancient rock carvings and to top it off, got to sleep in beds that night. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB5jIg_EfmKTUrvmED15tlYbsYmr6fzY1RRuCAVFfg0zvKO9Ien0oV9Z5g5lTdR0JWIOPnsAh_hgGP6DW2WgV1cMgXnimy_CbF9MN0yY4aQbVJBmT9NPPfC613ek7csGbcNPi8Px0zyHbd/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB5jIg_EfmKTUrvmED15tlYbsYmr6fzY1RRuCAVFfg0zvKO9Ien0oV9Z5g5lTdR0JWIOPnsAh_hgGP6DW2WgV1cMgXnimy_CbF9MN0yY4aQbVJBmT9NPPfC613ek7csGbcNPi8Px0zyHbd/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sorfrid, Roar, Henning, Ninni, Cari & Mike</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKz46trXgRa3PlHLdcKhs92IKFaAiLHYnDmkiLFRmnhV-fkLoso_Xw8gbj2ucEXFiZhdqrr8ijwhvFGGfWWajdXVLf2-gEY2om3tzfmhSs3BGdPOR9sTJQedi0jbAyQbW-ttdozPf1VpE/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKz46trXgRa3PlHLdcKhs92IKFaAiLHYnDmkiLFRmnhV-fkLoso_Xw8gbj2ucEXFiZhdqrr8ijwhvFGGfWWajdXVLf2-gEY2om3tzfmhSs3BGdPOR9sTJQedi0jbAyQbW-ttdozPf1VpE/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike, David, Henning & Sorfrid playing volleyball.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonHFNcNWU-SgG5rXAH_m3O6W-bwvJPxc0LobxNU_ypqAaC-qeCzt-KQ45gt4EcI7IG7OEtyprpEg02rMBdQbvzx62IK48nJfBY39hLBS5yEoaE1-pB_DEMuZ9zo1_2HJuhLxazIsWi8kP/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonHFNcNWU-SgG5rXAH_m3O6W-bwvJPxc0LobxNU_ypqAaC-qeCzt-KQ45gt4EcI7IG7OEtyprpEg02rMBdQbvzx62IK48nJfBY39hLBS5yEoaE1-pB_DEMuZ9zo1_2HJuhLxazIsWi8kP/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Rock carvings</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BNVFm5bAGS3O8yfxHSgkk2I5TVhg7zopq6TbBo8gPm1xhzyyTo7rrA7iKUSepmDQlcoyagUu5AMHeTBUAUK9ZbjNLzDwTWoSEGoIoUGsLecLJPZccLH1-vqWXHFRq_pPFZg-RcddSHV2/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BNVFm5bAGS3O8yfxHSgkk2I5TVhg7zopq6TbBo8gPm1xhzyyTo7rrA7iKUSepmDQlcoyagUu5AMHeTBUAUK9ZbjNLzDwTWoSEGoIoUGsLecLJPZccLH1-vqWXHFRq_pPFZg-RcddSHV2/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We had planned to haul our bikes back out to the highway the following morning, but right before we went to bed Roar told us they were continuing south for a bit more and were more than happy to take us with them to the point where they'd be turning off of the main highway towards the Lofoten Islands. Amazed at our luck, we piled back back into the camper the next morning and just before they dropped us off we pulled over, had a big BBQ lunch and were invited to stay at their house in Trondheim (if they're home) when we get there. We cannot thank Roar, Sorfrid, Henning, David and Ninni enough for their incredible kindness towards us. They went so far above and beyond giving a couple of bums a ride (a total of 360 miles); they welcomed us like family.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9ZghYjSLDpQkbyYZFnk7GFB1XOIbTvSHYBOV42UgbzJ-q0d-tUKmjl6HW9xb48wyNzqjSVpcVFmHzQTHj2GDhIglO2nhVlADQ5Ux5miPkjlpr2zEfVdjklTclbzzFp-Q9iIWcnCSikXD/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9ZghYjSLDpQkbyYZFnk7GFB1XOIbTvSHYBOV42UgbzJ-q0d-tUKmjl6HW9xb48wyNzqjSVpcVFmHzQTHj2GDhIglO2nhVlADQ5Ux5miPkjlpr2zEfVdjklTclbzzFp-Q9iIWcnCSikXD/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Henning, Sorfrid, Roar & Cari</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We got dropped off in Nordkjosbotn in the evening, stood by the side of the road for a couple of hours, but eventually gave up for the night and set up camp. The following morning we checked into bus tickets, but of course, they were painfully expensive, as we are in Norway afterall. On our way back out to the highway we spotted a camper at the supermarket with an empty rack. Well, it worked once so we might as well shamelessly try it again. I rolled up to the driver, asked if they were headed south and if they'd be willing to give us a ride. “I'll have to ask my wife” was the reply. No sooner had we backed away thinking it would be a negative, which is usually the case when the wives are asked, that a woman walked out of the store, gave her consent and we were loading into another camper. They told us that they were headed to Narvik, 120 miles south and were hunting something or another so it would be slow-going. Are you hunting a kind of animal we asked? No. Are you hunting for a certain type of berry, which we've seen a lot of people doing? No. We had no idea what it was they were searching for, but we weren't really in a hurry and beggars can't be choosers. A ride is a ride.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2OIwZxvu1Po6xMct0zOJlw-VSv9RlnjCMuZHUvAJzbGhgH8FDv1WfhNlEC69zzXf8Bi4zYRFt9sKjbftwnLad9lM9JpgD7F9GZ5SAYkPmMFRiI0x-aaBjhW6V_R2_P1RJTdJXkNtqHd2/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2OIwZxvu1Po6xMct0zOJlw-VSv9RlnjCMuZHUvAJzbGhgH8FDv1WfhNlEC69zzXf8Bi4zYRFt9sKjbftwnLad9lM9JpgD7F9GZ5SAYkPmMFRiI0x-aaBjhW6V_R2_P1RJTdJXkNtqHd2/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Granny, Jatage & Miritta</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It immediately became clear to us that this Finnish couple was gung-ho about Geo-caching, a game we knew nothing about until we stayed with my uncle in Huron, South Dakota nearly a year ago. It was quite possibly the slowest 120 miles we've even driven as we stopped at least 20 times to join in the game as the enthusiastic couple searched high and low, in buildings, under bridges, in rock crevasses and under tree roots to find random objects hidden by other people and then happily crossed it off of their list. Once again we were treated wonderfully, and owe many thanks to Maritta and Jatage for the ride, the lunch and the introduction to Geo-caching.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQFgzR9Tpy1VQQvNhc_ofG4qfuK8tqBd4tnf7ODUDJh0gpDjHBTxTJ5-ZkN9SALUBhD-GI8Po5VMGx0OyiCO76RvFe483KC00vCFzGueNmi3ZNsvuYEy4y000lmjk5XOFpLrzh3CjJAfVV/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQFgzR9Tpy1VQQvNhc_ofG4qfuK8tqBd4tnf7ODUDJh0gpDjHBTxTJ5-ZkN9SALUBhD-GI8Po5VMGx0OyiCO76RvFe483KC00vCFzGueNmi3ZNsvuYEy4y000lmjk5XOFpLrzh3CjJAfVV/s320/6.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike & Jatage Geo-caching.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As before, we arrived at our destination late in the evening and had no luck finding a ride as everyone we asked seemed to be going in the opposite direction, or that's what they told us anyway. Both of us, tired of standing on the side of the road begging for rides, didn't want to waste another entire day, so we decided that we'd catch the early morning bus from Narvik to Fauske, a 150-mile section of busy, winding, shoulder-less highway with a total of 17 tunnels. As we watched from the windows of the bus, we concluded that avoiding that stretch of road was well worth the $100 we paid for tickets.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived in Fauske at noon with the intention of giving hitchhiking a try for a few hours and if we had no luck, would ride the final segment of highway E6 to Mo i Rana, the point where we entered Norway, the following day. We got off the bus, rode into the city center and saw a camper sitting at a gas station. Here we go again. I pulled up to the window, asked if we could get a ride and almost immediately got an affirmative answer that they too were going to Mo i Rana and were willing to take us. We slept for most of the ride with Uwe and Heidi, a German couple, as we'd had several consecutive short nights of sleep. They dropped us off near the campground where we stayed for a night and from there we planned to ride south.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaiDclUyYCBt_i9f_YQhJjofnSRed6ryKWEpaKmUjxqjiGxiUrNQHZv82_lAGJXiDNC0rPJ-XdkbsF2bJ0S9RbITzQZ5ScaI047nBYbnmODSoPzhD3Z2acyE9SkWxaAdzBS9nJpi8s2r5/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaiDclUyYCBt_i9f_YQhJjofnSRed6ryKWEpaKmUjxqjiGxiUrNQHZv82_lAGJXiDNC0rPJ-XdkbsF2bJ0S9RbITzQZ5ScaI047nBYbnmODSoPzhD3Z2acyE9SkWxaAdzBS9nJpi8s2r5/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friend, Heidi & Uwe</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are truly grateful to the 3 camper vans that collectively drove us 600 miles, enabling us to avoid cycling on a terribly busy highway where there were no alternative routes. Every one of you were far more kind and generous to us than we ever expected; many thanks to all of you!</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-12532710206331248842011-08-02T09:25:00.000-07:002011-08-02T09:25:51.456-07:00THE MIDNIGHT SUN<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once back on the mainland we continued to head north with one destination in mind; Nordkapp (The North Cape), which is the northernmost point in Europe to which you can drive without taking a ferry. We were fortunate to stay with Stig-Martin, a warmshowers host, for a couple of nights in Russeluft, one of only two hosts in all of northern Norway. It was a much-needed stop for all 3 of us having ridding 12 straight days without a rest day and equally as long without a proper shower. We were beyond filthy, exhausted, desperately needed to do laundry and a major bout of bike maintenance as none of our bikes were working well anymore. We got everything we needed and more – lots of bike touring talk, an amazingly welcoming host and a delicious BBQ with the whole family. We left Russeluft feeling clean and refreshed for the final 2-day push to Nordkapp which was anything but easy as the road was continuously climbing and descending, never flat, as we snaked our way around one fjord after another. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX7hEep0P2XK3hbAhXYbG_k-9_XOI5eAkbn1ceT77O1bYk-TVIH1wNjYZ13FF8YkA-nNpvUUzvhAeRObWuen42KuQTUOWAq9QCMvwmWDhfDG5kvJa_dmdd5lbvnNkYe_3fJeUQCRduUF0/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX7hEep0P2XK3hbAhXYbG_k-9_XOI5eAkbn1ceT77O1bYk-TVIH1wNjYZ13FF8YkA-nNpvUUzvhAeRObWuen42KuQTUOWAq9QCMvwmWDhfDG5kvJa_dmdd5lbvnNkYe_3fJeUQCRduUF0/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben, Benjamin, Kesia, Mike & Stig-Marting...BBQ'ing</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were many Sami souvenir shops along the way, the Sami people being the indigenous semi-nomadic reindeer herders of northern Scandinavia, selling furs, antlers and dried meat. The reindeer population drastically increased forcing us to slow down or pull over on many occasions. I'm positive that reindeer are the stupidest animals on the planet. Northern Norway has so few people, leaving millions of acres of open space for the animals to roam, yet the reindeer opt to graze, walk and relax on the highways instead and are far from frightened by people or vehicles. Unlike deer who freeze for a few seconds, hesitate but then eventually run off of the roads, when a reindeer is in the ditch and sees us coming, rather than running away it runs onto the road and proceeds to awkwardly gallop in a zig-zagging line down the road in front of us. Other times they simply stand there, usually in the most inopportune of places, like a bend in the road or the entrance to a tunnel. Cars crawl to within inches of them but still no amount of yelling, bell ringing, horn honking or whistling can get them to move. It's a wonder how there aren't hundreds of dead reindeer in the ditches but we have yet to see one.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNtlebm0zZJe8zqKRg8_hgKHkbmAHBBlIwK_hToWALdbqrIvT9NCBsr12bfQbbb6DYcZgr_FgWqy2W0PPqyOAb5BnSbunItnAWL0-XvqiYT45qnqT0JMU-E_ORgHcyLWYzaloAoYa0DP5v/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNtlebm0zZJe8zqKRg8_hgKHkbmAHBBlIwK_hToWALdbqrIvT9NCBsr12bfQbbb6DYcZgr_FgWqy2W0PPqyOAb5BnSbunItnAWL0-XvqiYT45qnqT0JMU-E_ORgHcyLWYzaloAoYa0DP5v/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Sami souvenir stop along the highway.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-I0S_KlyqKH2PyNPdZHQOEmqaJMZ7nfxHFCtK8nq8AkM9Sy7aaBXFoG4HjXsRgdr2SYjfYcV4ZWjQpidQZcSi1q8OEIP6elBrCuOrw2QtjogSuLHq98RxpjNaaUkfJqtQCNXJhoj2qPNN/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-I0S_KlyqKH2PyNPdZHQOEmqaJMZ7nfxHFCtK8nq8AkM9Sy7aaBXFoG4HjXsRgdr2SYjfYcV4ZWjQpidQZcSi1q8OEIP6elBrCuOrw2QtjogSuLHq98RxpjNaaUkfJqtQCNXJhoj2qPNN/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reindeer blocking a tunnel.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The day we arrived to Nordkapp turned out to be quite a monstrous ride. It began with a series of tunnels, the first being relatively short, but dark and drippy once the reindeer moved out of the way and allowed us to enter. The 3<sup>rd</sup> and 4<sup>th</sup> were not noteworthy at all but the 2<sup>nd</sup> was by far the most intense tunnel any of us have ever been in. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad in a car but it was 6.87 KM long and steeply dropped to 212 meters below the ocean's surface. (For those who only think in miles and feet, the tunnel was 4.27 miles long and 695.5 feet deep). The ride down was fast and exciting at a 9% grade which allowed us to move at high enough speeds to ride in the traffic lane. Climbing out the other side was a different story, however. The grade increased to 10% which, on a loaded touring bike is really difficult. Often at grades this steep we have to switchback our way up the long hills, but we were confined to a 2-foot wide slab of asphalt where if you swerved to one side you ended up in wet mud and if you swerved to the other side you ended up going off a curb into traffic. It took major concentration to keep the bike on the little bike path at such slow speeds and we've never been more relieved to see the light at the end of the tunnel as we were after that particular one.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO90J0bu1W8YAIEh0zWZXgFtlHpVqDa9bi7v2cs1weZnd6skZlKBxqNifzKFl2-Nnz3aUXoyJ78YBWYXmMmBQFnPGNjwf65cuQlBghDqoFTB2ZInQvaA8YPyjGirpcvZ_IYCZIxlOlEVid/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO90J0bu1W8YAIEh0zWZXgFtlHpVqDa9bi7v2cs1weZnd6skZlKBxqNifzKFl2-Nnz3aUXoyJ78YBWYXmMmBQFnPGNjwf65cuQlBghDqoFTB2ZInQvaA8YPyjGirpcvZ_IYCZIxlOlEVid/s320/4.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After the under-sea tunnel we met a Danish guy, Martin, who was also heading to Nordkapp so we invited him to join us. We arrived to the town of Honningsvag to buy groceries for the next few days as there's nothing available at Nordkapp, fill up water and find camp for the night. It was late and we were tired but we were less than 20 miles away from our destination which made it difficult to call it quits for the day. The group was a little indecisive on whether to stop or keep going so the executive decision was made to press on. It may have ended up being the most difficult 20 miles of our entire European bike tour. Little did we know when we set out that it was going to be 20 miles of mostly climbing in an absurdly dense fog that left us soaking wet and icy cold.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived to Nordkapp at midnight on the dot, 4 grueling hours after we left Honningsvag, all of us completely bonked, eyes wind burnt, starving and shaking from the cold. The weather forecast for that night showed it as being our best bet at seeing the midnight sun but instead we couldn't see 10 feet ahead of us and were completely miserable. Moreover, we were greeted with a sign 500 meters before Nordkapp stating that there was a $50 per person entrance fee to walk out to the infamous globe. To ride all that way and then be told to fork over $200 between the 4 of us was outrageous. We turned back 200 meters, set up camp outside the toll booth as quickly as possible, chowed down some dinner and passed out before any of could enjoy the celebratory beers we lugged up the mountain for the occasion. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDme2RHJ80UzyPny3M9PUR_Rryi27l4jZNTVUL_bvk4QGm8RgNuiYnOSsjMGCWOA_SojGMUZUP0KAOqArYTyuweaSKqhCW-QFTl4j4Plv3S9lQKP0FN03UlFBKJbhN0oeRcyXlagWFTiA2/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDme2RHJ80UzyPny3M9PUR_Rryi27l4jZNTVUL_bvk4QGm8RgNuiYnOSsjMGCWOA_SojGMUZUP0KAOqArYTyuweaSKqhCW-QFTl4j4Plv3S9lQKP0FN03UlFBKJbhN0oeRcyXlagWFTiA2/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was supposed to be sunny when we arrived!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We awoke the next afternoon to thick fog, just as it had been the night before, though by the time we'd eaten breakfast it was beginning to thin. We took this as our opportunity to disappear into the fog and sneak around the toll boot. There were no fences and no one checking tickets which made it amazingly easy to walk right into the visitor's center and out to the globe. Martin had purchased a mini bottle of champagne which he so gratefully shared and the 4 of us toasted our accomplishment and snapped what could potentially have been a $200 picture for free.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUim2qCoTeqGNFklabhHx_ktVdM83F4GD5bNQG7Rsn9zg8zRkh7CRxpWDZ1X376yoR9CqD-jw6EYJveicbPB5B9F114_c6N4SVa0KtkCnyhxCyz5-Io5gZNarx1pFOHdF4VfR7Bc2jeMo/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUim2qCoTeqGNFklabhHx_ktVdM83F4GD5bNQG7Rsn9zg8zRkh7CRxpWDZ1X376yoR9CqD-jw6EYJveicbPB5B9F114_c6N4SVa0KtkCnyhxCyz5-Io5gZNarx1pFOHdF4VfR7Bc2jeMo/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben, Martin & Mike using the fog to sneak around the toll booth.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYOHec6CeHDq5CNTbYB4W_f6CdQMlXiD-HVb1nX24Uhttu-HJwP_VLx4dXXT7MHx_Lm0inE-0sc4fwiDLSHvVVJrN16OoC8sONDah_-WCBhxG2DmI0EVInynZ9gzpdYG1XvFLcIwvgB1K/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYOHec6CeHDq5CNTbYB4W_f6CdQMlXiD-HVb1nX24Uhttu-HJwP_VLx4dXXT7MHx_Lm0inE-0sc4fwiDLSHvVVJrN16OoC8sONDah_-WCBhxG2DmI0EVInynZ9gzpdYG1XvFLcIwvgB1K/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Martin, Cari, Mike & Ben celebrating with a glass of champagne.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1bcyoPRYQUuzwZr7Uf9smxSufdMtMwqmuJ1lNErozqoZGkwRAckOObemTkcFU2TZaBHYZp9GQIm_54eCWEuaaKJlse4rXnIwml9VaOtGoQcxU49fPEzHTuDVzEYdelRahTQLKIy3Deoe/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1bcyoPRYQUuzwZr7Uf9smxSufdMtMwqmuJ1lNErozqoZGkwRAckOObemTkcFU2TZaBHYZp9GQIm_54eCWEuaaKJlse4rXnIwml9VaOtGoQcxU49fPEzHTuDVzEYdelRahTQLKIy3Deoe/s320/9.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari & Mike at the globe.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From Nordkapp we were all heading separate directions; Ben back home to France as this was the end of his trip, Martin to Russia and me and Mike attempting to hitchhike about 750 miles south to the city of Mo i Rana which was where we entered Norway a few weeks ago in hopes that we wouldn't have to backtrack this busy section of highway that we had already ridden. We packed up our gear and stood just outside the toll booths thinking that surely one of the hundreds of camper vans in the parking lot would gladly pick us up. We stood there for 4 hours, watched thousands of people in cars and buses arrive, but only about 5 campers departed, none of which showed any interest in having us join them. We were completely baffled as to why no one was leaving. It was still foggy so the chances of seeing the midnight sun was slim to none and besides, yesterday was the day with a promising forecast. Maybe there was something everyone else knew that we didn't.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly, at 8pm, the sky began to clear, a patch of blue sky was growing right above us, the fog grew thin and wispy and revealed beautiful cliffs dropping a sheer 1000 feet down to the Arctic Ocean. Though we had technically caught the midnight sun quite a while ago, we had yet to see it as it had been cloudy every night. Perhaps it was good no one picked us up; maybe we were going to get lucky, if only the fog would completely burn off and stay away for 4 more hours. Cars were pouring into the parking lot keeping the toll collectors occupied so we not-so-discreetly rolled our bikes right on in to the tent area hoping to go unnoticed. Once again it worked so we set up camp and proceeded to choose our spot on the cliffs to watch the sun make its slow, angled descent towards the sea. As the hours passed the fog disappeared, the sun transitioned from white to yellow to deep orange until it ever so lightly kissed the northern horizon at midnight and then began its beautiful early morning ascent into the northeastern sky.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilt7sf33rQmDD68QXCroQpy00KYruoK7ugiljCv58YU4MilwQBFuDi3acbl8Y5B4EH042E4qsig1I5vwoF0QRR4wX7E_C8DNyOh5pQqL0je4pHaGnxM6c9DvPU2dLYm6zcjgh3SbDwzESJ/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilt7sf33rQmDD68QXCroQpy00KYruoK7ugiljCv58YU4MilwQBFuDi3acbl8Y5B4EH042E4qsig1I5vwoF0QRR4wX7E_C8DNyOh5pQqL0je4pHaGnxM6c9DvPU2dLYm6zcjgh3SbDwzESJ/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fog beginning to lift. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wSD2fUaCzlNuCxIF0j3dyby-2Wv4cCISeirq5uOPzZyrWLrVTK_E9EcdZgIisSgi3w5NHYBXW2E7-SFgGUJHhkClj0nXc8ROJ_pxgCaDgPmHLTPLZQyWinx2JrSVKY4xTq6O8OH74p9O/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wSD2fUaCzlNuCxIF0j3dyby-2Wv4cCISeirq5uOPzZyrWLrVTK_E9EcdZgIisSgi3w5NHYBXW2E7-SFgGUJHhkClj0nXc8ROJ_pxgCaDgPmHLTPLZQyWinx2JrSVKY4xTq6O8OH74p9O/s320/12.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 8 pm.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSrmAyF11wikGnmOlt9uzvXwMfd_B1-QQ3cWtFdev0IN0x3V552JGuOyJQ08f3HywoPRL0o4yXOl6pKBykuEzjilYvvhd0t7DVHLgW5oCQy0Pait3E6mwukBWJl1MFfrcQOaDIYvbIvFEZ/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSrmAyF11wikGnmOlt9uzvXwMfd_B1-QQ3cWtFdev0IN0x3V552JGuOyJQ08f3HywoPRL0o4yXOl6pKBykuEzjilYvvhd0t7DVHLgW5oCQy0Pait3E6mwukBWJl1MFfrcQOaDIYvbIvFEZ/s320/14.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">9 pm.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXBDj1w709NC-yK2jK_ShRmVO-NRnAgBIYYIqk-8jjVieUpLJH1DV8PUW70bnX0IL77rQqAlX3FwNcjSCIyZ3aoQ6q0lcgyOxu_k6p9AvqJm3tNU5UE6xs6v1RnkxS1HYIipG7lnYje8u/s1600/16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXBDj1w709NC-yK2jK_ShRmVO-NRnAgBIYYIqk-8jjVieUpLJH1DV8PUW70bnX0IL77rQqAlX3FwNcjSCIyZ3aoQ6q0lcgyOxu_k6p9AvqJm3tNU5UE6xs6v1RnkxS1HYIipG7lnYje8u/s320/16.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10 pm.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7P8XqSfPPqMf86vsquHn8HQb4aE1YjsT6_mbszS_PP5_Gg_z3xSXs0MNiWg8nMrJTh33nXj5D77U9VtFPS9w4L67-Y5hGfj34r7XuYaNKCwy00xpORDLFu2ZyqvN-wqqf5lFekvjuM6T/s1600/18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7P8XqSfPPqMf86vsquHn8HQb4aE1YjsT6_mbszS_PP5_Gg_z3xSXs0MNiWg8nMrJTh33nXj5D77U9VtFPS9w4L67-Y5hGfj34r7XuYaNKCwy00xpORDLFu2ZyqvN-wqqf5lFekvjuM6T/s320/18.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">11 pm.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHJerV5KfgHe4pESmbZWAiKY59VRBVW4iIfZXrE1fIg5CzFsyalAm4hi7B0Lxxhoap-U7syn9phw8nCvAofkfXVsU_zDa6emphx14gfdiGJlMN1nsWOwBW6REk7GHX0qgAQK_bel3hpCJ/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHJerV5KfgHe4pESmbZWAiKY59VRBVW4iIfZXrE1fIg5CzFsyalAm4hi7B0Lxxhoap-U7syn9phw8nCvAofkfXVsU_zDa6emphx14gfdiGJlMN1nsWOwBW6REk7GHX0qgAQK_bel3hpCJ/s320/20.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The sun through the globe.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhoMmlXwNlEq7kPftrIjmkRA0Gsn3UdTHLuRnHkH31iONjh4xI04TOIhDtY57olt14JUcN8cnA7wBPYkC_bWPNvMOvZdeo3yAH5BRM2S-mISRGGjf48RFWM_BMfiASfCZ1XiWAsOsUHs5/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhoMmlXwNlEq7kPftrIjmkRA0Gsn3UdTHLuRnHkH31iONjh4xI04TOIhDtY57olt14JUcN8cnA7wBPYkC_bWPNvMOvZdeo3yAH5BRM2S-mISRGGjf48RFWM_BMfiASfCZ1XiWAsOsUHs5/s320/22.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The midnight sun.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDA43SHEVpQkKKnFd3XTGWoGQ_cEULF4J7U-3pTdW2UWw7IJ_mH_Tan2Y9R4AjqKD1UpozS6iSsKnUKYhdP_856I_QE7H7Jz_w73mNJcu3rHqyx-UxDn5oPn6jMR51pitRYtpWXGGzL5Sc/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDA43SHEVpQkKKnFd3XTGWoGQ_cEULF4J7U-3pTdW2UWw7IJ_mH_Tan2Y9R4AjqKD1UpozS6iSsKnUKYhdP_856I_QE7H7Jz_w73mNJcu3rHqyx-UxDn5oPn6jMR51pitRYtpWXGGzL5Sc/s320/24.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1 am...and then the clouds moved in.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-27427157443587952452011-07-27T07:28:00.000-07:002011-07-27T07:28:19.437-07:00ISLAND HOPPING<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We caught up with our friend Ben, the French guy we met in southern Sweden, in the town of Bodo where we took the ferry over to the Lofoten Islands. We were excited to ride with him again, especially on the islands and up to Nordkapp, since he was the one who initially gave us the idea to visit those places. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YpOizJ96Ad6DIuSGq9uYSuUz79z5fl-2G_7abWE689TtLYrWE00KVvWOTGIHxCZIQhhMA9bcyUv6vx6Ir6b1vteCFX0NhSw8qiIsJwtCz04yrIW-GGTCUx75-3sLQF3KqPK2kb6x9HPg/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YpOizJ96Ad6DIuSGq9uYSuUz79z5fl-2G_7abWE689TtLYrWE00KVvWOTGIHxCZIQhhMA9bcyUv6vx6Ir6b1vteCFX0NhSw8qiIsJwtCz04yrIW-GGTCUx75-3sLQF3KqPK2kb6x9HPg/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben and Mike at camp on the Lofoten Islands.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have spent the last week cycling the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, a chain of tiny islands located off of the northwest coast of Norway. They have turned out to be very popular vacation spots for folks in motor homes as well as bike tourists with the number of fully loaded cyclists rivaling the numbers we saw in Austria. But it's easy to understand why; the scenery here is absolutely stunning. From the sea that sometimes looks a deep, pure black yet in some places shines vibrant turquoise against the white sand beaches that makes us believe we're in a very cold tropical paradise, comes jagged mountains covered in hearty emerald green shrubs and towering sheer granite cliffs. There are places near the centers of the islands where the mountains are only silhouettes on the horizon against the flat, brown, desolate terrain. The many different landscapes remind us of some of the most impressive places we've seen around the globe. It's as if the Andes near Machu Picchu, the fjords of New Zealand, the granite cliffs of the Sierra Nevadas, the African Savannah and the Carretera Austral in Patagonia have all been combined to form one single, spectacular place.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fTW6ipNm6WcPF1glP0cH04opP3SY96c4TIPuSJ2IZeFhQsUM76Frg1WmMmy00IujHb-E0wYYTGrtmvIGNfk5WdbdOhzO3IobUYc5U_VyOaR1i-jDMDR5uSU1qSmgBGPUJ4UlLnSO6umS/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fTW6ipNm6WcPF1glP0cH04opP3SY96c4TIPuSJ2IZeFhQsUM76Frg1WmMmy00IujHb-E0wYYTGrtmvIGNfk5WdbdOhzO3IobUYc5U_VyOaR1i-jDMDR5uSU1qSmgBGPUJ4UlLnSO6umS/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> It's hard to beat this camp site!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxju_GPegkU0mR1vxH0dJfHLD7qbEObhxW3_r-676mMhOjz9TFBPxjL4SGSAfqX6nwsfBoy5z8lfBW7NS1c8CnGORaOEAvYKy8lZ2Fs4PG6jDFGqFmQ4CfGAeOBHccgNl4WYvCw3mTA2PM/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxju_GPegkU0mR1vxH0dJfHLD7qbEObhxW3_r-676mMhOjz9TFBPxjL4SGSAfqX6nwsfBoy5z8lfBW7NS1c8CnGORaOEAvYKy8lZ2Fs4PG6jDFGqFmQ4CfGAeOBHccgNl4WYvCw3mTA2PM/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">White sand beaches.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The islands are dotted with little villages, most of them offering nothing in terms of services, and consist of only a few small houses and sheds with faded and peeling paint, exposing the gray, weathered wood beneath. The harbors are filled with colorful fishing boats that create beautifully dramatic reflections on calm evenings and along the shores are racks and racks of drying fish, whose stench I don't think I need to describe, combined with the pungent smell of salt water and washed up, decaying sea life. It's not the most pleasant of scents, but it's what one should expect from fishing villages.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ZGntvQ32VWeRWFzTCO-QCrKkLnovLRo649sDu5CBfpONeb6UT2C91iUAQogFWtXM1cYYjLGbjOvZIEmyiSRbH-eyKjO0R2MoI0TTqSzO6XHb-ZT9dDeWM6kmaNTJqVF-r2hrdjhpy4sv/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ZGntvQ32VWeRWFzTCO-QCrKkLnovLRo649sDu5CBfpONeb6UT2C91iUAQogFWtXM1cYYjLGbjOvZIEmyiSRbH-eyKjO0R2MoI0TTqSzO6XHb-ZT9dDeWM6kmaNTJqVF-r2hrdjhpy4sv/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reine, Norway </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhHtLd3UjX3KAr1m9YtdGzV6DINVaivI7cLDNiv1bQrFokWFJIaLgKNCazcRMKyIG_BQYIG2Wgbu_IY5qwOw0y7svIjFc96UJRGjatb4bAVxRImtiIko1EBd1Bsi1LzZqsQSXdorrxcdi/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhHtLd3UjX3KAr1m9YtdGzV6DINVaivI7cLDNiv1bQrFokWFJIaLgKNCazcRMKyIG_BQYIG2Wgbu_IY5qwOw0y7svIjFc96UJRGjatb4bAVxRImtiIko1EBd1Bsi1LzZqsQSXdorrxcdi/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reflections on the harbor.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjdsbTTdLoX-dAeFC7Hm2lL8LJpTbfKAU4PF2neFpQ8CisabweT_9MpHURcjZHEoIM5V7u7Iw1p97tSOB4Gx4cznfRVJzYOeF7bKS7RdinNHE_0qZJcbwXSxSpNUsjuq5Xpb8O-yd1viw/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjdsbTTdLoX-dAeFC7Hm2lL8LJpTbfKAU4PF2neFpQ8CisabweT_9MpHURcjZHEoIM5V7u7Iw1p97tSOB4Gx4cznfRVJzYOeF7bKS7RdinNHE_0qZJcbwXSxSpNUsjuq5Xpb8O-yd1viw/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Drying fish.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have not been granted the greatest weather, though it hasn't been all that horrible either. We had one day of sun where, judging by the locals who were on the beaches in shorts and tank tops and sunbathing on their decks, you'd think it was 80-degrees outside. Though it was warm enough to cycle in shorts and a t-shirt, it was cold enough that we were all had rosy cheeks and runny noses and had to put on pants and a jacket every time we stopped riding. I have a feeling that a 60-degree day would be considered hot to the people who live here year-round. The rest of our days have been cold with low clouds that dull the colors of the islands and gives them a mystical feel and a damp fog that chills you to the bone like you find in San Francisco. We're all hoping for a blue bird day but I think they're few and far between up here.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7jg2NrPLEI0rW_cJHnn5UWK2Ds5gMlNW_HbhDV6ZiMPo4h6Q7nidcPdil3UIHDoq9_SmuoHCxoCD5Eb-50lUIKF8jwv01-pIfkLh98BP-2E0rGoW0MNgAesSTUWIohCe9oK6BrEeKYfM/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7jg2NrPLEI0rW_cJHnn5UWK2Ds5gMlNW_HbhDV6ZiMPo4h6Q7nidcPdil3UIHDoq9_SmuoHCxoCD5Eb-50lUIKF8jwv01-pIfkLh98BP-2E0rGoW0MNgAesSTUWIohCe9oK6BrEeKYfM/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even the cloudy days are beautiful.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It might seem strange to go bike touring on islands, but long bridges, tunnels and ferries makes it quite easy to do so. The ferries typically run a few times a day so either Ben texts his girlfriend back at home to find out the schedule or we simply show up at the dock and wait for the next one. We have learned that Norwegians absolutely love tunnels, or at least they love to build them. We pass through several every day and though we originally thought it silly that we bought a package of batteries for our headlamps just before we arrived to Scandinavia where it's always daylight, they have proven to be necessary as some of the tunnels are 1-2 miles long. They are dark and cold, the air is dusty and it sounds like a freight train coming at us every time a vehicle approaches. Needless to say, they can be a little creepy, especially on a bike, but we just put on our fluorescent, reflective vests and blinking lights and go for it. There have been many times we've been thankful for the tunnels; they sure make cycling a lot easier when, rather than going up and over a mountain, instead we get to right right through.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEl9RLu1o7kmB28B1w5ddq5US0aHMrh240_bWM52YRWTGiBj8iszYqMsoSJFGNe9TNQQQJcf_SPFEv0aVPDBuTNIx0QHaE6jh6lEehHENROExiZR1V0Gcr8p_Kad43ag27MXddTSG35mk/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEl9RLu1o7kmB28B1w5ddq5US0aHMrh240_bWM52YRWTGiBj8iszYqMsoSJFGNe9TNQQQJcf_SPFEv0aVPDBuTNIx0QHaE6jh6lEehHENROExiZR1V0Gcr8p_Kad43ag27MXddTSG35mk/s320/4.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben and Mike ready for one of many tunnels, this one being our first under-ocean tunnel.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-52640337306196852292011-07-19T10:39:00.000-07:002011-07-21T06:45:02.197-07:00ARCTIC CIRCLE<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived to Norway a few days ago and were welcomed into the country with freezing cold wind and rain, but at least there were no gnats. Thankfully the bad weather only lasted for a day and we've been fortunate to enjoy several days of clear blue, though chilly, skies.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As expected, there are many similarities between Norway and Sweden. Once again, everyone we've met speaks perfect English, which makes communication pleasantly easy. We've discovered that “Every Man's Right” is a law found throughout Scandinavia, so just as in Sweden, we will enjoy our freedom to camp anywhere without being hassled. Much to Mike's delight, Norway has just as an extensive gummy selection at every supermarket as we found in Sweden. However, our decision to purchase them came to an abrupt end after our first grocery shopping experience. When we were in Portugal and Spain, everyone we met warned us that France was going to break our bank. When we arrived in France we were pleased at our ability to stay within our budget quite easily but were then warned that the prices in Switzerland were outrageous. Once again, we cruised through Switzerland and though we noticed a difference, were satisfied when we were again able to keep our daily costs down. When we were in Germany and told people we were heading up to Sweden, their eyes got big and they replied, “Oh, it's REALLY expensive there.” Thinking it couldn't be much worse than Switzerland we were surprised that it actually could be worse, yet somehow managed to stay right at the upper end of our budget.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, we've finally found the country that will, just as we were told, send us into bankruptcy. Our desire to spend the next month cycling the length of Norway might be wishful thinking now that we've learned that 2 gummy worms cost about $1, a can of beans runs about $5, and a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread or a pack of the cheapest “meat” (a.k.a. 6 hotdogs) will set you back $10. Everything, not only food, is ridiculously expensive and we're finding it nearly impossible to live within the budget we've maintained for over a year of travel, wondering if we'll have to resort to eating solely plain white rice and muesli. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not sure how people can afford to travel here but Norway is swarming with tourists in camper vans, cruising around at over $10 per gallon! Prior to arriving in Scandinavia we always believed RV'ing was an American passtime but we've concluded that Norway takes the gold medal by a long shot. We see more RVs in a single day in Norway than we saw on our entire ride across the U.S. I'm not sure if it's because there really are that many more campers here or if it only seems that way as there are so few road options, forcing everyone onto the same route.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aside from the busy roads and the fact that we go through buyer's remorse for splurging on a can of beer, Norway has been amazing. This is a crazy section of the world, a long and narrow country of rivers, lakes, jagged mountainous coastlines, fjords and islands. The rivers are no longer the dark brown color of root beer that they were in Sweden, but rather a clear, icy blue through which we can see perfectly the multicolored rocks on the bottom of the river some 15 feet below. There are waterfalls everywhere, shimmering in the endless sunlight like enormous ribbons of tinsel hanging from the mountain sides, as the last remaining evidence of the harsh winters of the North melt away. In a few short weeks all of the snow patches will be gone, the waterfalls will cease and the bright magenta fireweed that grows along the roadways will indicate that Summer's end is near and the cold is about to return. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6NuzLVGsJK8WuxHqt0lspdwkslqz-jeHWvpBeKd3uq28L31OZN04fHKqF5z8r443d3yqZXIpi8xon4C3vmL5F4sdWbF-wAP80hVcl4qpcXBJh1Gu9US8wGyqwniWMvGQYqZU9uLRxdcc/s1600/fireweed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6NuzLVGsJK8WuxHqt0lspdwkslqz-jeHWvpBeKd3uq28L31OZN04fHKqF5z8r443d3yqZXIpi8xon4C3vmL5F4sdWbF-wAP80hVcl4qpcXBJh1Gu9US8wGyqwniWMvGQYqZU9uLRxdcc/s320/fireweed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fireweed</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have just passed the Arctic Circle, a place where neither of us ever imagined we'd be cycling. Located above treeline along Highway E6, the landscape was very moon-like; rocky and barren. There was a small gift shop, a cafe, several small monuments and hundreds of cairns erected all along the infamous latitudinal line. We enjoyed a brisk, but blue-skied lunch, pulled out our maps to figure out where we'd be able to find supermarkets between there and Bodo, where we'd be catching a ferry to the Lofoten Islands and then continued to ride North.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzrXiqh7mrbKV0JdDViw8dOnp35WLeb7R1SY0dDaBLDiIlfN4KHu7gwg9q8Xs-To826IG5k2tYrJezN9RgwLIBFcOUhrzkxOMmxfuYXUucr80Kkh1J3Ci-fG1qVTK0XoSmauHT4Mmk50Q/s1600/arctic+circle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzrXiqh7mrbKV0JdDViw8dOnp35WLeb7R1SY0dDaBLDiIlfN4KHu7gwg9q8Xs-To826IG5k2tYrJezN9RgwLIBFcOUhrzkxOMmxfuYXUucr80Kkh1J3Ci-fG1qVTK0XoSmauHT4Mmk50Q/s320/arctic+circle.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the Arctic Circle.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis-S4PjLsYbzVvPkrOJEpzuD4bJywKjCFLvRP-OEy4Um-SM2WzBEYe4CCYMNAwD6pYNGkrqKcAmHMhjV-f0p_YTv4JL5CO615tahwOiNPaJz-VzdHTnz-f_EAe3f8InctZ98fgDdflY79D/s1600/arctic+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis-S4PjLsYbzVvPkrOJEpzuD4bJywKjCFLvRP-OEy4Um-SM2WzBEYe4CCYMNAwD6pYNGkrqKcAmHMhjV-f0p_YTv4JL5CO615tahwOiNPaJz-VzdHTnz-f_EAe3f8InctZ98fgDdflY79D/s320/arctic+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our second day in Norway was a sad day for me. My trusty water bottle with the “King of the Mountain” jersey design from the Tour de France (red polka-dots) that has been traveling with me from the start, saw its last ride. It had been sick for a long time with cracks all along its side, leaking water and forcing me to squeeze gingerly so as not to completely split it open every time I took a drink. There are very few (as in no) bike shops up here so we couldn't just go and buy a new one, but as luck would have it, suddenly a bright pink water bottle appeared on the side of the road. I know, you all think it's disgusting to pick something up off the side of the road and use it but we do it all the time and it hasn't killed us yet. A little scrub followed by a boiling water rinse and I was good to go. So meet my new piece of gear, Emily, as the faded blue marker on her side indicates. Long may she ride.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKHbGpy121i8URdEkSRjiRxNjUcDjxcCEnsIOZftUt23VZ5R6MViYjoPZA0jTtMXkJ8t2OwN_QKU7LCCvaiIlV2jxM1g2zCm0r3LDUweaCO9d2aw9q8LDpmYBtLpqMLB2nm55a_EFN1S6/s1600/bottle+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKHbGpy121i8URdEkSRjiRxNjUcDjxcCEnsIOZftUt23VZ5R6MViYjoPZA0jTtMXkJ8t2OwN_QKU7LCCvaiIlV2jxM1g2zCm0r3LDUweaCO9d2aw9q8LDpmYBtLpqMLB2nm55a_EFN1S6/s320/bottle+1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Good-bye old bottle.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcEDCydzcb-6bdsp05mbcdI-jRFX8eCT9Q4_YIMST8N0HFNg-foqsVpQu5p7XgQ3x2rDE81MhEg8phedP3aGQ4e1zaeT-OeaY3Si3rlh8po7Yp3_ebiEs0lOMtSCbsNbO2fj3v1Gz2SW_/s1600/bottle+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcEDCydzcb-6bdsp05mbcdI-jRFX8eCT9Q4_YIMST8N0HFNg-foqsVpQu5p7XgQ3x2rDE81MhEg8phedP3aGQ4e1zaeT-OeaY3Si3rlh8po7Yp3_ebiEs0lOMtSCbsNbO2fj3v1Gz2SW_/s320/bottle+2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Hello new bottle.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-67380421136525009662011-07-13T10:22:00.000-07:002011-07-13T10:22:48.303-07:00FINAL DAYS IN SWEDEN<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our 3 weeks of cycling the length of Sweden has been, aside from the gnats, superb. The camping has been some of the best we've had on this trip, partly because we're allowed to camp anywhere and partly because there are endless established sites with fire pits, picnic tables and beautiful views of the rivers and lakes. It is not necessarily a country with breathtaking vistas but instead is a place of serenity, a calming natural landscape whose deafening stillness makes you feel relaxed and at peace. The riding has not been difficult, only pleasantly challenging but we've begun to see some snow speckled mountains on the horizon and I think Norway is going to be a different story.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are several things that we've found to be prevalent throughout Sweden and someday when we think back to our time here, in addition to the gnats, mosquitoes and abundant forests, these are the things we'll remember. The Swedes love red, or else it's just the cheapest color of house and vehicle paint available. Nearly every house is dark red and the majority of the cars that pass us on the roads are red as well. Sweden is the land of Volvo's. They are by far the most common make of vehicle throughout this country and a huge percentage of them are, of course, red. We've also seen an abundance of classic American cars, far more than we've seen in any country we've cycled through thus far, quite possibly even more than in the U.S. Me, I don't know a thing about cars and when I'm on my bike view them as nothing more than a speedy distraction to my slow-moving and peaceful world. Mike, on the other hand, enjoys old cars and has one back home, so it's kind of a treat for him to be in a place with so many muscle cars to tell me about and admire. And last but not least, Sweden appears to have an unbelievable love for gummy candies. There is an extensive display and vibrant selection of nearly every gummy candy you can imagine in every single supermarket. It's Mike's dream come true as he loves to snack on them throughout the day and a resupply location is never more than a day away.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoKEqaO6Z5-Tlm8v6nw6WXOlyT1MSwxekBWEV_gcfRIrhFCLorsl1tLtvToRgeh7ZcPoyRQSauArqA-bnruLbzt69GjvnD6mwLe2S05KV805gg03VS3B-B_IFaYDzNkAXCefY5S543v6Mr/s1600/gummies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoKEqaO6Z5-Tlm8v6nw6WXOlyT1MSwxekBWEV_gcfRIrhFCLorsl1tLtvToRgeh7ZcPoyRQSauArqA-bnruLbzt69GjvnD6mwLe2S05KV805gg03VS3B-B_IFaYDzNkAXCefY5S543v6Mr/s320/gummies.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today was our final day in Sweden and one of my favorite things about riding here has been the endless daylight. Even though the summer solstice has come and gone and therefore the hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere are decreasing daily, our days have continued to lengthen as we're moving north faster than the point on the globe that receives 24 hours of sunlight. Though we'll be riding north for a while longer in Norway, I don't think we'll ever actually reach the point where the sun never drops below the horizon, which would be a pretty cool thing to see.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many people have asked us if the endless light has messed up our schedule or made it difficult to sleep and the answer is no, not really. It's a little more difficult to get to bed early since the sun is still high in the sky at 9PM and we usually find ourselves putting off dinner until close to 10, but once we get to bed, falling asleep is not an issue at all. It's like taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. If you're tired, you can sleep. The strangest part, however, is when you wake up in the middle of the night, look at the watch and find that it's as bright outside as an overcast afternoon but it's only 1AM or that the sun is rising giving you the sense that it's time to wake up yet it's only 3AM. It can be a bit confusing during those groggy hours when you're half asleep and half awake but all in all I'm a huge fan of these long, long days.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday was another big milestone for us. We hit the 12,450.8 mile mark. That number probably doesn't have any significance to most people, but it turns out to be half the circumference of our planet. Suddenly Earth doesn't seem so big...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBM9nrRHMSryQYgu1qwwBpM0npYF7RB5wJSB2bJDF2NttALcWZO8VPIoh7X9_6dAMDU9KFWZ7hlyWjNnafFCYDbo0f9fD4pAqjN3xUaxC4NwuunrlG0UjLgTe3T0FZZqxQPIVAkMJc-jw/s1600/cm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBM9nrRHMSryQYgu1qwwBpM0npYF7RB5wJSB2bJDF2NttALcWZO8VPIoh7X9_6dAMDU9KFWZ7hlyWjNnafFCYDbo0f9fD4pAqjN3xUaxC4NwuunrlG0UjLgTe3T0FZZqxQPIVAkMJc-jw/s320/cm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-61607176283592708612011-07-07T07:17:00.000-07:002011-07-07T07:17:25.696-07:00GNATS FROM HELL<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Waiting a few extra days for our water filter has turned out to be a wise choice. Once we got a couple of days north of Gisela's house, the population drastically decreased. No longer are we passing through several towns a day nor are there frequent houses for us to get water as the land has transitioned from agriculture and livestock to largely uninhabited forests in varying stages of growth and destruction for the logging industry, rivers and lakes. Though we've been told on several occasions that all of the lake and river water is safe to drink, we remain a bit skeptical as it's the color of root beer, a light brown where it cascades over the rocks and a deep black anywhere it is more than a couple of feet deep. It's likely just a harmless algae but we feel much better drinking it after it's gone through our filter and we've learned to plan our water stops more than we used to if we want clear water. Though there's rarely restaurants to stop at, our map shows every town with a church and in Sweden, if there's a church there's always a cemetery surrounding it. I've never seen such well manicured cemeteries with fresh flowers on every site, but the good thing for us is that it means there are water spigots as well. They're easy to spot as there are racks of water cans and gardening tools alongside the water, so as of late the majority of our drinking water has come from cemeteries. We figure we'll get to drink enough river water in the weeks to come.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijD3x48BVDfM2BbeKkKmP4FN4XoUNZVBdN-7CIyc4AulmZL-JpvD1LMcyvMWy9FtTck7GUbixFJ7iJYGhQhx9T6yqADcktMNVwqItYntQM-jlpf5KHfSg1Z28LTUK_QhN3eEGwTPTDWIUI/s1600/river.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijD3x48BVDfM2BbeKkKmP4FN4XoUNZVBdN-7CIyc4AulmZL-JpvD1LMcyvMWy9FtTck7GUbixFJ7iJYGhQhx9T6yqADcktMNVwqItYntQM-jlpf5KHfSg1Z28LTUK_QhN3eEGwTPTDWIUI/s320/river.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Root Beer River</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With the decrease in number of people came an insane increase in the number of gnats. We expected the mosquitoes to be horrible but the gnats have far outdone them and proven to be pure torture, far worse than even the worst tabano incidents in South America, which we thought could never be topped. Our first night in no-man's land taught us just how bad it can be out here. We got to camp, set up our tent and by the time we were ready to make dinner it was virtually impossible to remain outside. We were fully covered in shoes, jeans, rain jackets and hats yet were were being eaten alive. I would have killed to have a bee keeper's suit and a pair of chemistry goggles. We decided to cook dinner inside the tent but with us entered several hundred gnats. It wasn't a very relaxing meal as we had to deal with the biting gnats while trying to cook and eat. By the end of dinner we each had dozens of bites but at least the tent was void of them. We let our food settle for a minute and then realized we had a bit of a problem. The sky outside was gray and swarming with millions of insects but we still had stuff to do out of the tent, like washing the dishes, brushing our teeth, going to the bathroom and putting the rain fly on the tent. It was like we were prisoners in our little mesh bubble, stuck inside a snow globe, only we had flesh biting gnats rather than beautiful white snowflakes swirling around us. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZOq-dqxco0nr8r0ZegItDUpLEUHkm-B_TvqgYG0otYRxngZgqcTB81gSC8T1yJuQ23wMGQ_7OGpnVTWbPaX8rQfr8qoXK30WWeqHJa2ds5uAgIULJk99-AJ8S9RL2d7qOaXv0k819v4t/s1600/gnats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZOq-dqxco0nr8r0ZegItDUpLEUHkm-B_TvqgYG0otYRxngZgqcTB81gSC8T1yJuQ23wMGQ_7OGpnVTWbPaX8rQfr8qoXK30WWeqHJa2ds5uAgIULJk99-AJ8S9RL2d7qOaXv0k819v4t/s320/gnats.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A tiny corner of our tent.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We didn't have much of a choice, we had to get out. It was a 2-man project to exit the tent as fast as possible. One of us had to unzip the door as the other literally dove through the opening and rolled on the ground outside while the first person proceeded to zip the door shut as the second person's feet were leaving the tent. Try doing chores, or better yet going to the bathroom, when you can't stop moving in the spastic movements of a child throwing a tantrum, legs running in place, arms flailing and head shaking side to side, for even an instant without feeling the prick of a bite somewhere on your body. It's impossible. They were so thick that when we slapped at one that had landed on our faces, our hand ended up covered in dozens of tiny black corpses.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As soon as our chores were completed we dove back into the tent only to find that it, too, was swarming with the ruthless devils. Several hours later we had a clean tent and were able to go to sleep, but shortly thereafter I awoke with a dilemma, either lay awake all night having to pee or go out into the torture chamber. In the dusk of midnight it appeared as though they had calmed down a bit so I chose the latter but it turned out to be a big mistake. In the 20 seconds I was outside I got at least a hundred bites and let another 100 gnats into the tent with me. I spent the next hour scratching at my skin uncontrollably like a drug addict coming down from a high while Mike played gnat killer in hopes we might get a few more hours of sleep that night. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was an unbelievably miserable night and now I understand how Sweden can have the “Every Man's Right” and not worry too much about their land getting trashed. What's the fun of camping when you're confined to a tent? I now look like I have Chicken Pox and we've found ourselves wishing for two things cyclists never want, wind and rain, but we learned a very valuable lesson. The next day we bought a little orange bucket with cute fish on it and made a rule: You get one entrance into the tent every night so once you're in, you're in for good. You can either severely dehydrate yourself every night, lay awake and uncomfortable having to go to the bathroom until morning or swallow your pride and use the bucket. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjNkX0dPIuQMtrztwjMOpezoQRUhfSKOmXEQw_Wf9go28J0UIGP9gUQ4aoomvgJuipfBCEOrp2zO16vw8bZNmar_-q_bg6J0x-v8WxIuLXA2ET4FsLkJEvQ46oD7HYXkFVIw2TLDYvFfp/s1600/mike+bucket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjNkX0dPIuQMtrztwjMOpezoQRUhfSKOmXEQw_Wf9go28J0UIGP9gUQ4aoomvgJuipfBCEOrp2zO16vw8bZNmar_-q_bg6J0x-v8WxIuLXA2ET4FsLkJEvQ46oD7HYXkFVIw2TLDYvFfp/s320/mike+bucket.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike with our bucket (before it was used).</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr08Pyhf1fSV7B_p8EbLFKlS6E21psm_8drHaL5Zx3CJIGd6Bp9Q7ANnf38tXJ_GO_3qeN-iaiKOFt0mSaSZw2ZioCYmwLUuDvATpp6o-wUggjyk0TJCoVE5Gk0K3pMo0EQjJF_Ff6MT0Q/s1600/bucket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr08Pyhf1fSV7B_p8EbLFKlS6E21psm_8drHaL5Zx3CJIGd6Bp9Q7ANnf38tXJ_GO_3qeN-iaiKOFt0mSaSZw2ZioCYmwLUuDvATpp6o-wUggjyk0TJCoVE5Gk0K3pMo0EQjJF_Ff6MT0Q/s320/bucket.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Close up views of our nicely decorated bucket.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfWvKacx5vDzEdMBKjk1b4eIRcYDSDfk__xN0QY-hVEyXdGJJCx0aar721YVXPpqEhMW8NEJdqyh0IZaHRnnZqAZOSBwf3C5wdH_V8mylK3a4Cod6-qdyCooNj1XjE230JEubkoUUDqhA/s1600/bucket2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfWvKacx5vDzEdMBKjk1b4eIRcYDSDfk__xN0QY-hVEyXdGJJCx0aar721YVXPpqEhMW8NEJdqyh0IZaHRnnZqAZOSBwf3C5wdH_V8mylK3a4Cod6-qdyCooNj1XjE230JEubkoUUDqhA/s320/bucket2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-49984394862208331232011-07-03T03:39:00.000-07:002011-07-03T03:39:01.807-07:00NEW FRIENDS AND OLD<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our past week has been quite lazy. Upon our arrival in Sweden we had only one planned stop in a tiny town near Rejmyre to meet up with Gisela, a woman we met more than 3 months ago in southern Portugal at the very beginning of our European bike tour. For anyone who's been following the blog since then, she was the woman who was living in her camper van and was so kind to us when we set up our tent amongst the camper community she was a part of. We had remained in contact since we left Portugal and thought it would be fun to meet up again while she was parked at her friend Matts' house for several weeks in southern Sweden this summer.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The night before we arrived to Gisela's we met Ben, a French guy on a solo 2 ½ month bike tour who was camping at the same roadside rest stop as we were. Ecstatic to meet some other cyclists and more-or-less heading in the same direction as we were, we invited him to join us the next day for the ride into Rejmyre knowing Gisela wouldn't mind if one more traveler showed up needing a place to sleep for a night.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was great having Ben along with us, much better than our ride with the last French guy we met in Austria who didn't speak any English, wasn't much of a cyclist and nearly wanted to kill me by the end of the day because I apparently made him ride to fast and too far. Ben on the other hand, spoke perfect English, was a strong rider and provided an additional element to our conversations which was nice. When pretty much the only people Mike and I have spoken to over the past year are each other, conversations can get a little dull at times.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcWpjxHoFgvHRC7PbYwGlmIVdL4rvPHOgK-6RPzRLbOBGhhkN4SkFuG2Lv50tDmhLVwIVxRD1tb0ct1x1_PTbBUsavmgB4e9dQyjcKsr8TJXnDuvN8VhKE0WkgvPHMO2wy94r4ggmo-SYH/s1600/mike%252C+ben+%252C+cari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcWpjxHoFgvHRC7PbYwGlmIVdL4rvPHOgK-6RPzRLbOBGhhkN4SkFuG2Lv50tDmhLVwIVxRD1tb0ct1x1_PTbBUsavmgB4e9dQyjcKsr8TJXnDuvN8VhKE0WkgvPHMO2wy94r4ggmo-SYH/s320/mike%252C+ben+%252C+cari.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike, Ben & Cari</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HSQcTbjHl3RVghPJWm4QxK23RP2iUTTDVfxfPXEYh8ntLzA19QDnrmljHWtBFQLOBrHnIxCppj_sN1uraT2gbn1UgzB_oT-wQLQnnkEslR9O5mOBtufl0keYgOSvsv7dpxdhKXU4TW2t/s1600/ben%252C+mike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HSQcTbjHl3RVghPJWm4QxK23RP2iUTTDVfxfPXEYh8ntLzA19QDnrmljHWtBFQLOBrHnIxCppj_sN1uraT2gbn1UgzB_oT-wQLQnnkEslR9O5mOBtufl0keYgOSvsv7dpxdhKXU4TW2t/s320/ben%252C+mike.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben & Mike</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Getting to Gisela's friend's house was a little tricky as there are no names for the country roads in Sweden. The only way you know whether or not you're on the correct road is by the signs directing you to the next tiny village up the road. If you don't have an extremely detailed map you'll never find your way through Sweden on anything other than main highways. The pace we were searching for was called Kallstugan, a one-house town out in the forest and our directions were as such, “There is no sign for your turn off the main road but if you get to an old factory you've gone 100 meters too far. Once you get onto the gravel road keep taking all of the left hand turn options and then look for the black garbage can at the end of the driveway and listen for the 4 dogs who never stop barking.” Well, we never found the old factory and didn't want to get ourselves too lost wandering the logging roads of Sweden so we asked people to point us in the right direction once we got to Rejmyre. Once on the correct gravel road, the garbage can was a good indicator of which little side road to take and we were greeted at the gate by 4 barking German Shepherds, a dead giveaway that we had arrived at the right house.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was a bit crazy to see Gisela again; typically when we meet someone on the road we never expect to see them again. You spend an hour or two, maybe a day or two together and then paths diverge and the chances of them crossing again is fairly minimal. Once again, just as in Portugal, we were treated with Gisela's kindness and generosity. Not only did we get to take hot showers, do our laundry and sleep in a bed, which are such rare luxuries to us, we also had an open invitation to relax and hang out for as long as we needed. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLwYEko_ZLu4tny_Zz7YIHuhMYTIhoPYlLAIVpdKbBxOPf8evRVsZVIjjC_nEnWr5-58mPIW2GM62SNIi9JAYxty5saFVXfmoiIfvgLhgFHZjZw0bM_MKpKni-fqfdDY8XLvZZ16kso6T/s1600/bungalow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLwYEko_ZLu4tny_Zz7YIHuhMYTIhoPYlLAIVpdKbBxOPf8evRVsZVIjjC_nEnWr5-58mPIW2GM62SNIi9JAYxty5saFVXfmoiIfvgLhgFHZjZw0bM_MKpKni-fqfdDY8XLvZZ16kso6T/s320/bungalow.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our cozy little bungalow.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben ended up staying 2 nights before he had to take off to make it to Stockholm where he was meeting his girlfriend for a few days. There's a good chance we'll run into Ben again as we're all heading north towards the same destination, the Lofoten Islands. It will be great to have another person with us for a while. We stayed 5 nights at Gisela's which was considerably longer than we'd originally planned to stay but we had had Mike's mom mail our water filter to this house since we'll soon be in no-man's land, drinking from the lakes and rivers and of course it was late in arriving. It wasn't such a horrible thing to have to wait for a package as this was our first long break from cycling since Spain and it felt nice to relax and sleep as much as we pleased knowing that we had absolutely nothing that had to be done each day. We lazed around all day, read a little, played with the dogs, made phone calls and took advantage of having a kitchen for a few days. Not only was it nice to cook for ourselves but we had an appreciative crowd which always makes it that much more fun.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiq7hh3hMfFAvB1u9RxzqWbHPk0uxMIDqGOBgtDsGGJn479Vbrb-HcI8gsQ6xffqrdZ3AZpby9Eu-f3CCOT6g2WCkUr_M4sZzUz3xiI99kDN8SMQ4uDLAE2MUutLI3la4igRqveXdPjq4q/s1600/dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiq7hh3hMfFAvB1u9RxzqWbHPk0uxMIDqGOBgtDsGGJn479Vbrb-HcI8gsQ6xffqrdZ3AZpby9Eu-f3CCOT6g2WCkUr_M4sZzUz3xiI99kDN8SMQ4uDLAE2MUutLI3la4igRqveXdPjq4q/s320/dog.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pila, one of the 4 German Shepherds.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgATQ1NQ9ekbuizU10shb0NKU6DJ5w7LtW75KFlCEJ6ndgTWsy8x9nHRMdP-zsS5tUROfj603_eWv9K4soZKQUOlcNKhRrOv0FpzwI2xPIu2FYEfwelKQrqspXZaRIBxJ7XvWpaQx5S_6f/s1600/dinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgATQ1NQ9ekbuizU10shb0NKU6DJ5w7LtW75KFlCEJ6ndgTWsy8x9nHRMdP-zsS5tUROfj603_eWv9K4soZKQUOlcNKhRrOv0FpzwI2xPIu2FYEfwelKQrqspXZaRIBxJ7XvWpaQx5S_6f/s320/dinner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gisela, Matts, Ben & Mike</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYXIN9iSN84qef0NCIi_4EGRU3riYY4l29Qri0fvA4VTVLqOfOsjVjLNU7V-oJU9pP1rnqeq58L6LbrAZVsPOiAzx55e-hSQ7bu80OsQheqxDqkHQoDy9Pcnr-93061Ziev9Mu-WQz5FB/s1600/shortcake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYXIN9iSN84qef0NCIi_4EGRU3riYY4l29Qri0fvA4VTVLqOfOsjVjLNU7V-oJU9pP1rnqeq58L6LbrAZVsPOiAzx55e-hSQ7bu80OsQheqxDqkHQoDy9Pcnr-93061Ziev9Mu-WQz5FB/s320/shortcake.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Homemade Strawberry Shortcake</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thanks again, Gisela, for your welcoming arms and caring heart and who knows, maybe our paths will one day cross again.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-89267200936466476342011-06-27T05:08:00.000-07:002011-06-27T07:38:50.268-07:00FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SWEDEN<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First impressions say a lot about people and places and from our first week in Sweden all we have to say are wonderful things. For starters, the people have been outstandingly friendly. Everyone says “hej” (sounds like hi) when we pass them on the streets, any time we stop in a town people come up to us and want to talk about where we're from and where we're going and we have yet to meet someone who doesn't speak at least a little English, most of them being perfectly fluent. For the first time in a long time communication has been easy and I must say it's really, really nice not having to speak in simple, broken phrases and simultaneously use hand gestures.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've always imagined Sweden, and all of Scandinavia for that matter, to be somewhat like the Midwest in terms of people's kindness towards strangers. So far that premonition has held true. Last Friday was a holiday, The Midsummer Festival where all of Sweden celebrates, kind of like the 4<sup>th</sup> of July in the U.S. Technically Summer began only 5 days before that and I hope that this wasn't really the midpoint, which would leave us with only 5 days to go before Fall hits. Of course we didn't know it was a holiday until we arrived in a town to buy our groceries for the day. We stopped at a convenience store only to find it closed. At the same time, a woman drove up, we inquired about a supermarket and she pointed us in the right direction. However, when we arrived, that too had closed early for the day. We proceeded to the other store in town but as you can guess, it was closed. Luckily we had some lunch supplies in our pannier so we sat on a bench outside the market and pulled out our chips, cheese and avocado and began to eat. Just as we took our first bite a car pulled up. It was the same woman we ran into when we first got to town telling us that there was one gas station in town, 400 meters away, that was still open for another 15 minutes. I don't know how she found us tucked under the awning of a closed supermarket and I don't know of too many people who would go out of their way to hunt down two travelers just to inform them of the last place they'd be able to find food for possibly the next two days, but we were happy that this woman had the heart to do it for us on that day so we didn't have to eat only chips for lunch and plain white rice for dinner.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So far bike touring in Sweden has been fantastic. The landscape is very much like northern Minnesota, the Pacific northwest, Canada or Alaska. There are rolling hills of mostly forest though some stretches of farmland and we pass by dozens of lakes daily. We had to buy Mike a fishing pole so he didn't drive himself mad at camp every night and just as it turned out to be a good investment in Chile, it has also proven to be a worthwhile way to spend $30 here too. I get a couple of hours to write, read or work on editing our pictures and Mike gets a couple of hours to fish and drink beer; it works out nicely for both of us.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fL79XD4mwHi4XrboYSV_bAs7hxJ3toqoWjLTqOOxaLQy98oC95WVc62f6kSFqhsCfNjIHbhbGmdzIpf_yCA-I_ESM8vuwJkWj_s0WZrqmfxaIo_0Ozxo_mhgAHatwjz5uWzejwaNdSwu/s1600/fishing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fL79XD4mwHi4XrboYSV_bAs7hxJ3toqoWjLTqOOxaLQy98oC95WVc62f6kSFqhsCfNjIHbhbGmdzIpf_yCA-I_ESM8vuwJkWj_s0WZrqmfxaIo_0Ozxo_mhgAHatwjz5uWzejwaNdSwu/s320/fishing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike fishing.</span></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although we haven't found any long stretches of bike paths, they're not necessary here. Most of the traffic sticks to the main highways which leaves us as the only ones occupying the quiet country roads that connect the tiny rural villages. It is peaceful riding with the only sounds being those of our tires whirring along the pavement, the wind in our ears, birds singing and our squeaky pedals. The land is scattered with little mountain cabins, the majority of them painted dark red with white trim, that beautifully contrast the lush green landscape and wildflowers that surround them. The air is clear and fresh, the kind that's only found in the forested northlands where there are no people and lots of trees. There is a crispness in the air and despite the fact that it's the warmest time of the year there is still smoke billowing from the chimneys that gives the forest the smell of lazy winter days and makes me want to snuggle up in a down blanket with a good book and a cup of hot tea. There is so much wide open space, so few people and such deafening silence that it feels like we have the world to ourselves and I think of how peaceful it would be to live in such a place. I'm sure I'd love it until winter hit (in August) and then I'd be ready to move some place warmer.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvEqW6Z90QTPU9bdOxGL0K-YjNUphl1oCWoNLL2MOLJPCwBGhxm8Ly0ZIp-GToPk2qLNhqYAjLmF6hbYf19j1s1z2d_NsRzpO8mdgB0_HUXQe0WK4PdXuJHMYZCIUdcye-eLMLO7Xprx7/s1600/house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvEqW6Z90QTPU9bdOxGL0K-YjNUphl1oCWoNLL2MOLJPCwBGhxm8Ly0ZIp-GToPk2qLNhqYAjLmF6hbYf19j1s1z2d_NsRzpO8mdgB0_HUXQe0WK4PdXuJHMYZCIUdcye-eLMLO7Xprx7/s320/house.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A typical looking house.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZnqQm5LQrGugaOiqoiTSc3SQm5GmzjDVryYV3LVsJkTbz087ZVYTk2ur_z1Gjy-JQq9XsZ-CdwgvxRxty-cZKxZu5_LGluYlFA-P3C30hvPRk1A-q8zI_dfFT6YBs0oktIklQpOBwJOg/s1600/boat2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZnqQm5LQrGugaOiqoiTSc3SQm5GmzjDVryYV3LVsJkTbz087ZVYTk2ur_z1Gjy-JQq9XsZ-CdwgvxRxty-cZKxZu5_LGluYlFA-P3C30hvPRk1A-q8zI_dfFT6YBs0oktIklQpOBwJOg/s320/boat2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqCzmb2kjrTy4Bd83aXP-Kw8Uvy6oZKbrAFmr4D-TenQwxVpWB1vRaGfYg_Hmn1PYnrh6msXb9BKq8cuor7JSFnmnX9stmzartgfwgG0SoX87xb7cRDlde91P3P35kRb_fINFsHMey37J/s1600/boat3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqCzmb2kjrTy4Bd83aXP-Kw8Uvy6oZKbrAFmr4D-TenQwxVpWB1vRaGfYg_Hmn1PYnrh6msXb9BKq8cuor7JSFnmnX9stmzartgfwgG0SoX87xb7cRDlde91P3P35kRb_fINFsHMey37J/s320/boat3.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On top of everything I've already mentioned, there is one more thing that makes Sweden absolutely wonderful for bike touring. They have a law called “Every Man's Right” and what it states is that you are allowed to camp virtually anywhere as long as you're not in someone's yard, in a park where it's posted that camping is prohibited and not disturbing or destroying the natural habitat. For us, there couldn't be a more convenient law. No longer do we have to spend time searching for a place to hide every night. When we're ready to camp, we fill up water and pull over just about anywhere without having to worry about someone seeing us or spotting our campfire and kicking us out in the middle of the night. What a wonderful place this is!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Over the course of our first week in Sweden, we've talked to dozens of people and nearly every one of them has ended our conversation with some form of, “Welcome to Sweden. I hope you enjoy your visit.” What a proud, welcoming and wonderful people we have found in this country and thanks to their kindness, we are certain to enjoy our time here.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-68052707280148637832011-06-21T04:14:00.000-07:002011-06-23T09:12:11.864-07:00RURAL GERMANY<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We were very excited to get to Germany as we had heard from many other cyclists that there were fantastic bike routes and the riding was great there. I don't know if we've become cycle path snobs or if we're just idiots but we had no luck finding these bike paths that people spoke of and when one actually did appear for a short time it was anything but pleasant to ride on. I think what it comes down to is that we were terribly spoiled with the well-marked and superbly maintained bike routes in Switzerland and Austria and were expecting the same in Germany. Rather, we found no maps or signs for long distance cycling in the eastern portion of Germany and the tourist offices we stopped at were of no help at all. Every now and again a path that paralleled the road we were on would randomly appear so we'd get on it only to discover that several miles further on it stopped just as abruptly as it began and spit us back out onto the same narrow, busy, shoulder-less road we were previously on. In the towns, there were generally 2-colored sidewalks made of bricks or uneven tiles, the red side for bicycles and the gray side for pedestrians. First of all, cycling on these surfaces was very uncomfortable and they might as well have made the bike paths out of cobblestone and secondly putting bicycles and pedestrians on the same path is never a good idea. Though there were designated sides, no one looks both ways before crossing a sidewalk when they're leaving a store or stepping of of a bus. We couldn't let our minds wander or look around for an instant as we certainly would have clobbered countless people; there were already too many close calls when our complete attention was on navigating the sidewalks. Needless to say, the ease of traveling by bike and a general sense of bike friendliness was a bit of a disappointment in Germany.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aside from our few days in Berlin, the rest of our time in Germany was spent cycling through rural landscapes. It reminded us very much of Minnesota in the summertime with the endless fields, numerous lakes and torturous mosquitoes that attacked in swarms the instant we stopped cycling. I guess it's a good preview of what we'll be dealing with in Scandinavia. We enjoyed a week of riding over flat terrain for the first time since we left the Midwest 9 months ago. Our knees were grateful that the longest they had to work to power us up any hill lasted, at most, 2 minutes and our minds loved the psychology of jamming effortlessly down a road and at the end of the day when we checked the odometer finding that we'd covered far more ground than expected.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2aSr01ldHYBNUqIn0vIbU8t8xBlcuI4wRpI-7IhGKVNpbKo6xbb5i1yQW2DpxXUmVETqrNeiC3BcRmWI-PfY0NUFQ_07WNoueIHxJJMfWTTlgCCjJpuH-h54JhxlHycpD1LrBONfwDp0r/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2aSr01ldHYBNUqIn0vIbU8t8xBlcuI4wRpI-7IhGKVNpbKo6xbb5i1yQW2DpxXUmVETqrNeiC3BcRmWI-PfY0NUFQ_07WNoueIHxJJMfWTTlgCCjJpuH-h54JhxlHycpD1LrBONfwDp0r/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoq9j0YC4gQRhfuJQqSQkPviFTzVsH2qVx-P2XSjyhv9VJH8m0Af8uOQAOI8EhCLjYjKhaHm509V1NAtq5EoycUFdFUOMCZ6GXIbcatcUYSbzbuN12GIEaUidb04U_U3NedKDDd5osuW9A/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoq9j0YC4gQRhfuJQqSQkPviFTzVsH2qVx-P2XSjyhv9VJH8m0Af8uOQAOI8EhCLjYjKhaHm509V1NAtq5EoycUFdFUOMCZ6GXIbcatcUYSbzbuN12GIEaUidb04U_U3NedKDDd5osuW9A/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the first time on this trip we have run into ticks. Germany seemed to be heavily infested with these spooky little arachnids. Looking at our lifestyle over the past year of living outdoors and setting up camp almost nightly in tall grass or forested areas, it's actually a surprise that we haven't had issues with them until now. Since we crossed the border, we've both been bit by one and we've found them crawling on us, in our coffee mugs in the morning and across my notebook as I do our bookkeeping at night. They seem to be everywhere, some of them a few millimeters long and easy to spot, yet some as tiny as the tip of my pen. Maybe we're just worry warts about the potential harm these critters can cause but for nearly 2 weeks we've felt like we constantly have things crawling on us and when a mole or speck of dirt on our arm or leg catches our eye we immediately think tick and rush to flick it off. We're like a couple of chimpanzees and check each others back and hair for bugs when we get to camp at night which is kind of disgusting, I know, but it really is incredible that we've seen more ticks in 2 weeks than either of have seen in our entire life. We're hoping there will be fewer in Sweden but our senses tell us otherwise so I guess we'll just keep on riding and try not to be paranoid.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjV1hJ5-5BGSJqlmqbhU8Wx9E5yKS7QunOyY-80YjhiRCOu-S50to3S4CRzst7DI4gmfIysBuV7pmXL1A1Mw2RyULvz3mldCrYFCscVHneUWQdhux-GUvYVlyz3BwmfilJ4fKFWnichN2/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjV1hJ5-5BGSJqlmqbhU8Wx9E5yKS7QunOyY-80YjhiRCOu-S50to3S4CRzst7DI4gmfIysBuV7pmXL1A1Mw2RyULvz3mldCrYFCscVHneUWQdhux-GUvYVlyz3BwmfilJ4fKFWnichN2/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's no wonder we're full of ticks when this is our home.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-13888686905950764832011-06-20T04:08:00.000-07:002011-06-20T04:08:31.085-07:00BERLIN<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We generally avoid cities but we made an exception for Berlin. There's too much history there to blow it off as just another big city. We found a place to stay through Warmshowers with a guy named Stefan who was preparing to leave on his own world bike tour. It was so fun for us to see this individual during his last week of work, terribly nervous yet unbelievably excited for what lays ahead, with brand new gear and definitely too much of it, with high hopes and expectations of what he'll see and experience on his journey and having read hundreds of bike touring books and blogs, thus feeling ready yet with questions galore. We remember having all of those emotions like it was yesterday; leaving all of your friends, family and comforts of home to take off into the unknown is not something one soon forgets.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We answered his questions and gave him any advice we could think of from our year on the road and passed on a little piece of superstition that was presented to us right before we left. “The demon bells” given to us by our friends Stephanie and Ethan is actually a motorcycle tradition but we like the idea for bicycles as well. The bell must be given to to you as a gift, placed on your bike by someone else and left there until it falls off. It will protect you from the demons of the road by scaring away those things that cause breakdowns and accidents, thus keeping you safe during your travels. Well, the demon bells are still jingling away on our bikes and have done a good job of keeping us safe so hopefully Stefan will have a long, safe journey himself.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAT0-TF_l6HUcAhUXucGRw8rfGL3FbFSuPEImpCAjuxyYaNblJs9frnW5PVCLB-ahWnvzPaTbddhNzHVRgG_q-UJlQ_RWqwgVQU4dNLlxwYEDAp-A6RYvfgK6PJh8YGA7608oOCnwRIDi/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAT0-TF_l6HUcAhUXucGRw8rfGL3FbFSuPEImpCAjuxyYaNblJs9frnW5PVCLB-ahWnvzPaTbddhNzHVRgG_q-UJlQ_RWqwgVQU4dNLlxwYEDAp-A6RYvfgK6PJh8YGA7608oOCnwRIDi/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stefan and Mike having Berlin's famous Currywurst.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Berlin is a city full of museums, memorials, gigantic statues and old, powerful looking cathedrals. We spent 2 days visiting some of the sights including the East Side Gallery section of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin History Museum and the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and Memorial. We barely touched the surface of seeing everything there is to see in Berlin, that would take weeks and would be way too depressing. There isn't much in the way of happy history surrounding this city. The unthinkable inhumanity that occurred there was disgusting, the cruelty of human beings leaves you with a heavy heart and the fact that it was so recent in our history only makes it that much more horrific.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not going to say anything about each of the places we visited. We all know the history. The rest of this post is just pictures from around Berlin.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJt6yQ_1V4M_rqv9rtCLvpLvXHhzla_H-bqoQEXBAQN4hFmRe7A6OvGIaVCtxDo0VrEN5m53b0vDdpNxKjOk9358U362OjF_3jEfvcZeK9LvRlOz_Ynao04plBrWp9Y90AiJiQljSOnxDm/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJt6yQ_1V4M_rqv9rtCLvpLvXHhzla_H-bqoQEXBAQN4hFmRe7A6OvGIaVCtxDo0VrEN5m53b0vDdpNxKjOk9358U362OjF_3jEfvcZeK9LvRlOz_Ynao04plBrWp9Y90AiJiQljSOnxDm/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Checkpoint Charlie.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsThj04peMeXdKzPTzEdIzq35iEz73Kn1GFPTEty9crwerismgG3My-wbum21D7DykkRYKiHIPSEbWIYDmm3c2SJVpflwPWUahDXonV_uhYb_gO5Eu0I1UE0hlxXOMuXHxrKQrxlRSFFIs/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsThj04peMeXdKzPTzEdIzq35iEz73Kn1GFPTEty9crwerismgG3My-wbum21D7DykkRYKiHIPSEbWIYDmm3c2SJVpflwPWUahDXonV_uhYb_gO5Eu0I1UE0hlxXOMuXHxrKQrxlRSFFIs/s320/20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brandenburger Tor.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtQiCJhOUEGWPH_K1Xz8F6nblRbNoNHniSjeE6d_k7crVL55TWF52QSy3ipauemHOteEFcP2Nsg-WdU7bqqwTeclqb77vjSI3nI8Psi9F4y98VpyRctm1H1C92uFMwjxICzEvV1qopUlJ/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtQiCJhOUEGWPH_K1Xz8F6nblRbNoNHniSjeE6d_k7crVL55TWF52QSy3ipauemHOteEFcP2Nsg-WdU7bqqwTeclqb77vjSI3nI8Psi9F4y98VpyRctm1H1C92uFMwjxICzEvV1qopUlJ/s320/19.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Churches.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31dehJiDYVqo3g5Xs7tcgcagc1XdCxTU42py0kuMPF2YSpVSpuMITTJpBE27Y9IJPIZGo8lbCutLyrWYt4UYkJlmi1HEAFuRXtnAOsTaCHhBQDQs9XCQxP3Ah2GZ3S9E-4DpEJe9V7ZaZ/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31dehJiDYVqo3g5Xs7tcgcagc1XdCxTU42py0kuMPF2YSpVSpuMITTJpBE27Y9IJPIZGo8lbCutLyrWYt4UYkJlmi1HEAFuRXtnAOsTaCHhBQDQs9XCQxP3Ah2GZ3S9E-4DpEJe9V7ZaZ/s320/22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-JpbwFYG1V8TH2jog8xjjn7sgW9UgBgWvkhY_VJmvcU6IvLTyCkCoGJqd9GRsfHYqJHkEQX1vyU7TwcBLwNg45rhddNwUvtKbXa-bSXLa6jTN-xd5QGjT16WNeUTmDVJdmfF1WQOzaKcP/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-JpbwFYG1V8TH2jog8xjjn7sgW9UgBgWvkhY_VJmvcU6IvLTyCkCoGJqd9GRsfHYqJHkEQX1vyU7TwcBLwNg45rhddNwUvtKbXa-bSXLa6jTN-xd5QGjT16WNeUTmDVJdmfF1WQOzaKcP/s320/24.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8lZBKoKUMtZNPB9fYO7Q99CM3t20gTsVr7Z0aN3ksHID2pHp6fE6z1cny-IILkgdU2YsnaL2VQ0P94BRy3wBi9TkLyO13PJ9k5G6_wF2geh47c0hL76BTY8Tb0XcCv58LmEfJ1MuyW044/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8lZBKoKUMtZNPB9fYO7Q99CM3t20gTsVr7Z0aN3ksHID2pHp6fE6z1cny-IILkgdU2YsnaL2VQ0P94BRy3wBi9TkLyO13PJ9k5G6_wF2geh47c0hL76BTY8Tb0XcCv58LmEfJ1MuyW044/s320/25.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-64511627071036058592011-06-14T07:01:00.000-07:002011-06-14T07:01:48.454-07:00UPPER AUSTRIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When we think about our final 5 days in Austria, one thing comes to our minds; the Brandtner family. Once again we used the Warm Showers website and ended up at Christian and Andrea's house where we stayed for a few rainy days, got a bunch of errands done and shared bike touring stories. When the day came for us to continue on, Christian drew us a map and told us we were welcome to stay at his parents' house 100 km up the road, which happened to be right along the bike route we had been following. So we left one Brandtner house and arrived at the next that same night, tired from the mountainous ride and wet from the rain. We were immediately ushered into their toasty warm kitchen, fed hot tea and a typical dinner of cold meats, cheese and homemade bread. It was unfortunate that Roman and Johanna didn't speak a word of English as we would have loved to have a conversation with them so smiles and nods had to suffice, but thankfully their other son, Robert, was there to show us to our bedroom and help us get comfortable. As Robert was helping us map our route from his parents' house, we were then invited to stay at his and his wife's house the following night another 80 km along the bike route. This family couldn't have been more welcoming or more conveniently located and perfectly spaced for bike touring. We had 5 consecutive nights with a roof over our heads and showers. It was by far the cleanest 5 days we've had in many, many months. Huge thanks to Christian and Andrea, Roman and Johanna, Robert and Karen for all of your hospitality; we couldn't have dreamed up a better family to meet on our ride through upper Austria.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqVmp-p4Tod3ZZegKqbD1sdzMqPtqcrRd6wjFTN-O7bSBSg3gg4T7RehGqg5KYNQa7Y3T3QGVgZu0lULsy0_vu9l5WU0LdHhbazYZ0pKW2wKl86kOwmO8DQMgVOJYD6FIeSVY5VMY_jhVg/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqVmp-p4Tod3ZZegKqbD1sdzMqPtqcrRd6wjFTN-O7bSBSg3gg4T7RehGqg5KYNQa7Y3T3QGVgZu0lULsy0_vu9l5WU0LdHhbazYZ0pKW2wKl86kOwmO8DQMgVOJYD6FIeSVY5VMY_jhVg/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari, Andrea and Christian making dinner at the cafe. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdIUYyXBx2Pt6tyiphN_6KTG4M3X20OMWKbPDx7yP7zu-Mip9BkVkghjoH1o08o4PDNPYidNbHDLP1nlAegI1Kxcy4IrctZwVSaQb7pKHLeRsyGYH7Ots33wJVZaWgXoq4wP2n9EvuSIo/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdIUYyXBx2Pt6tyiphN_6KTG4M3X20OMWKbPDx7yP7zu-Mip9BkVkghjoH1o08o4PDNPYidNbHDLP1nlAegI1Kxcy4IrctZwVSaQb7pKHLeRsyGYH7Ots33wJVZaWgXoq4wP2n9EvuSIo/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari, Roman, Johanna and Mike.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lP-fXcJVlk9k0W_w_EuOoA4X3xZtqewKXphPCe71KLR4C74_3wcjDEXjpFqfoSObIH7FI_-hS47ePquLyPH_X12hviiDepw3w1Ax1_GoIButV8YVFGB37v9abI4-h-85x79LVdJUjJWN/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lP-fXcJVlk9k0W_w_EuOoA4X3xZtqewKXphPCe71KLR4C74_3wcjDEXjpFqfoSObIH7FI_-hS47ePquLyPH_X12hviiDepw3w1Ax1_GoIButV8YVFGB37v9abI4-h-85x79LVdJUjJWN/s320/3.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari, Robert, Karen and Mike.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our last 2 months of cycling have been spent in countries that have been immaculately clean where spotting so much as a soda can laying on the side of the road was virtually impossible. The roads and cycling paths have been top-notch and buildings, though centuries old have been renovated to look like new. When we arrived in the Czech Republic there was immediately noticeable differences in the infrastructure from what we had seen in its neighboring countries to the south. The cycling paths suddenly disappeared and therefore forced us to ride on the roads which could use a bit of repair. We noticed the first bits of trash we'd seen in what seemed like ages and many of the buildings required considerable maintenance. The border town was busy with people selling their wares in small, crammed shops that somewhat reminded us of the markets we had seen in South America. It was obvious that this country has experienced difficult social and economic hardships in recent history, but insight from some locals has informed us that it's recovering, has improved drastically over the past few years and is thankfully on the mend.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKq_MCQPNUMMTHkUk4f1ChcHaSSGhmuawa6gtVMSPrg47ervFEyk-icVRZ2kSC0XPgpNIBxU0eJuQutiZ0YGB3IHf5OHd0-UprM1Xo3DBCeizni53AIani4BbvNBZptBByX_LvP1bK09ZM/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKq_MCQPNUMMTHkUk4f1ChcHaSSGhmuawa6gtVMSPrg47ervFEyk-icVRZ2kSC0XPgpNIBxU0eJuQutiZ0YGB3IHf5OHd0-UprM1Xo3DBCeizni53AIani4BbvNBZptBByX_LvP1bK09ZM/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We purposely chose a route heading north through Czech that bypassed Prague, likely the most tourist visited city in the country, because, as we've tried to explain to a million people, big cities are a nightmare to bike tourists. We did, however, ride through the cute, and definitely touristy, town of Cesky Krumlov with its castle nestled in the center of this picturesque city on the banks of the Vltava River. From there we headed for the traffic-less country roads through rural Czech which we discovered to be a little “rough” feeling, in the same sense that you'd likely find a bike trip through the back roads of rural America to feel. But despite the roughness in the people and the state of disrepair of the tiny farming villages through which we passed, we found the landscape to be absolutely beautiful. The countryside was rolling hills of deep green forests and fields of hops, corn, wheat and fire-red poppies as far as the eye can see.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-b6_YbAHGPX2AZXUWGzE15nAYiJOsd9jsHhVuVmyOLuzSrxtlrz1e2S1POtzIn3KeXSKCmVDqepqIRFYSXD5RbC87-VvTyakvGvih_2d9TLF0Xmzlhb4kDSqf6phK0XkrERXeiI22Zk-/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-b6_YbAHGPX2AZXUWGzE15nAYiJOsd9jsHhVuVmyOLuzSrxtlrz1e2S1POtzIn3KeXSKCmVDqepqIRFYSXD5RbC87-VvTyakvGvih_2d9TLF0Xmzlhb4kDSqf6phK0XkrERXeiI22Zk-/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cesky Krumlov</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEIJehXGFiQOhHlLnNnI41ct-r692jpfZjd0Nsy-IcnHadc-neUHb62CrQbmXz80jS5vTbCH6fpZkvN0qiX-mBtLzZ1by88EFnptfjLKIbLnunxPJbiOYVFVrXxOUJvWoA5brarNW_nN-/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEIJehXGFiQOhHlLnNnI41ct-r692jpfZjd0Nsy-IcnHadc-neUHb62CrQbmXz80jS5vTbCH6fpZkvN0qiX-mBtLzZ1by88EFnptfjLKIbLnunxPJbiOYVFVrXxOUJvWoA5brarNW_nN-/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Czech countryside</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPECmOcbBSFV4sLnBMY6ZObfK7JzxMRgc5YsE3Y2OEF3TSMHjFg4VxfBQiEKfjBv0RAKDv6f1nsjmEQPJ7T5eDum_09-zkL5pGRi-mE2e6Gx_8BiS062DLX5PWFjRw5_MtbYePJVp7wvS5/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPECmOcbBSFV4sLnBMY6ZObfK7JzxMRgc5YsE3Y2OEF3TSMHjFg4VxfBQiEKfjBv0RAKDv6f1nsjmEQPJ7T5eDum_09-zkL5pGRi-mE2e6Gx_8BiS062DLX5PWFjRw5_MtbYePJVp7wvS5/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari making dinner at camp.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of our biggest challenges in the Czech Republic came on our second night in the country. By then we were deep into the heart of farm country, it was getting late and we needed to fill our 8 liters of water so we could start looking for camp. Remember that we have just left the Alps where some of the most pure water imaginable is abundantly flowing from the mountains. For nearly a month we've been passing through towns with numerous fountains in each, continuously spewing fresh drinking water for anyone who passes by. Finding good water was as easy as riding into the center of a village and we didn't expect to have such a difficult time in Czech.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most of the farming villages we rode through consisted only of a few dozen houses or so; no gas station, no supermarket, no bar and no restaurant. We didn't have many options other than to ask people who were outside working in their yards. The first guy we asked didn't speak English but clearly understood that we wanted water. He passed all of our bottles through the window to his wife who filled them and sent them back out to us. The last 2 bottles that came through the window were our clear 1.5-liter soda bottles and much to our disgust the water in them was a murky tea colored brown. No way were we drinking that so we rode around the corner and dumped every last drop. We were down to our final 16 ounces of good water so we changed our route and headed for the nearest “big town.” A half mile up the road we saw an old, shirtless man outside so I asked him if he spoke English. He nodded yes, but when I spoke to him it immediately became clear that he didn't. He understood that we were searching for water so he led us into his house and we filled a bottle. Again it was brown and we made gestures to ask if it was safe to drink. “Yes, yes, gute” he kept saying and then proceeded to imply through charades that he didn't drink water, only beer. He certainly wasn't a guy to trust when it came to whether or not we'd be sick for the next day from bad water, so once again we dumped the water and continued on. The third times a charm, right? A few miles further on was another small village and to our relief it had a bar which we've found always have the best water. It was my turn to go in and ask so I took our 2 big bottles inside and was thankful to see 2 young girls working. Our experiences throughout Europe has been that the majority of the young people and a fairly high percentage of older people spoke English, but in Czech we hadn't yet run across anyone. No, those girls didn't know any either. I said “water” in every language I could, English, Spanish, French, German but they had no idea what I wanted. No problem I thought. We've become very good at acting out what we need so I lifted a bottle to my mouth as if I was taking a drink. Still, I got only confused looks and then one of the girls grabbed a pen and paper, pointed to each individual beer tap and wrote down a price, thinking I wanted them to fill me up with 3 liters of beer. I finally spotted a sink behind the bar, pointed until they understood and watched them fill the first bottle. Once again the water looked disgusting so in an attempt to ask if it was safe to drink, I made drinking gestures followed by a thumbs up. But again they just looked at me like I was crazy. One of them then disappeared outside and returned with another woman who said with a strong accent that she understood English. I asked if the water was safe to drink as the 3 of them stood behind the bar watching the questionable water fill my last bottle with looks of skepticism on their faces. The third girl shrugged her shoulders, “yes, it's safe to drink.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoOn4pl7BX9Kk0JzPdc2eJp353wj2q1UOqe_AIlt7lb6DAc38045zzzvQOQmkalblyZJal-sIaP5Y4D9xRfwQRsG3YxXPPzIKR-AbtYnismH7u1fqHPXD0e5cqDv7c0pYjJSHBzN7qve9P/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoOn4pl7BX9Kk0JzPdc2eJp353wj2q1UOqe_AIlt7lb6DAc38045zzzvQOQmkalblyZJal-sIaP5Y4D9xRfwQRsG3YxXPPzIKR-AbtYnismH7u1fqHPXD0e5cqDv7c0pYjJSHBzN7qve9P/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is this water potable?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I returned to Mike with a look of defeat on my face, we rode around the corner and for the third time in less than 3 miles we dumped all of our water on the side of the road. An hour later we reached the town of Pisek, found a bar, filled our bottles and made it to camp just as darkness settled in. The water ordeal and our inability to find anyone who spoke any English that night was a subtle reminder that we were no longer in the touristy areas of Europe.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Our final destination in Czech was the city of Most, the home town of Helena, one of our good friends back in California. I had met her mom, Jitka and uncle, Zdenek, 3 years ago at her wedding and though there were major language barriers was looking forward to seeing them again. Helena arranged for us to stay 2 nights and made sure her mom knew some details about us; we'd be stinky and dirty, need showers and laundry and one of us was a vegetarian. The thought of staying with someone we can barely communicate with no longer phases us; we've managed to get by with body language for many months now and there's always “Google Translate” if we really get stuck. I think Jitka, however, was a little more nervous about our stay. First, she didn't know how we'd find her flat amongst the hundreds of pastel-colored apartment buildings in Most, second, she was worried about entertaining us, and finally she had to deal with cooking for a vegetarian who didn't eat chicken or fish. It's hilarious to me how many people think chicken and fish are exempt from the “meat” category, but it's a very common inquiry. </span> </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, our stay with Jitka was wonderful. When we arrived to her building she was standing at the window waving to us and since we had no idea what time we'd arrive, I hope she wasn't waiting there for hours. We lugged all of our stuff into her apartment and immediately the pampering began. Cold beer and dinner was ready and waiting, when our laundry was finished she hung our clothes to dry and they were neatly folded the next morning, breakfast was always on the table when we awoke in the mornings and for every meal she cooked something with meat for Mike and something completely different for me. Every time we offered to help with anything we were told “no” and shooed away. Neither of us are very good at sitting around while someone else waits on us and throughout the many Skype sessions we had with Helena during our stay we tried to get that point translated through the grapevine, but it was hopeless. Helena said just let her do her thing as it makes her happy. And so we did, were spoiled rotten and tried our best to show how grateful we were for her hospitality without words, which is much more difficult to do than you might think.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On our second day in Most, we went with Jitka to her cottage in Mila to do some gardening. We took a tour of her garden and with the help of her little red Czech to English dictionary, learned all of the fruits and veggies she was growing. She had a lot of work to do and I really wanted to help as I love gardening but all she'd allow us to do was pick strawberries, which took considerable begging on our part to convince her that we'd really enjoy the work. Later that day Uncle Zdenek and his daughter, Zdenka, who spoke perfect English which made life a lot easier for everyone, took us on a tour of the city. We saw some former coal mines that have since been made into lakes and recreation areas, an old church that was relocated nearly a kilometer when they tore down the old mining city and still holds the Guinness record for the heaviest thing ever moved on wheels and the castle up on the hill overlooking the city.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIRxcE_pfyr1CQmZT88b8lQPfrFUsqEhat3SmuXtBxroDAzcdk8UtNwhtQAecDGMS5wO6KE67aaP0IB8FY5laYWLX7QfG1u24wscFkO6-87aBTZkFVHVsQ81755AC_gI9pN_uvbJK26qNR/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIRxcE_pfyr1CQmZT88b8lQPfrFUsqEhat3SmuXtBxroDAzcdk8UtNwhtQAecDGMS5wO6KE67aaP0IB8FY5laYWLX7QfG1u24wscFkO6-87aBTZkFVHVsQ81755AC_gI9pN_uvbJK26qNR/s320/9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jitka showing Cari the garden with the help of her trusty red dictionary.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fmK9nNQNLJuaLgOoHeRKylZf0ZXr5NImWERYIhez4FcOWJRcl6YdfmRk7dbSuttg9mwzYuBPrLghMHT0hyQ0Ot_R9bwEPtDOhqMK7CARIYeu5BBaRvywhF3SkZ8RNzr-vB6Nf6D8ykPk/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fmK9nNQNLJuaLgOoHeRKylZf0ZXr5NImWERYIhez4FcOWJRcl6YdfmRk7dbSuttg9mwzYuBPrLghMHT0hyQ0Ot_R9bwEPtDOhqMK7CARIYeu5BBaRvywhF3SkZ8RNzr-vB6Nf6D8ykPk/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The city of Most.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The next morning we left Most and headed towards Germany. We had made arrangements to meet Zdenka for lunch at her family's cabin in Cesky Jiretin, which was right on the border. Jitka decided that she was going to the cabin as well and insisted on taking our panniers in the car. We weren't going to argue with that one; a few miles of unloaded riding are always appreciated. About half way into our ride we realized we'd made a huge mistake. Suddenly it got cold and started to rain and neither of us had any extra clothes with us, only our shorts and t-shirts. By the time we arrived at the cabin we were soaking wet, our feet were numb and fingers purple. Thankfully, inside was a pot of hot water on the stove which was poured into a garden watering can and used as a shower to warm us up and get all of the mud off of our bodies and hair. There was no running water at the cabin but I must say, that method of showering was very effective. Our clothes were hung and our shoes set set next to the stove to dry while we drank hot tea and coffee, indulged in the risotto lunch Zdenka had made and enjoyed our final afternoon with Helena's family.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When the time came for us to leave, Jitka pulled a cooler from the fridge full of food for us. There were apples, bananas, cherries, sodas, sandwiches and chocolate bars that she insisted we took. There was enough food to keep us going for two days and our bikes weighed an extra 20 pounds when we left Czech. Many, many thanks to Helena and her family for their amazing friendship and hospitality. I know we will see you all again, only hopefully it'll be in California next time where we can be the ones doing the pampering instead of you.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuepBg0oUIxCEF68n-PAET9DEBRke_MQ9qFabbWwbBvcbRjcSVGATveFaqNtsEjgsdtoxfClzlvJBGWGuSabAPN4HKwoHe6TC6NWyUZFiMhx3VeYCzdUjC5uuXcpuckk9NP68qcZn5R86Z/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuepBg0oUIxCEF68n-PAET9DEBRke_MQ9qFabbWwbBvcbRjcSVGATveFaqNtsEjgsdtoxfClzlvJBGWGuSabAPN4HKwoHe6TC6NWyUZFiMhx3VeYCzdUjC5uuXcpuckk9NP68qcZn5R86Z/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We love Jitka!</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpuglwtxjJ2F3K2XaWGgB8Zod03RRBpSb_Lc864qyPiJXen7zDPliGWA9ZCxB_b5PGjiwSsUwpTgdpMWqlsZPK0tHFAvYHkdTCCpH5tHsEzY86eCRNJAE2ndYlJvMhEqDghR6ykVAei8t7/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpuglwtxjJ2F3K2XaWGgB8Zod03RRBpSb_Lc864qyPiJXen7zDPliGWA9ZCxB_b5PGjiwSsUwpTgdpMWqlsZPK0tHFAvYHkdTCCpH5tHsEzY86eCRNJAE2ndYlJvMhEqDghR6ykVAei8t7/s320/12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike, Zdenka, Jitka and Cari</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-22766868130503365452011-06-07T02:31:00.000-07:002011-06-10T04:37:38.101-07:00THE FIRST YEAR<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's hard to believe we've been wheeling ourselves around the world for a year already, but alas, the date we left our home and life in California has once again returned to our calendars. Usually it feels like the year has flown by, like we left only a few weeks ago but as we sit and reflect on where the past year has taken us and think about individual experiences and memories it feels like we've been out here for a very long time. It's certainly been an eventful and memorable year; sometimes the adventure was so frustrating and far from fun that we would have done almost anything to get off our bikes and return to our comfortable home, friends and jobs. Those times are easy for us to pick out in our minds. Mike's least favorite day was in Patagonia when we opted to ride at night to El Calafate, Argentina in hopes of avoiding the horrendous daytime winds. However, we were still met with a nasty headwind, it was cold, we were running on no sleep and had to wear our sunglasses in the dark to protect our already wind burnt eyes, focusing on the white road lines 2 feet in front of us as we moved at a snail's pace. I have never seen Mike so exhausted, physically or mentally, as when we finally arrived in El Calafate at 6:00 in the morning. For me, my least favorite times were many along the first half of the Carretera Austral in South America. The lose gravel and washboard roads made my life miserable for a couple of weeks. I hated every minute of it, wanted to quit and go home, had at least one daily breakdown and frequently threw a tantrum and walked my bike. I will hope to never have to ride in those conditions again.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But aside from our few individual shining moments, the adventure has been fantastic. It's not as easy to pick out a favorite day. There have been far too many and therefore is impossible to distinguish one that stands out above the others. We have seen places we never thought we'd see, met people and made friends from around the globe and ultimately it has been one of the most wonderful years of our lives.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not much has changed since we began this adventure. We're both a little more grungy, our bikes and gear are looking tattered and worn, our upper bodies, which haven't had to do any work in a year are embarrassingly out of shape and our hair is significantly longer than it was when we left. It's down to the middle of our shoulder blades and I have to braid Mike's hair in the mornings to keep his wild mop of curls from turning into dreadlocks. I can honestly say I never thought I'd be doing my boyfriend's hair for him! </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The things that have changed are the ways in which we bike tour. It's been a learning process as we've gone along and we're continually figuring out how to make living on bikes less expensive and more enjoyable. Daily mileage is no longer a priority. I don't know why we were so obsessed about putting in high mileage everyday while we were in the U.S., but we were. We'd be disappointed after a day of riding if we didn't break 60 miles, but not anymore. Enjoyment is much more important than how far we go so if one of us is tired, the weather is crummy or the terrain is beating us, we have no problem quitting early for the day, which is the way it should be when you get the opportunity to travel without a schedule.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We've become pro's at “wild camping.” We rarely camped for free during the first few weeks of our trip. There were private property signs and fences everywhere and the fear of getting caught doing something “wrong” landed us in campgrounds where, though we weren't paying much for lodging, still added up over time. It has been a long time since we've paid for camping. We've climbed fences and tucked ourselves away for a night in hundreds of places we knew we weren't supposed to be but no longer do we fear being caught. Rather, once we spot a tentative location for camp, we both get off our bikes, go tramping around like we own the forest until one of us finds a place that will suffice and there we make our home for the night. I'm actually surprised we haven't been discovered and kicked out of camp in the middle of the night, but I'm sure at some point that night will come.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have learned to live very cheaply. When we started out, we really had no idea how much money it would take everyday to travel on a bicycle but we had a goal of keeping our average daily cost to less than $50. We weren't very good in the U.S. as we paid for several campgrounds and hotels along the way and we had a horrible habit of succumbing to the temptation of buying Dairy Queen ice cream on a near daily basis. We greatly improved throughout South America since there weren't all sorts of tasty treats for us to buy and thankfully our frugal habits then carried over into Europe where we were told travel would be very expensive. However, our spending habits coupled with the extensive network of Warmshowers houses available for us to stay at every once in a while when we're dying for a shower has actually made Europe one of the cheapest places of our trip. It feels great to not spend money and we're proud to say that we've spent less in this entire year on the road than what we would have paid for a measly 10 months of rent for the house in which we were living.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have become very comfortable with using public facilities for our own personal use. The strange looks and stares we get from locals or other tourists passing by as we hand wash our laundry or dishes at a public fountain are hilarious but then we think of how we'd react if we saw some foreigner doing the same thing back home and we'd likely have the same reaction. McDonald's typically has free wifi and more than once set up our little office in a corner of the restaurant and spent an afternoon or rainy day writing emails or working on the blog. Restrooms at fast food restaurants or gas stations also make for easy places to do our laundry as well as shampoo and condition our hair when we're in dire need. There was one time in Spain when we each spent a half an hour in a gas station restroom washing our hair. The gas station worker looked somewhat baffled when we each walked out with a towel on our head and then proceeded to comb our hair in the parking lot. Our behaviors may be a bit socially unacceptable but when you don't have the conveniences of a house to take care of some pretty basic needs you have to find alternative ways to do what you have to do.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When we first started out, a year sounded like an eternity. We had no idea how long we'd enjoy living on bicycles, but in the back of our minds we both estimated we'd be getting ready to go home after about a year, or maybe 10,000 miles which sounded ridiculously far and unattainable at the time. Well, we cruised right on through 10,000 miles and we're going to cruise right on through the 1-year mark as well with no intention of calling it quits in the near future. There's still too much of the world to see and as long as we still have a few bucks in the bank, healthy bodies and the desire to see what's around the next corner or over the next mountain we're going to keep going. We thank all of the people we have met during this year, making it enjoyable and memorable, all of the people who have helped us out financially; we've learned to make every dollar last, and all of the people who have urged us to continue, telling us that told us we're an inspiration, that we're living their dream; it makes us realize how lucky we are to be living our dream as well. We can only hope that the next year of Life On A Bike will be as wonderful as the first.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10 THINGS WE MISS THE MOST: Obviously the number one thing we miss is our families and friends, that goes without saying. We miss them beyond imagination and think about those people and how much of their lives we're missing out on every day, so I guess this is technically our top 11.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10. Mike - Running</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Wearing clean clothes</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">9. Mike – Wearing clean clothes</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Sleeping in a bed</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8. Mike – Road biking</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Sitting on a chair and at a table to eat</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">7. Mike – Drinking COLD beer</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Showering whenever I want/need to</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">6. Mike – Showering daily</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Racing triathlons</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5. Mike – Sleeping in a bed</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Salads</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4. Mike – Simply having time to relax/do nothing</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Speaking English/being able to easily communicate with those </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">around me</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. Mike – Going to the gym</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Having a kitchen so I can cook and bake</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. Mike - Swimming</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Tofu</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. Mike – Carnitas burritos from Los Charros</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari – Exercise other than cycling, especially swimming and working out at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the gym.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">THE BOOKS WE'VE READ: Unfortunately most of our books come from book exchanges and the English options are usually rather limited.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MIKE – Perfect Storm, Of Mice and Men, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Stolen Away, Jurassic Park, Zeitoun, Pirate Latitudes, Congo, Annapurna, Bringing Down the House, The Open Veins of Latin America, Apollo 13, No Country for Old Men, The Road, Swan Peak, Twilight Eyes, The Trail to Titicaca</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CARI – Stolen Away, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Motorcycle Diaries, Of Mice and Men, The Runaway Jury, Two Old Women, The Snow Walker, Same Kind of Different As Me, Zeitoun, Bringing Down the House, The Glass Castle, No Country for Old Men, The Road, A Painted House, The Trail to Titicaca, Sacred Hoops, Swan Peak, The Help, Naked, A Prayer for Owen Meany</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The remainder of this post is mostly fun facts from our first year on the road, compiled from the meticulous record we've kept of our trip.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">TOTAL NUMBER OF DAYS ON THE ROAD: 364 (it was a leap year)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">TOTAL DISTANCE RIDDEN: 10,685.3 miles (17,196.3 kilometers)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF DAYS RIDDEN: 206</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AVERAGE MILES/DAY : 51.9 miles ( 83.5 kilometers)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AVERAGE SPEED: 11 mph</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ESTIMATED NUMBER OF PEDAL STROKES: 4,274,120</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">HIGHEST SPEED RECORDED: 48.6 mph (descending from Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LONGEST DISTANCE CYCLED IN ONE DAY: 137.5 miles (Huron, South Dakota to Marshall, MN)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SHORTEST DISTANCE CYCLED IN ONE DAY: 4.0 miles (from a campground in Sula, Montana to the banks of the Bitterroot River to find a free place to stay and take a rest day)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MOST CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF RIDING WITHOUT A COMPLETE DAY OFF: 16 (once in North America and once in Europe)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FURTHEST CONSECUTIVE DISTANCE RIDDEN WITHOUT A COMPLETE DAY OFF: 1004.1 miles (Urbana, Illinois to Narrowsburg, New York)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MOST NUMBER OF DAYS WITHOUT A SHOWER: 9</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">HIGHEST MOUNTAIN PASS: 9,137 ft. (Portete, Ecuador)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LOWEST ELEVATION: 2 ft. below sea level (flooded by the tide in Puerto Puyuhuapi, Chile)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">WINDIEST DAY OF CYCLING: estimated 60-65 mph cross wind between El Chalten and El Calefate, Argentina</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">HOTTEST DAY OF CYCLING: 105 degrees F (Pierre, South Dakota)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">COLDEST DAY OF CYCLING: 32 degrees F (Port D' Envalira, Andorra)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF MOUNTAIN PASSES OVER 3,000 FEET (that means it took at least 2 hours of sustained climbing to reach the pass): 26</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF FLAT TIRES:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MIKE – 13</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CARI – 10</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">OTHER BREAKDOWNS:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MIKE – 1 broken chain, 1 broken derailleur and 5 broken spokes</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF TIRES WE'VE WORN OUT: 6 </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF CRASHES/WIPEOUTS (a crash is defined by us as a high speed, painful disaster. A wipe-out is defined by us as a time when you're going very slowly, usually not paying attention and the fall causes much more embarrassment than pain):</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MIKE – 0 crashes and 2 wipe-outs</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CARI – 1 crash and 2 wipe-outs</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF TIMES HITCHHIKED: 10</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF FERRIES TAKEN: 6</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT IN A HOUSE: 105</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT IN A HOTEL/HOSTEL: 51</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT ON AN AIRPLANE: 2</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT IN AN AIRPORT: 4</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT ON A BOAT: 11</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT ON A BUS: 5</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NUMBER OF NIGHTS SPENT IN A TENT: 188</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">WILD CAMPING: 152</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PAID CAMPING: 36</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON FOOD: 33.2%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON LODGING: 7.7%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON BIKE PARTS: 7.0%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON TRANSPORTATION: 29.2%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON ENTERTAINMENT: 9.9%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON SUPPLIES (defined as essential things we need like toiletries, clothing, fuel for our stove, maps, etc.): 7.0%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PERCENTAGE OF OUR MONEY SPENT ON MISCELLANEOUS THINGS (defined as things that aren't essential, like souvenirs, postage, postcards, etc.): 6.0%</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">COUNTRIES VISITED: United States, Canada, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Japan*, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Czech Republic</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-47948744253794405662011-06-02T07:40:00.000-07:002011-06-05T23:25:31.663-07:00AUSTRIA<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fantastic cycling we experienced in Switzerland has continued on into Austria. Once again we've come across the little bike route signs that lead us around the country on all of the back roads so we can cycle without having to think much about where we're going. We've seen more bicycle tourists in our first 24 hours in Austria than we've seen in almost an entire year on the road and there are more and more every day. It's amazing; there are loads of cyclists here and about 1 in 4 is loaded down with panniers. It seems as though there are tons of organized tours here as there are often big groups traveling together with the same amounts of matching gear. It really should be that surprising, I guess, given the excellent bike paths and the opportunity to see big mountains while staying in relatively flat trails in the valleys. There's always the option to go over the big passes, but it's nice that the various routes can offer something for all levels.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hBbEymNAZseg85hBeC9jE4A4rjgNUBP-INO6_LGxfkZq7EQRM0RqhtSICofrDiF764bLPrbTDV56EIs3YiYs6KSdflulsLh2UVtTB7c4q0gMziBdBWcruyYnSkI9Rn_g1B_NpiEZr7VE/s1600/path.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hBbEymNAZseg85hBeC9jE4A4rjgNUBP-INO6_LGxfkZq7EQRM0RqhtSICofrDiF764bLPrbTDV56EIs3YiYs6KSdflulsLh2UVtTB7c4q0gMziBdBWcruyYnSkI9Rn_g1B_NpiEZr7VE/s320/path.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari on the bike path.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The downside to Austria's bike routes is that the signs are green and small and blend in easily with the lush landscape making it much easier to get off track if you're not paying attention. Fortunately for us, we have two sets of eyes so if one misses a turn the other usually spots it and therefore we've only gotten slightly lost a few times. The only other downfall to this network is that the cycling routes take you through literally every little village within a valley. There's not really the option to take the direct roads because they're busy and lack bike lanes so we're more or less forced to zig-zag back and forth across the valley on the path, ultimately riding nearly twice as far to get from point A to point B. We've commented several times that it's a good thing we're on absolutely no time schedule as the bike routes could be infuriating if we were.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though we've only been in Austria for a few days there are a few observations that immediately struck us. First is that after 8 long months of riding through countries in South America and western Europe that literally shut down for the greater portion of every afternoon, we have finally and ecstatically entered a country without siestas! No longer lo we have to worry about making it to the next town by a certain time to buy our lunch only to realize upon our arrival that they closed 10 minutes prior, forcing us to wait 4 hours until they re-opened so we could get food. Siestas drove us crazy and we're so happy to have them behind us, for a while at least.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second thing that was apparent was that the architecture, mostly that of churches, has begun to change. Though there are still many western European looking churches with standard straight and pointed steeples, there's now also the presence of churches with fancy, metallic, domed steeples that feel much more eastern to us. It's kind of nice to have a change of scenery.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8vPOPoMxtzLNEwIAA35WaIpZUfjJ7lTteAzJ7EVYebv6-VTTZZvTV0uJ3IGNmUkpLkcKSh0kfA_bRnyDZMtHrY43_G_lOgU35VmIxymaWg23zCfA2yNWoCdBenFEmff0cRKlqduIhtom/s1600/steeple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8vPOPoMxtzLNEwIAA35WaIpZUfjJ7lTteAzJ7EVYebv6-VTTZZvTV0uJ3IGNmUkpLkcKSh0kfA_bRnyDZMtHrY43_G_lOgU35VmIxymaWg23zCfA2yNWoCdBenFEmff0cRKlqduIhtom/s320/steeple.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Starting to see a change in the architecture. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our third observation was that the Austrians pay very special attention to their wood piles. We've never seen such tightly stacked and perfectly organized wood piles on the sides of nearly every farm house and you must wonder how many hours it took someone to complete such a task. Some of the displays are truly amazing.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BzL5_j-BN62484GMqds893EhRYNzDmNY8pzvOmF5-j_woPCNObzKQ7hPDpy6KW7gUD5QmLU0t6enRIGYOYjHY5hwOwwExQT3ysHZE6kLeuSU3tZDbdvfIN8FDNznFQr-kC6ZeOEzv5m2/s1600/wood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BzL5_j-BN62484GMqds893EhRYNzDmNY8pzvOmF5-j_woPCNObzKQ7hPDpy6KW7gUD5QmLU0t6enRIGYOYjHY5hwOwwExQT3ysHZE6kLeuSU3tZDbdvfIN8FDNznFQr-kC6ZeOEzv5m2/s320/wood.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fancy wood piles.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for the landscape, it continues to be beautiful. Little red trains are constantly seen quietly whirring through the green countryside, the valleys are full of wildflowers and cows are grazing everywhere as Austria seems to be even more of a farming country than Switzerland was. The part we don't like about that is the smell of manure is frequently lingering in the air and we constantly have to dodge the land mines scattered on the streets since they seem to double as roadways for humans as well as routes for moving cattle from one pasture to another.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiapHHAR49JBgSmPbpZzWxGasHanCm3c0c6u-zhZy0AdxYWjK4lYo9zDY7oSlp5v6zji_9Hc7XFZo52X7ATcRaVUb2AdgNV3ABYAHPf3nvL1P-6qRBSFnce-eqv3JLtDP6rX3oh6AV2M5/s1600/landscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiapHHAR49JBgSmPbpZzWxGasHanCm3c0c6u-zhZy0AdxYWjK4lYo9zDY7oSlp5v6zji_9Hc7XFZo52X7ATcRaVUb2AdgNV3ABYAHPf3nvL1P-6qRBSFnce-eqv3JLtDP6rX3oh6AV2M5/s320/landscape.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A valley of wildflowers.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnURaBMv4MAJnNhG_WbXEC2o5id8UWgaQQASB2fzh1ewwLncHl6k9xIfyvQke-81j8ADg0G4YnmhQvoGaXeIZZenN3xABuDN4F0urpDl3Z005Qu78vCNho-c-Q5UXJ0lTvbVKyMTfxbD7A/s1600/cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnURaBMv4MAJnNhG_WbXEC2o5id8UWgaQQASB2fzh1ewwLncHl6k9xIfyvQke-81j8ADg0G4YnmhQvoGaXeIZZenN3xABuDN4F0urpDl3Z005Qu78vCNho-c-Q5UXJ0lTvbVKyMTfxbD7A/s320/cows.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Waiting for a herd of cows to get out of the street.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As we're made our way eastward through Austria, the mountains have begun to diminish into foothills and we've officially crossed our last big mountain pass for a while. I think we can say that we've sufficiently “toured” the Alps, but I'm a little sad that we won't have any more 2-4 hour climbs where we get our minds set on slow mode, stick the bike into Granny Gear and crank away until we've reached the top. We both enjoy the sense of accomplishment and of course the reward of a long and steep descent afterward, but there's also a part of us (primarily our knees) that are looking forward to some smaller hills and even some flats as we move away from the Alps.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-35895268209261522652011-05-28T00:43:00.000-07:002011-05-28T00:43:34.604-07:00SWITZERLAND<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cycling in Switzerland is pure bliss. Not only is the scenery stunning, but there is a network of bike routes that cover the entire country, enabling cyclists to get just about anywhere so while we're gawking at the landscapes around us we don't have to worry about being clobbered by a speeding vehicle. We have spent nearly all of our time in Switzerland following various bike routes. It's a bit of a hodge-podge system of interconnected bike paths, back roads and gravel trails that zig-zag through quiet country farmland, forests, parking lots, construction zones, along levees and even across an occasional runway. There is usually very little traffic but when the route spits you out onto a major road, there are always bike lanes. What an excellent way to get people to use bikes as a primary source of travel. Although it's never the most direct route to where we're going, it's effective, highly used and even though we're mostly on paths that don't exist on our map, it's impossible to get lost. There are infinite routes, each of them numbered and at nearly every intersection there's a little red bicycle sign pointing us in the right direction. It's quite nice not having to pull out our computer map every time we get to a big city to figure out how to navigate our way through or around; in Switzerland all we do is search for the signs and easily pass on through. Even our dreaded trip into the capital city of Bern to get more pages put into Mike's passport at the Embassy turned out to be painless and the bike routes made the city seem tiny.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Switzerland has always been a place I've wanted to visit. The pictures always make it look so magical and pristine. And it is. When the air is not hazy the lower mountains are a magnificent emerald green and the higher mountains are blinding white as they tower above. Down in the narrow valleys there are swift, wide rivers and clear, deep lakes with vineyards and pastureland beginning at the banks and extending high up onto the steep mountainsides, nearly to the top. The pastures are filled with vibrant yellow flowers surrounding the occasional little wood cabins with red roofs and grazing cows with loud, enormous bells dangling from their necks. The mountains in Switzerland are alive with the music of ringing cow bells and even though we can't always see the cows, we can always hear them. The sound of cow bells will forever remind me of this place. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvccsGvA6-YEiVA9QYjLgvCubvNCxVnvBPMlQK2xV7m3UCkTNA7zzDWY8PNeZiSWiqMqix-cVuPUGc8186AJZMghyphenhyphen7mGaEWgg4i-LuXXARBnAmBPWRblkodaiLtjDANHmAMUDiod6Qu09O/s1600/vineyards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvccsGvA6-YEiVA9QYjLgvCubvNCxVnvBPMlQK2xV7m3UCkTNA7zzDWY8PNeZiSWiqMqix-cVuPUGc8186AJZMghyphenhyphen7mGaEWgg4i-LuXXARBnAmBPWRblkodaiLtjDANHmAMUDiod6Qu09O/s320/vineyards.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vineyards in the Rhone River valley</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvccsGvA6-YEiVA9QYjLgvCubvNCxVnvBPMlQK2xV7m3UCkTNA7zzDWY8PNeZiSWiqMqix-cVuPUGc8186AJZMghyphenhyphen7mGaEWgg4i-LuXXARBnAmBPWRblkodaiLtjDANHmAMUDiod6Qu09O/s1600/vineyards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheKFNzn2vyUvmaw2QZQrkgZO8m_CwLIS8HuFf8blSzBy8mRt_RF83QsXR2u_ph5enmiJE0uE1bjQhOWlLf41BsHpVuGAFdaIF0OcT-u7mZDg6fjrrX7Lki8iYXpvrSBGLhifhU52lcvB6l/s1600/emerald+hills%252C+white+mountians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheKFNzn2vyUvmaw2QZQrkgZO8m_CwLIS8HuFf8blSzBy8mRt_RF83QsXR2u_ph5enmiJE0uE1bjQhOWlLf41BsHpVuGAFdaIF0OcT-u7mZDg6fjrrX7Lki8iYXpvrSBGLhifhU52lcvB6l/s320/emerald+hills%252C+white+mountians.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The landscapes here are always beautiful but the most spectacular views we've had came after two grueling climbs. The first was a 22-mile ascent on a dead-end road to the town of Zermatt to see the famous Matterhorn. The night we arrived was overcast and offered pathetic views of the mountain. We found a place to camp on a rocky hill high above the city and hoped for good weather the next day. We awoke early the next morning to clear, blue skies and the Matterhorn glowing bright orange in the early light against the not yet sun-touched mountains that surrounded it. Suddenly the climb that whipped us the day before was amply justified.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOrqYI7KRWke0keq7h14j1tn-ZANARWTvHZdCePwWAgpeXVhzRSRydcZtiN22bwPQEe_x7jZ_HaA2HRdlzmqkor_-c4Xunu1_zQ8Z7UJe-EC6b-TGoD_EALNinfym3C-VTbVIc1ubTGtWP/s1600/matterhorn+at+sunrise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOrqYI7KRWke0keq7h14j1tn-ZANARWTvHZdCePwWAgpeXVhzRSRydcZtiN22bwPQEe_x7jZ_HaA2HRdlzmqkor_-c4Xunu1_zQ8Z7UJe-EC6b-TGoD_EALNinfym3C-VTbVIc1ubTGtWP/s320/matterhorn+at+sunrise.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Matterhorn at sunrise. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-As94s-pkPhe2sJkE3ELMg4TiJ60QYptbA5Jb2dV5w4kMQ71dV9eV2mflJC2Kyu7EgnMAEm03caIxBSsCaIbtnBh01Hs1KQJwSx9jXCe3WIZ28PGDkLQq2fv8Q0fwtSaxBq-OWgP_y-hj/s1600/matterhorn+during+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-As94s-pkPhe2sJkE3ELMg4TiJ60QYptbA5Jb2dV5w4kMQ71dV9eV2mflJC2Kyu7EgnMAEm03caIxBSsCaIbtnBh01Hs1KQJwSx9jXCe3WIZ28PGDkLQq2fv8Q0fwtSaxBq-OWgP_y-hj/s320/matterhorn+during+day.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Matterhorn</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second was on a 10-mile climb to 71,000 foot Grimselpass. Half way through the ascent we rounded a corner and passed through a tunnel and had to stop in disbelief at what we saw. The mountain towered above us with switchback after switchback creeping to the top letting us see every inch of the test that lay ahead. Though challenging, we spent the entire climb looking around in awe of the views, forgetting about our tired muscles and agreeing that this climb equaled, or maybe even surpassed, the long-favored Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park in pure breathtaking beauty. Once at the top we were able to look down at the road we had just climbed with a sense of accomplishment, out at the amazing 360-degree view around us and once again all of our hard work seemed worth the efforts.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DvW3WdE6JI3wIMS3Lw2GGWxEFVf66Tuiy_MfxgcKCNEYoiZM7dkL7-plKIc7s6U7gzosN3FlNT86tvAzjDPxxRNgnGtN4J3AC6J78TuicQOTeZKP90BJiE1XLhzXZ2Is0Rt9_JbFJjDy/s1600/mike+heading+for+grimselpass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DvW3WdE6JI3wIMS3Lw2GGWxEFVf66Tuiy_MfxgcKCNEYoiZM7dkL7-plKIc7s6U7gzosN3FlNT86tvAzjDPxxRNgnGtN4J3AC6J78TuicQOTeZKP90BJiE1XLhzXZ2Is0Rt9_JbFJjDy/s320/mike+heading+for+grimselpass.jpg" width="299" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike heading towards the switchbacks up to Grimselpass.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrZ2KAoWk_qkuDkjxaYMTVzbmwaRwVX0XE0otaqeAeQS64M_wlfwVFrhGDw35ZZoZ7ZlVcQn6lLfbGFQ8AUUAiJEqbSAWfgmdOg8Zy_bHBSd6ibDenZiXybDwqukLtkzBJvAK9FXefDX7/s1600/grimselpass+road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrZ2KAoWk_qkuDkjxaYMTVzbmwaRwVX0XE0otaqeAeQS64M_wlfwVFrhGDw35ZZoZ7ZlVcQn6lLfbGFQ8AUUAiJEqbSAWfgmdOg8Zy_bHBSd6ibDenZiXybDwqukLtkzBJvAK9FXefDX7/s320/grimselpass+road.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking back at the road up to Grimselpass. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCimlktym3Caqyzhpw_AAgyhQGf_Vh60wiNTwR_ZJvpC45GWUbnGr4EZjwZS1Qz47rKO3e_i01b-A9eop-lwnjHsmbDzQAcci-y8GHlaJHDH_7qR_CSadUJSMmxgUUu7Aa_21pg993ITS/s1600/grimselpass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCimlktym3Caqyzhpw_AAgyhQGf_Vh60wiNTwR_ZJvpC45GWUbnGr4EZjwZS1Qz47rKO3e_i01b-A9eop-lwnjHsmbDzQAcci-y8GHlaJHDH_7qR_CSadUJSMmxgUUu7Aa_21pg993ITS/s320/grimselpass.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the top.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The one major downside to Switzerland is that it's extremely expensive. Everything costs about double what it would be back home. For instance, we stopped at a McDonald's to fill up water bottles and found that a Big Mac costs $11, and that's for the sandwich only. Meat in general is outrageously expensive with a pound of ground beef costing $9 minimum. We have reached the point where we're both in desperate need of some new essentials, like helmets which are being held together with duct tape and zip ties, bike shoes that have gaping holes leaving toes completely exposed, cycling shorts that are embarrassingly see through and sunglasses that are being held together with crazy glue. Just for giggles we sometimes stop in a bike shop to check out the prices and have yet to find any one of those items costing less than $150. It's a good thing Switzerland is such a small country. Although we've meandered our way through quite a bit of it, we also know that we could be in a different country within two days from any point; if we had to spend several months cycling here we'd certainly break our bank.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have continued to meet absolutely wonderful people, both strangers who want to know what we're doing as well as those who invite us into their homes. Thanks to Sandra and Andreas for letting us stay with you for a couple of days, sharing South America bike touring stories, pampering us with your hospitality and spoiling us with delicious home cooked meals where Mike enjoyed his chance to taste horse meat for the first time. Thanks to Emil and Eve for being so enthusiastic about our journey, sharing cycling adventure stories, helping plan our next routes and sending us on our way with a pound of Swiss chocolate. “Just as the French carry baguettes under their arms, we Swiss carry chocolate,” is what we were told. It's a lot of extra weight to carry but if there's one thing I'm more than willing to lug over these mountains, it's chocolate.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqLjGofOL3lXSd9A-2J3Ef75h95Bv9sQEBaa39N9RqWaZc4qiUuepN56BTQgF702Yl2Y3_KVNyARJcKEUQD82qb_Fvt76tZ3MM6TqLnjJIe_u_ecAP2T15v2WiB-WiFlOO1MhepNqoXjb/s1600/chocolate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqLjGofOL3lXSd9A-2J3Ef75h95Bv9sQEBaa39N9RqWaZc4qiUuepN56BTQgF702Yl2Y3_KVNyARJcKEUQD82qb_Fvt76tZ3MM6TqLnjJIe_u_ecAP2T15v2WiB-WiFlOO1MhepNqoXjb/s320/chocolate.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Swiss chocolate!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We got pretty excited this week when we came upon another bike tourist heading in our same direction. We had met a few in South America but it never worked out to really ride together, so this was the first time in nearly a year that we cycled with anyone else. We picked up Laurent, a 24-year old, chain smoking French guy who was on his 3<sup>rd</sup> week of a 3-month holiday. Unfortunately he spoke mostly French and only a little bit of English and Spanish so communication was sometimes difficult, but we make Spanglish our official language and got along just fine.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our styles of bike touring were a little different; Mike and I making it up as we go, never knowing where we'll be sleeping at night, never paying for camping and being content without showering for days at a time. Laurent on the other hand, had a predetermined route, a plan knowing which campground he would sleep at every night and wanted a shower after every day of cycling. We informed him of our plan to have no plan and he opted to join us. I think he was having second thoughts less than an hour after we diverted him from his original route. Aside from one good descent, the entire day was uphill. We were slowly but surely cruising along as we've become accustomed to these long climbs, but poor Laurent was running out of steam. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Noticing his fatigue we stopped early to fill our water supply and buy dinner supplies and promised that we'd find camp shortly thereafter. It typically takes us less than a half hour to find camp once we start looking but of course this had to be the one time when things don't go as smoothly as usual. We climbed and climbed, but the road we were on was abundant with towns and farm houses, with one hopeful-looking lead after another ending up to being impossible places to camp without being seen. An hour after buying groceries we were still climbing and searching and Laurent had a look of pure hate and exhaustion on his face. We knew exactly how he was feeling; we felt the same way when we went hiking with Charles and George in Spain. We felt bad but there wasn't a whole lot we could do. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As we looked ahead, the prospects for camping didn't look promising for as far as we could see so I stopped at a farm house and inquired about camping. They offered no intentions of letting us pitch our tents in their back yard and told us there was a hotel in town or a campground 10 miles up the road. I could see Laurent's heart sink as we looked at yet another segment of climbing. I tried again with the next farmers we passed and bingo, we had a place to stay in the back corner of their field next to a pile of wood and junk. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Laurent collapsed on the ground, lit a cigarette, cracked open a beer and for the first time in several hours, smiled. He was forgetting how much he hated us, or perhaps hated himself for following these two fools from America. We showed him that for us a shower is a dunk in the river, cooked up a hearty pasta dinner and then he showed us the pictures he's taken of his trip. He made sure I noticed that there were zero pictures from that day and pointing a finger at me with a smile said, “and it's all because of you! You made me work so hard an ride so far that I had no time or energy to take pictures.” I think he was actually impressed at how far he'd gone over difficult terrain; much further than had he been alone. Mike then took a look at his bike which he had told us wasn't working well. It was an easy fix but was no wonder why climbing those hills were so difficult; he couldn't get into his small chain ring and was therefore having to work twice as hard to turn his crank, not to mention that he was cycling in skateboarding shoes. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKYG6fJvUYDVqVHcUPyUKdsoXlkONuukQ-U1TCZCuURhc7gI722ZHMRSxT-KTjdwPk4Ql674BjtwxfEP9dxqQSCm3wAYe_7vAU4b-DxRCSs5p8_dFFQEXEvDqv3VsBOszT3AbOoA0F7ky/s1600/laurent+and+mike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKYG6fJvUYDVqVHcUPyUKdsoXlkONuukQ-U1TCZCuURhc7gI722ZHMRSxT-KTjdwPk4Ql674BjtwxfEP9dxqQSCm3wAYe_7vAU4b-DxRCSs5p8_dFFQEXEvDqv3VsBOszT3AbOoA0F7ky/s320/laurent+and+mike.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Laurent and Mike at camp.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Laurent rode with us for part of the second day into the tiny country of Liechtenstein which is 7 by 15 miles at its widest points. We had no reason to go there other than it would be fun to say we've been and there was not much interesting things to do or see, so we stopped for lunch and continued through and back into Switzerland. It was here that we intersected Laurent's originally planned route and he opted to get back on his track rather than ride on with us. I'm sure that in our day together we taught him a thing or two about long-term budget bike touring but I'm afraid that we may have scared him away from ever joining us in the future should our paths cross again.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ToJ63Mn_N3rHx0h_aEYTVoLgIm3tax0bG1WrU-Cpp0poFA81E5N97mJFSk_nDfPKrmGBva58NKubPMFJiLNJo_JN7HvYUpeMzJpOHkK-vbCw_m2gz4rmmjhLQoDbjPO_40ILK4GFQDSn/s1600/liechtenstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ToJ63Mn_N3rHx0h_aEYTVoLgIm3tax0bG1WrU-Cpp0poFA81E5N97mJFSk_nDfPKrmGBva58NKubPMFJiLNJo_JN7HvYUpeMzJpOHkK-vbCw_m2gz4rmmjhLQoDbjPO_40ILK4GFQDSn/s320/liechtenstein.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari and Mike in Liechtenstein.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-54901265300077315582011-05-24T02:42:00.000-07:002011-05-24T02:42:22.573-07:00BIG MILESTONE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkdnkErzpC9pXNZyi_CgxN5x5zwlx-PRrPo6wqKTQoePEcTldqmBQPc3pTJZ9dOcbKmrIVChgey5Nlj5DrDdaQ7-5I2N-R9BmdOMSLSF6abviODuHZeVeoNumPTJjSUK_hUN-Rh-6PuggW/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkdnkErzpC9pXNZyi_CgxN5x5zwlx-PRrPo6wqKTQoePEcTldqmBQPc3pTJZ9dOcbKmrIVChgey5Nlj5DrDdaQ7-5I2N-R9BmdOMSLSF6abviODuHZeVeoNumPTJjSUK_hUN-Rh-6PuggW/s320/2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh04qwhQasZQ8qsRZ29uE-DB_qV2lcxohzvG0m9g-pFygDxjhd3EPw77woHGIvGcBxexn163esf7ArrNoiB6OXsaiuP6WwTFygZyDXQ81bc8tR72J4A-5l1KOXdx2W4Mza3sxmhXPnZ678C/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh04qwhQasZQ8qsRZ29uE-DB_qV2lcxohzvG0m9g-pFygDxjhd3EPw77woHGIvGcBxexn163esf7ArrNoiB6OXsaiuP6WwTFygZyDXQ81bc8tR72J4A-5l1KOXdx2W4Mza3sxmhXPnZ678C/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-17362868559838327322011-05-19T00:35:00.000-07:002011-05-22T03:28:08.781-07:00FRANCE<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We loved France. There are many aspects that collectively make a place enjoyable for bike touring or not; the people, the scenery, the roads, the food, the weather, just to name a few. We had fairly decent weather and only had to endure a few miserably rainy days during our 2 week tour and aside from the fact that France is also a country who loves their always inconvenient siestas in the middle of every afternoon, we had no complaints.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's always good to see other cyclists on the roads and though we only saw a couple of other touring cyclists, there was no doubt that France in big into cycling. Every day we passed dozens of riders which generally means that drivers are more aware of our presence, and that's always comforting. It makes for pleasant riding when vehicles actually slow down, move over and don't make you feel like you have no right being on the road.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">France also was an extremely environmentally friendly country. The roads were void of broken glass bottles, there were recycling bins placed next to the garbage dumpsters in nearly every village and it was impossible to find plastic bags in the supermarkets; it was bring your own or go without. It was so nice being able to enjoy the natural beauty of the land without having to try and look past the ugly litter that can be seen in so many beautiful places. Instead we got to sit back and take in the fields of wheat waving in the wind, the cherry orchards with their branches dropping with sweet, red fruits, the endless vineyards, the river gorges and the towering mountains. The landscapes in France were diverse and beautiful and took our minds off the amount of effort required of us to pedal our way through the challenging terrain.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKHM5-KYNKRsLqpLRn7gkankQEhyphenhyphencRS9xPrZE2-LFDPPtJSs4gzCbvvu3HySpYdbxI2bGAN2_28TxV1ncWfGGZ2EA0LUA42P66aJUv8JkJk9TUhMUb3k3sIJEPQplW4AJcd5pdBrkfzwx/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKHM5-KYNKRsLqpLRn7gkankQEhyphenhyphencRS9xPrZE2-LFDPPtJSs4gzCbvvu3HySpYdbxI2bGAN2_28TxV1ncWfGGZ2EA0LUA42P66aJUv8JkJk9TUhMUb3k3sIJEPQplW4AJcd5pdBrkfzwx/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLXG2eJgUxmHG58m0Wla46Ebhgpz3ZOnz9zoTghqZOAty971DyCERvMItG7I2rY_SJdZTCs-m-qxclQgDRvoGTUS0_FiULrv1ixpIRdwCBl5GwUxsOXEsCA2qTaXp6OAmPBWh8HoXPF2A/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLXG2eJgUxmHG58m0Wla46Ebhgpz3ZOnz9zoTghqZOAty971DyCERvMItG7I2rY_SJdZTCs-m-qxclQgDRvoGTUS0_FiULrv1ixpIRdwCBl5GwUxsOXEsCA2qTaXp6OAmPBWh8HoXPF2A/s320/12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNe9DTmWGidSJmbgLTX-P77Fz3TjtprHqgxCx89xCXs0eeh3qdHIZ9U345pHjDJdRI5wKV_xO7S7mRDapDgd8KPSpVJN1UIb8uov7F0GGNqrJE4_xTkCzjUVjT-JXGr2Gj0yPWOjnI6_zT/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNe9DTmWGidSJmbgLTX-P77Fz3TjtprHqgxCx89xCXs0eeh3qdHIZ9U345pHjDJdRI5wKV_xO7S7mRDapDgd8KPSpVJN1UIb8uov7F0GGNqrJE4_xTkCzjUVjT-JXGr2Gj0yPWOjnI6_zT/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course I have to mention the food. Although we didn't indulge ourselves in their extensive wine selection, we did sample a fair share of their cheeses and being two people who love cheese, we were in high heaven. There were hundreds of varieties and we didn't find one that wasn't delicious. But the thing that sticks out most in my mind in relation to food is how much the French love their baguettes! We enjoy them too, to a certain extent, but can only eat so much of that hard, crusty bread before it tears apart the roofs of our mouths. We often ate our lunch in front of a bakery and during the hour that we sat there, literally every person that walked by and every car that drove past stopped and the customer came out with a baguette, or 2, under their arm. The French walk around with baguettes like Americans walk around with newspapers; it is quite a funny sight.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1mLEjs0MlbCWABS87THWimIA_XfFZKYS-5-V21nRX8GyUmPKQjInA61IsWbnIW-5KMq3iipiDEbz6iR9MET1AjBvaK4_0vrsYyW_5qWLFlAQ8eO6K0rg5F1wawa0f3oqWL_mdSjX-U4UU/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1mLEjs0MlbCWABS87THWimIA_XfFZKYS-5-V21nRX8GyUmPKQjInA61IsWbnIW-5KMq3iipiDEbz6iR9MET1AjBvaK4_0vrsYyW_5qWLFlAQ8eO6K0rg5F1wawa0f3oqWL_mdSjX-U4UU/s320/10.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari with her baguette under arm.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have to admit that I wasn't expecting to feel overwhelmingly welcome in France given the stereotypes of the French as being somewhat standoffish and though many of them know English, not wanting to speak it. I am happy to say that those stereotypes couldn't be further from the truth and for the first time since we left the U.S., we were showered with incredible hospitality. There were cyclists who passed us on the roads and people outside the supermarkets who offered to let us stay at their homes, shower, do laundry or whatever we needed. It was wonderful to once again have random strangers approach us, offer their assistance and even though it didn't always work because we either weren't going through their town or weren't ready to stop for the day, they still wanted to help so would give us contact info for their friends and family somewhere up the road. But every once in a while someone came along at just the right moment and we owe incredible amounts of thanks to many people in France. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To Brigitte and Jerome for letting us camp in your back yard, a delicious dinner and helping us map our route to the Alps. To Christophe and Sonia who happened to drive around a corner just as we stopped in a tiny village to knock on doors and ask for water. Before we knew it we had water, hot showers, dinner with their adorable family, maps galore pulled out to help us plan a spectacular, yet extremely challenging, route to Chamonix and we were sent on our way with beautiful gifts of wooden pens hand made by Christophe. To the family who was sitting on their front balcony having cocktails when we pulled up to ask for water. We were frantically searching for a place camp before the charcoal-gray curtain of rain and thunder and lightening that was chasing us up the valley engulfed us. Though none of them spoke a word of English and our 5 words of French weren't enough to legitimately ask if they knew a place nearby where we could camp, some tent and sleeping charades got our point across and without even a moment's thought we were showed to their side yard and invited to sleep inside their garden shed. Less than 10 minutes later the deluge struck and there was no way our increasingly worn out tent would have kept us dry in a storm like that. And finally to Johann and Emilie who pulled over while we were stopped and taking pictures on the side of the road. They had just returned a month ago from a year-long bike journey with their young son, Swan, and though they had only moved into their tiny house a couple of days before and didn't have enough space for us to sleep inside, we were invited to camp in their front yard. Again we had hot showers, a delicious home-cooked meal and wonderful new friends to spend the evening with. We are grateful to all of the people who showed us the real France.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_RsU-1ZCW3q_8vaVJP1U9zOiEaV7djh9DOHk0_hMVRpNdZB8sRY2dpjJkguqJJ4EVTCU6hXlHn2fzh1EpkzAaegTegq4lWY8dqNzRuEmnN6GDxNG41ackqWkHZt4Sr_jaymUAsRZ3krxD/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_RsU-1ZCW3q_8vaVJP1U9zOiEaV7djh9DOHk0_hMVRpNdZB8sRY2dpjJkguqJJ4EVTCU6hXlHn2fzh1EpkzAaegTegq4lWY8dqNzRuEmnN6GDxNG41ackqWkHZt4Sr_jaymUAsRZ3krxD/s320/11.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Camping in front of Yohann and Emilie's little house.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPxgxgclDl93Kmv3eMTNC8rtHPGd1lKLk5QcQfkoagYdGn2vuKfA91QcZkXiQf9AgcWC2eC9k2zAVQrTP3KvvM4EpUDDZ_iEIa7cJdu47wJHqcBMMGPAqHzYCqUiwhWsx1K5VsHFjmhvY/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPxgxgclDl93Kmv3eMTNC8rtHPGd1lKLk5QcQfkoagYdGn2vuKfA91QcZkXiQf9AgcWC2eC9k2zAVQrTP3KvvM4EpUDDZ_iEIa7cJdu47wJHqcBMMGPAqHzYCqUiwhWsx1K5VsHFjmhvY/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dinner with Yohann, Emilie, Swan, their brother-in-law and Mike. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our final two days in France couldn't have been more spectacular. At last we had reached the Alps and the weather actually cooperated, enabling us to see the mighty Mont Blanc. Nothing we have ever seen can compare to the views of when you're standing down in the valley with Mt. Blanc and the Chamonix Needles towering above. It's as if these perfectly jagged, snow and glacier covered mountains jet out of the ground right in front of your foot and it feels like you're standing in the middle of a fairy tale painting. They are too big and beautiful to be real. I can't count the number of times one of us turned around, caught a glimpse of the mountains in the corner of our eye and did a double-take just to make sure we weren't seeing things. The scenery truly is that surreal and there couldn't have been a more perfect ending to an already amazing ride through southern France.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwNUVBf7czDRBFN5b6KTLNfx-FJyJKwh8orpGoQm2wTEfKnrpTSRSkIn1_8ayLEE9Rie6GkusOe5KMikJWBlZ1imP9tjuqqZXC44WrVEQY_TPoG9TIE8WsqhEauBy6yGWro2GVw4VC2_Bd/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwNUVBf7czDRBFN5b6KTLNfx-FJyJKwh8orpGoQm2wTEfKnrpTSRSkIn1_8ayLEE9Rie6GkusOe5KMikJWBlZ1imP9tjuqqZXC44WrVEQY_TPoG9TIE8WsqhEauBy6yGWro2GVw4VC2_Bd/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The view of Mont Blanc from Chamonix.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-56868347994363605402011-05-09T04:17:00.000-07:002011-05-09T04:57:19.977-07:00THROUGH ANDORRA AND INTO FRANCE<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's a tiny European country nestles between Spain and France that Mike and I didn't even know existed until we bought our map of Spain. Since we had never heard of it and noticed that it contained the highest pass in the Pyrenees, we decided that through Andorra would be our chosen path for crossing into France. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We were expecting a serene countryside dotted with ski resorts and little upscale mountain towns with their exposed wood, log cabin style buildings, cozy cafes and overpriced outdoor equipment shops, but that's not quite what we found. The first town we came to was Andorra la Vella, the main city in Andorra, and as soon as we arrived we were ready to get out. There was nothing cute or cozy about the place, rather, it was screaming with consumerism. It was bustling with traffic and people and there were thousands of stores crammed with electronics, shoes, fancy clothing and duty free alcohol and cigarettes. It felt a bit like we were in Times Square, minus the really tall buildings, so we bought ourselves some groceries and continued chugging away at the 20-mile climb to the pass.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once we got past the first several towns, which were all more-or-less continuously strung together, the chaos died down though the traffic remained and the rain set in. Andorra is so small we could have made it through in one day, but rather than hoping to be seen through rain-streaked windshields on winding mountain roads, we decided to call it an early day in hope that the next would be better.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKQqAVkpjrfoecHez-tXSy4-RcqaMu4247xDobl3Q9vF2jDtkBtXgSt6TLe1-xCscWvwS7YMcbpY67ovpPtGemyv1qkFY9TYaGzMgG30xU5XpIeKcOuqDgZzZbRxqwCxepsvCT5meMwh1/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKQqAVkpjrfoecHez-tXSy4-RcqaMu4247xDobl3Q9vF2jDtkBtXgSt6TLe1-xCscWvwS7YMcbpY67ovpPtGemyv1qkFY9TYaGzMgG30xU5XpIeKcOuqDgZzZbRxqwCxepsvCT5meMwh1/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike in Andorra</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our final day to see the Pyrenees didn't turn out tot be sunny and clear, but at least it wasn't raining. We got some okay views of the mountains towards the middle of the climb and aside from the main city in Andorra I have a feeling this country is utterly spectacular, and it was a bummer not to get a nice day to see it. A dense, cold fog rolled in for the final 2 miles of the climb and just as we reached the pass, at 7,898 feet, the snow began to fall. We've been chasing summer for nearly a year now and this was the first time Old Man Winter actually caught us. Luckily there was a restaurant at the top of the mountain because it was too foggy and the road too slippery for us to safely descend so we went inside to warm up with a cup of hot tea, dry our wet clothes and wait for the weather to improve. An hour later the snow had stopped, I was no longer shivering and once again I could feel my fingers and toes; it was time for the big descent. We put on as many layers as we could possibly handle and still be able to ride; neoprene booties over our shoes, winter riding pants, thermal tops, a long-sleeved shirt, a vest, a down jacket, a rain jacket, cycling gloves, wool mittens and a hat. I felt like a giant marshmallow that had been puffed up in the microwave and though I looked ridiculous with every inch of my body covered except for my nose, I was pleasantly warm for the entire 30-mile, hour-long descent into France.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUEQbEIYzFrKnrnfFUCBg1W5xwpmRQvAh_faKArAD0YbZNJbX8r7JBNwqKJmeK6Jzp3wiirntJlhLQ7EHUXi17GEiHBPL4mW4CKcgrwmN8-jrnC59MmOF4fCLYJBUhL2L3EDfTKEC2mfBd/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUEQbEIYzFrKnrnfFUCBg1W5xwpmRQvAh_faKArAD0YbZNJbX8r7JBNwqKJmeK6Jzp3wiirntJlhLQ7EHUXi17GEiHBPL4mW4CKcgrwmN8-jrnC59MmOF4fCLYJBUhL2L3EDfTKEC2mfBd/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari on the climb.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JEiVbs01PvsKiViNldb94JBEYmW7xuMThVJhWorV1FgSzmL6JHT5FqOC2RTYo6t2hJV7ezgVrGE2Pc5HjN1uRbItbHvjORP1jdEfNVHnJYlUMJ5oG4CXLUAT1TmkqlgyzY60YwHDyMvH/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JEiVbs01PvsKiViNldb94JBEYmW7xuMThVJhWorV1FgSzmL6JHT5FqOC2RTYo6t2hJV7ezgVrGE2Pc5HjN1uRbItbHvjORP1jdEfNVHnJYlUMJ5oG4CXLUAT1TmkqlgyzY60YwHDyMvH/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Cari in the fog...almost to the top.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqGsKsOa9tzKFmDWI9EmhS3d5uB8ynBw5fC9TonCa1tElfIaZiCSLQ5vxqRU5BO_J5aS3MJ40FtukySiSm4bH1BNpNvtyAi0dpfyKrNLT7SSBCwd9Jj9vRbMzjJ1oJkud2T7l4RLMIH_k/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqGsKsOa9tzKFmDWI9EmhS3d5uB8ynBw5fC9TonCa1tElfIaZiCSLQ5vxqRU5BO_J5aS3MJ40FtukySiSm4bH1BNpNvtyAi0dpfyKrNLT7SSBCwd9Jj9vRbMzjJ1oJkud2T7l4RLMIH_k/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the highest pass in the Pyrenees (7,898 ft) in the fog and snow.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfmNkoDTKD0bLZlvuL2KbAq7OfUWiTsbvn-I7kiGbCU_-ZxOauQv9Wt3trE3cR1solrq6pXHb9jCylgfRpfZTPbUrR7ng48hnpYjSkfNBE-UTMlsEQmNDvZqODj85Luy18_1GfvY580JFN/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfmNkoDTKD0bLZlvuL2KbAq7OfUWiTsbvn-I7kiGbCU_-ZxOauQv9Wt3trE3cR1solrq6pXHb9jCylgfRpfZTPbUrR7ng48hnpYjSkfNBE-UTMlsEQmNDvZqODj85Luy18_1GfvY580JFN/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sitting inside while the snow falls.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6GopdfbucW2ww3hpu1azO_YJaK8l9nKY_aswDD6-MCDy24CksskSBp0xF4_rdUWp8cxOqTCAdvR5jluAxDCJhKDkh6wJZGqQAoyiSMwrpc4ZP1X4qe_CwwDbSB9nUady7zYUtYzWjLzND/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6GopdfbucW2ww3hpu1azO_YJaK8l9nKY_aswDD6-MCDy24CksskSBp0xF4_rdUWp8cxOqTCAdvR5jluAxDCJhKDkh6wJZGqQAoyiSMwrpc4ZP1X4qe_CwwDbSB9nUady7zYUtYzWjLzND/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike all bundled up for the descent into France.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the last 7 months we have been in Spanish-speaking countries and had come to the point where we had no problems communicating and no longer had to consciously think about how to say something. We were by no means even close to fluent but we were definitely comfortable. And then France hit us like a slap in the face. The first evening, we stopped at a bar to fill our water bottles for our night of camping, each of us holding 3 liter-sized jugs in our hands. We walked in and pleasantly said “bonjour” to the bartender and immediately afterward were tongue-tied. We realized at that moment as we were going “uhhhhh” with deer-in-the-headlights looks on our faces that we didn't know how to say a single word other than hello, yet and thank you in French. We should have, at the very least, learned “water” before we arrived as it's the thing we most frequently ask for.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nearly a week has passed since we arrived in France and we've learned a few basic words but this is a difficult language. Unlike Spanish where the words sound exactly as they're written, to us, French words sound nothing like the way they look. We're having a difficult time transitioning languages and often find ourselves saying “hola” rather than “bonjour,” “si” rather than “oui” and “gracias” rather than “merci.” The Spanish words have been in our heads for so long that it feels natural to say these words any time we're in contact with people who don't speak English. We clearly have a lot of learning to do.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fortunately, the French people have been wonderfully kind to us and in general, it has been a nice change from Spain. We've had more random strangers approach us wanting to know where we're from or what we're doing in one week in France than we had in our entire month in Spain. Even though we have no idea what they're saying and it feels like we're surrounded by a bunch of adults from the Charlie Brown cartoons, at least they're smiling, laughing at the fact that we just say “yes” to everything and if they know any words in English, usually make an attempt to talk to us. In Spain no one seemed even remotely interested in us. They just stared. Even when we acknowledged their staring with a smile, then a wave and then with a bug-eyed stare back, they didn't stop. It was the strangest, most uncomfortable, thing and we're happy that so far in France we have not been gawked at like we come from a different planet.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For now, we're just riding through the southwestern corner of France as we make our way towards the Alps, but we've seen some spectacular things already. We spent a couple of days in Carcassonne which contains Europe's largest intact remains of a medieval city. The walled city looks like a fairy-tale castle from afar and as you pass over the drawbridge your mind takes you to a magical world from long ago. Inside the walls is a fully-functioning, while extremely touristy city that was well worth the afternoon stroll.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4favzP8Co6cW8uS2xoAeztWGtLUkUN-kC6dOl3okHN1XkPuQVpDgPwF4kQ_APuHybvZs4fOcebAyR6_qepv-QTRbDFYLGfg5WfrwtWGrla6Bod7vYcrRSXfHqIgBkXWVMlC11IUE254BX/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4favzP8Co6cW8uS2xoAeztWGtLUkUN-kC6dOl3okHN1XkPuQVpDgPwF4kQ_APuHybvZs4fOcebAyR6_qepv-QTRbDFYLGfg5WfrwtWGrla6Bod7vYcrRSXfHqIgBkXWVMlC11IUE254BX/s320/9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Carcassonne</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBF7CkjX2QLUfx9xrh1nPEOON42KZjLsz3QjBscJF5LmIQ7QrsTyeuhQB__yGOhx_VeSqvzyNwn5UejrUZ69-GHgjmY3M-aDBHaKGIveJkhNsksj2Pk6nbYQQfq2omyccdTSVdhvvbdte/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBF7CkjX2QLUfx9xrh1nPEOON42KZjLsz3QjBscJF5LmIQ7QrsTyeuhQB__yGOhx_VeSqvzyNwn5UejrUZ69-GHgjmY3M-aDBHaKGIveJkhNsksj2Pk6nbYQQfq2omyccdTSVdhvvbdte/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the entrance of the city. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyptTEdXIl7YrEAfW96k3ik-mrHKj6VXYYIKsWrfN0hnMBZrJsBUJwnyuNRCDzFS1HuBptA8gM9wORWbW01CFmmQ6koIyaiz8N5wqtbTM2rOvPBIyqInZ9ZJvgITj5Pbr-T_X759ApPbG/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyptTEdXIl7YrEAfW96k3ik-mrHKj6VXYYIKsWrfN0hnMBZrJsBUJwnyuNRCDzFS1HuBptA8gM9wORWbW01CFmmQ6koIyaiz8N5wqtbTM2rOvPBIyqInZ9ZJvgITj5Pbr-T_X759ApPbG/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The church inside the walled city.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A 2-days ride through the grueling, yet beautiful, mountains of the Haut Languedoc and Grands Causses Parks and we arrived at the tallest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduct. Constructed between 2001 and 2004, the bridge truly is an impressive structure with its deck suspended some 885.8 feet above the Tarn river and its 7 pylons extending another 239.5 feet above that. We had high hopes that bicycles would be allowed to ride across it, but alas, that was not the case so we had to settle with viewing it from down below and watching a video at the visitor's center instead.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9zO3BvSAN6haEY4renQL-iLGC9eYNd_7iBqRQZWkatZ4VXQbxmY5QZmPOzujy06Q65ELFGdW1b_4b3I-g8R7YXj3h81Tf3jze6MnQ-dRkbCZxsUHuFAJr1KGxuuILgsaBOSofnueJ6tq/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9zO3BvSAN6haEY4renQL-iLGC9eYNd_7iBqRQZWkatZ4VXQbxmY5QZmPOzujy06Q65ELFGdW1b_4b3I-g8R7YXj3h81Tf3jze6MnQ-dRkbCZxsUHuFAJr1KGxuuILgsaBOSofnueJ6tq/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Millau Viaduct.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From Millau we headed to the spectacular scenery in the Gorges du Tarn and were greeted with warm, dry weather for the first time in several weeks. After a day of riding along the narrow, twisting road looking down over the sparkling, clear river, through tiny villages built right into the rocky walls of the gorge, we found a camp right on the river where we could swim, also known as bathe, and dry in the warm breeze before the sun set behind the cliffs. It's days like this that we live for, that make all of the bad weather and torturous riding days worthwhile. It's bike touring at its finest.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HqQcZu9YxbxTmbvd3UTwc65PxM70wgddsc0okEZVOUDklIlN13aIJD_AcRaVcZRHbUMP5fip6X3mYZu8CkQMT6fCyBi1ivMmt2W9nPIr6qTTsspeYSdJu2vx04Ka7SmE6E76nI6yvK_X/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HqQcZu9YxbxTmbvd3UTwc65PxM70wgddsc0okEZVOUDklIlN13aIJD_AcRaVcZRHbUMP5fip6X3mYZu8CkQMT6fCyBi1ivMmt2W9nPIr6qTTsspeYSdJu2vx04Ka7SmE6E76nI6yvK_X/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Mike riding through the Gorges du Tarn.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPnUi54HOFdbCFiZyYokaSBNWwn54WdEvEzBRjRwBnOzWoH1fWq2q4MFpskOw-D_UVairnqJpwAnemW3F_GoeQvljrlzPGHOwcF8CAkLIMCWRGN9IJJcfRl3-pdM48Hb3MlTt-bR-0Sr4/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPnUi54HOFdbCFiZyYokaSBNWwn54WdEvEzBRjRwBnOzWoH1fWq2q4MFpskOw-D_UVairnqJpwAnemW3F_GoeQvljrlzPGHOwcF8CAkLIMCWRGN9IJJcfRl3-pdM48Hb3MlTt-bR-0Sr4/s320/12.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gorges du Tarn </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCu-F9zyaPA1_Id9vGCVEX57N8TTV23fTu2pxj_fyqa4N6Ao9wtmyJk57aboYQo3cNXtA6ki4VTNH0Gmd7tUx6SFTVh_INs7eCcajU33x_n0ob6BVJBucl6eyXk01jd1BKoZ_soPqs7HBl/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCu-F9zyaPA1_Id9vGCVEX57N8TTV23fTu2pxj_fyqa4N6Ao9wtmyJk57aboYQo3cNXtA6ki4VTNH0Gmd7tUx6SFTVh_INs7eCcajU33x_n0ob6BVJBucl6eyXk01jd1BKoZ_soPqs7HBl/s320/13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A village along the Gorges du Tarn. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheGJpSqnQGxnyMAufZ-nY5NljNLHDr3dQgUFdI9jVsIroFJ66Ml08GLE4GxT0quh5vSFLoP_BNqlq9aqXzQxW0FH7MuWrQBq7wrTI4_xQvi8Mzqq1NLPP2MUY0F1De1B49Hea8h-z86Ru/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheGJpSqnQGxnyMAufZ-nY5NljNLHDr3dQgUFdI9jVsIroFJ66Ml08GLE4GxT0quh5vSFLoP_BNqlq9aqXzQxW0FH7MuWrQBq7wrTI4_xQvi8Mzqq1NLPP2MUY0F1De1B49Hea8h-z86Ru/s320/14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gorges du Tarn</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-24130038749722032362011-05-05T00:19:00.000-07:002011-05-05T00:32:51.121-07:00CATALUNYA<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Catalunya is the northeastern province of Spain, which we knew nothing about prior to our arrival, but we knew immediately when we entered because suddenly neither of us could read the road signs or understand what anyone was saying. It was slightly alarming at the supermarket when I couldn't understand the cashier when she told us the total for our purchases; I thought I was losing my mind but was relieved when we learned the official language of this province was Catalan instead of Spanish. We probably would have cruised right through and still know nothing about Catalunya had we not found warm-showers hosts to stay with, but we got lucky and met Jordi and Gemma, and through them learned a great deal and saw a good portion of a spectacular region of the world.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived to the tiny village of Bellestar, population 28, perched atop of a hill surrounded by grand vistas of mountains and green fields. We've ridden through many such villages on this trip, wondering what it would be like to live in a place like this, but usually just passed by the old stone buildings, down the abandoned streets and continued on to the next town of a decent size where we could get food or supplies, so when we discovered our hosts actually lived there, we were excited to discover what their lives were like.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We intended to stay with Jordi and Gemma for one night, or maybe two if the weather was crummy, but we generally never stay in one place longer than that because we either get bored or else feel like we're imposing on our hosts' lives and overstaying our welcome. That was far from the case here; we found ourselves in the home of people who absolutely love where they live, enjoy showing and teaching outsiders about Catalunya, understand what it's like to travel for extended periods of time and therefore know that sometimes all we want is a shower, laundry and a quiet place to relax. They went about their lives like normal and every day we were told of some outing or event that was to take place in the upcoming day or two and enthusiastically invited and encouraged to join them. There was never an end to their future adventures and they repeatedly told us that we could stay as long as we wanted. There's no doubt in my mind that if we had wanted or needed to stay for a month they would have happily let us move in for that long. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-oZWLc3bj_WZpa3l4e_N_RI49g_Psqmq9vttP7-4SNlbK93xT2kMQrlD966iz7Di0HHii82wCvTMGZasY3SS_Gy86Z6AnSyB6_S6DI_aVuYfo4-qpexBc6qLtkCwI4yTGod9S8RSQwdxH/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-oZWLc3bj_WZpa3l4e_N_RI49g_Psqmq9vttP7-4SNlbK93xT2kMQrlD966iz7Di0HHii82wCvTMGZasY3SS_Gy86Z6AnSyB6_S6DI_aVuYfo4-qpexBc6qLtkCwI4yTGod9S8RSQwdxH/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jordi, Gemma, Mike and Cari</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived late on Wednesday evening, somewhat in the mood for a hot shower and early night to bed, but were instead invited to one of Jordi's friends' house to watch the Barcelona vs. Madrid soccer match. If there is one thing that Mike and I have learned from traveling, it is to never turn down the opportunity to hang out with locals. There is no better way to learn about, discover and actually experience life from a different place than to take part in the daily activities of the people who live there, away from other tourists. It's a rare occasion to run into complete strangers who are willing and enthusiastic to enable such an experience, so of course we said 'yes' to the soccer match, and thus began our 5-day stay in Bellestar.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Night one was the soccer match, which Barcelona (which is in Catalunya) won, and along with watching the match we also got our first of many political lessons for the week of the tensions that exist between Catalunya and the rest of Spain. We quickly learned to not call Catalonians “Spanish,” as many of them take it as an insult and wish for nothing more than their province to become independent from Spain. It was interesting to hear their viewpoints of political issues within their own country rather than having them ask about the US government, which is usually the case, and it was wonderful to see people so passionate about keeping their ancient cultures and language alive.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thursday wasn't so exciting as it was rainy and we opted to stay at home and take care of tasks like laundry, bike maintenance and catching up on emails. Not very fun, but necessary every once in a while. That night we went to a BBQ with Jordi and a bunch of his friends from his cycling and skiing group. There we got a taste of some traditional Catalonian cuisine including tomato bread, which is bread rubbed with garlic and ripe tomato and drizzled with olive oil and Calcots (the 'c' is pronounced like an 's'), which are green onions cooked over a barbeque until the outsides are charred. They then wrap the bundle of onions in newspaper to steam them and when you're ready to eat, you peel the outside layer of the onion off, dip in a delicious tomato sauce and enjoy. We weren't overly impressed with the bread but the onions were absolutely wonderful.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7le1eggnkQXp-8UE8-R8eJgnpTSw82doyLkjh-8EPar_CAWIDZB7oJn554Ec2rEI5h1BKjLj9R3yCo6C05GvFtS_xxVF3hCzI7s6oSNgSvvF99d_HYXTObR1DiGIaG-7DDqioloWn7fN9/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7le1eggnkQXp-8UE8-R8eJgnpTSw82doyLkjh-8EPar_CAWIDZB7oJn554Ec2rEI5h1BKjLj9R3yCo6C05GvFtS_xxVF3hCzI7s6oSNgSvvF99d_HYXTObR1DiGIaG-7DDqioloWn7fN9/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The onions on the grill. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCeurac0tnFbVNZkGCjjlO1UlANTPd541affd5jqlIKMdBsTDfH3-NgpA0_3GNE9usznf9oSq_2tDdCG8h2IEGNpQGu0ytyqQH9ANZ1FnhI346jmJeAZoGfImgF227UOuTwhGsWWOImzfK/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCeurac0tnFbVNZkGCjjlO1UlANTPd541affd5jqlIKMdBsTDfH3-NgpA0_3GNE9usznf9oSq_2tDdCG8h2IEGNpQGu0ytyqQH9ANZ1FnhI346jmJeAZoGfImgF227UOuTwhGsWWOImzfK/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike enjoying his Calcot.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friday morning we went into the nearby town of La Seu d'Urgell with Jordi and walked around town while he went to work for a few hours. As most people know, we're not much into checking out cities, but Jordi and some of his friends kept telling us that we should go visit the Old Town and Olympic Park where the kayaking events were held for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. We were both thoroughly impressed and easily passed several hours watching several dozen athletes practicing for an upcoming competition in the man-made, yet surprisingly beautiful, river. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1CwEqdMQyeoaA9yQnkvTlxDVQt28fjZHjOCB1Qgm9aJQ7QPkV8Nqt7FLsvP7R6ErJOX6xCxg8wteyRR4KEf2JDOrAQjYZ6Z9T-DZxmwRvbidlF8xYb8glJqMnwAYWalOuYhTWjmG0FsHl/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1CwEqdMQyeoaA9yQnkvTlxDVQt28fjZHjOCB1Qgm9aJQ7QPkV8Nqt7FLsvP7R6ErJOX6xCxg8wteyRR4KEf2JDOrAQjYZ6Z9T-DZxmwRvbidlF8xYb8glJqMnwAYWalOuYhTWjmG0FsHl/s320/12.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kayakers practicing in Olympic Park.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That afternoon we went with Jordi and a couple of his friends for a bike ride in the mountains near Bellestar. The riding was spectacular on quiet, back roads that we never would have discovered on our own, through villages where people once lived but are so far out in the middle of nowhere that now only 1 or 2 people still remain. It was the first time in nearly a year that we had ridden our bikes without all of our panniers on them and despite the fact that all of our upper body strength that we had before leaving on this trip is completely gone, we were happy to discover how strong our legs felt (as they should). Riding up the mountain roads felt “easy” and we found ourselves cruising up hill at a pace that was faster than our overall average speed on our loaded bikes. It made me eagerly dream about someday getting back on my ultra-light road bike and how good it's going to feel, but don't get too excited Mom...it wasn't enough to bring me back home quite yet.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That night we went out for drinks and tapas with Gemma and met some of her friends. We were planning on leaving the next morning as the weather was expected to be good and both Gemma and Jordi were going to be busy all of Saturday, but over dinner we were invited by two of Gemma's friends, Carlos and George, to go hiking with them instead. The hike sounded enticing as it would take us right up to the base of the mountain that overlooks Bellestar and since we hadn't really gotten a great look at the Pyrenees and would be leaving town in the other direction, we decided to stay a little longer.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The day started out nicely with our fearless leader, Carlos, informing us that we were going on a short, 1 ½ – 2 hour hike. That sounded perfect to us who, of course, only brought a liter of water and were wearing running shoes instead of hiking boots. An hour into the hike, we arrived at a beautiful green meadow with the granite spires of Mt. Cadi towering above us. Although the weather never completely cleared for us to get a great view, it was satisfying enough. We sat in the meadow and enjoyed the lunches we brought along and afterward, rather than descending back to the parking lot, Carlos continued to lead us higher and higher on the mountain. When we inquired about his intended route, we were told in his broken English not to worry, the trail makes a loop, but as we watched the village where we started disappear farther below us with two large valleys in between, it became clear to us that any loop trail we'd be doing would take several days at least. After nearly 4 hours on the mountain and losing sight of the trail countless times, I was about to make up a story about being too tired just to force them to turn around rather than watching them adamantly search for some trail they had no idea whether or not even existed because no one had a map. Luckily, Carlos and George eventually gave up on finding the cairns marking the loop trail on their own accord and Mike and I were very pleased that we'd only have to hike another few hours rather than few days. By the end of the hike we were all ready to throw Carlos over a cliff, certain that he would never get us back to the car, but of course he did and a beer and monstrous plate of potato chips at the local pub made us all happy in the end.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGUQnJP6kxa3I7a81ugdKDA4tB0ToKCrV7H49kPPXyYys_vPnTw3gmlv2BPaoZCoB2YDEtqf4O4tEcAKSm9dXn-MCCiVl50tu8vewHZ_Utwy4_VQ3fhOCXY28uSjF7LOujhrDWe5xs3pI/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGUQnJP6kxa3I7a81ugdKDA4tB0ToKCrV7H49kPPXyYys_vPnTw3gmlv2BPaoZCoB2YDEtqf4O4tEcAKSm9dXn-MCCiVl50tu8vewHZ_Utwy4_VQ3fhOCXY28uSjF7LOujhrDWe5xs3pI/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Carlos, Mike, Cari and George at Mt. Cadi. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8T1YTIp6Sq35X4gdl15ZFEhyphenhyphenNkcwxjuXFO8lN_tv9YFOCZIZpU1m-WPHtL2vUlAugilOWn3-9nocI1fmpZvXrWWktfeAUUZhPu5y4NWZFlctxXp6S1GcLVOEASTGvn57xc6p_awCckqN/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8T1YTIp6Sq35X4gdl15ZFEhyphenhyphenNkcwxjuXFO8lN_tv9YFOCZIZpU1m-WPHtL2vUlAugilOWn3-9nocI1fmpZvXrWWktfeAUUZhPu5y4NWZFlctxXp6S1GcLVOEASTGvn57xc6p_awCckqN/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beer and chips after the hike.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived home exhausted and ready to sleep but Mike stayed up late preparing two of Jordi and Gemma's mountain bikes for a TuPedala club ride that we were invited to join the next morning. Anyone who knows me, or has been following this blog since South America, knows of my dislike for mountain biking, but I was promised it wouldn't be hard core single track, we'd get to meet more people, see another region of Catalunya and the ride sounded interesting so we figured we might as well go for it and stay one more day. It turned out to be a spectacular day for a ride, which also ended up up being a tour of historical markers of the area as well. Roughly every hour we'd stop at another site to see an ancient burial ground, a tower build in the 8th century marking the boundary between what was Muslim and Christian territories, churches build in the 1600s and a monument marking the very center of Catalunya. It was nice having frequent stops which kept the group together, allowed us to talk with lots of new people and broke up the riding into short segments which is a good thing for someone with little confidence on a mountain bike. I don't know if I dare admit this, but I actually enjoyed myself of the ride and discovered that mountain biking might not be so bad when you have the right equipment.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdx4HMRXlXVBrKzi2xDtb-6KbHmSxVjUdj0Jw3ViVNjM5eubUIMaQqmfTbd9EWsfO2eJMLk41AqCe4hSgGubiAveHifmxqYclcO3EuvHe7Wgf0p5zZRm3SemX-yzjzQXbl4APqykvCLEx/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdx4HMRXlXVBrKzi2xDtb-6KbHmSxVjUdj0Jw3ViVNjM5eubUIMaQqmfTbd9EWsfO2eJMLk41AqCe4hSgGubiAveHifmxqYclcO3EuvHe7Wgf0p5zZRm3SemX-yzjzQXbl4APqykvCLEx/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari and Mike riding with the TuPedala Bike Club. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEv8I1159guVw2ZAf6JYqAfGNvKkG66_T_aS7ax9AUpyn_WufexKhiGvRku5ZmB_tGqTrIGtV6YbO_zQxajsZjbNLs9djW9Ia9zu9vz1lrceLUiF8q0phXPtZJKWpJGRZmz07kXQJE7fA/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEv8I1159guVw2ZAf6JYqAfGNvKkG66_T_aS7ax9AUpyn_WufexKhiGvRku5ZmB_tGqTrIGtV6YbO_zQxajsZjbNLs9djW9Ia9zu9vz1lrceLUiF8q0phXPtZJKWpJGRZmz07kXQJE7fA/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike riding through a field. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYF3Bm3G6731eFJhyphenhyphenmJBNivnPfPXWlQEewTt9fQZOEpOsGjKpcQfu2m-uvYorlxpO1UKTyS6hF5Crp8EfATDpGPGKz8M_HHETFMcZdiYA-by1SUutdf1RKDtgyTsqimJ1pAerMptiqHSom/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYF3Bm3G6731eFJhyphenhyphenmJBNivnPfPXWlQEewTt9fQZOEpOsGjKpcQfu2m-uvYorlxpO1UKTyS6hF5Crp8EfATDpGPGKz8M_HHETFMcZdiYA-by1SUutdf1RKDtgyTsqimJ1pAerMptiqHSom/s320/13.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 8th century tower.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxJyP4-BTAhxk5hUVdsEY0B2hyphenhyphenceP2Ddnsd2_Ttd1ZHLkp9w_PjCA7W2cLAz5Vwn0ONI82ZmL1nOHrlGW7irHYp53pSxPnT_rdFxPxfUHbqmJe2GzNElP8PHF5wuvc10wq2xRcMxUu4yh/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxJyP4-BTAhxk5hUVdsEY0B2hyphenhyphenceP2Ddnsd2_Ttd1ZHLkp9w_PjCA7W2cLAz5Vwn0ONI82ZmL1nOHrlGW7irHYp53pSxPnT_rdFxPxfUHbqmJe2GzNElP8PHF5wuvc10wq2xRcMxUu4yh/s320/9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Group photo on top of the tower. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGVeu6UbK2jj3BKKpVJt5Rwr7Cy1cyRFcbZ-9JhtH6rGZjhAeu4ymOzq-VR-CudjGlaETDLFrpzVZ92yycXsCyB6ZAqzuldqk56H6TxBrsk2z4QjeKLU5JJRY-7SpYnJQOTc6UEsP6oCqi/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGVeu6UbK2jj3BKKpVJt5Rwr7Cy1cyRFcbZ-9JhtH6rGZjhAeu4ymOzq-VR-CudjGlaETDLFrpzVZ92yycXsCyB6ZAqzuldqk56H6TxBrsk2z4QjeKLU5JJRY-7SpYnJQOTc6UEsP6oCqi/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari at one of the old churches.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After 5 days in Bellestar with Jordi and Gemma, it was finally time to continue on our way. We had such a wonderful time, met some of the nicest people and we would have liked to stay longer but I'm afraid if we did, we'd get too comfortable and never leave. We thank everyone we met during our stay for your hospitality, kindness and friendship, for including us in your lives, teaching us parts of your culture and showing us the beautiful area that you call home.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1002270863335538916.post-34127178910684422502011-04-25T04:29:00.000-07:002011-04-25T06:33:18.263-07:00GLOOMY WEATHER<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sorry for the lack of recent posts but our adventure has actually been extremely unexciting lately. I know many people believe that we're on a constantly eventful wild whirlwind of a trip but that couldn't be further from the truth. There are many days that could simply be documented as, “wake up, eat, pack everything onto our bikes, ride, eat, ride, eat, ride, set up camp, eat, sleep.” Though it's not quite an ordinary life, it can certainly be monotonous at times, and it's been one of those times.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once we left Granada, we rode north through the heart of Spain. The countryside was peaceful and beautiful with pleasantly rolling hills which allowed us to put in several days of long miles and although it felt great, there was nothing extremely noteworthy to report.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkbzIhKNGUgxlxg7yLZJ5xZ4UXICDEO1HFAy72ZeGcK-BuIzh6SakqVK36dTdvxksLl7EV1OYIoulfOEdklu5rb8KK4en8_0kMRT7zdcsJwLZyjXQtbEMTdbTHrZPYzWdjEjO0h2U15EV_/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkbzIhKNGUgxlxg7yLZJ5xZ4UXICDEO1HFAy72ZeGcK-BuIzh6SakqVK36dTdvxksLl7EV1OYIoulfOEdklu5rb8KK4en8_0kMRT7zdcsJwLZyjXQtbEMTdbTHrZPYzWdjEjO0h2U15EV_/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Between Granada and the Pyrenees </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8W44dc-zQT7Ix9RapAkgJ0nb_8QYF7HBc5SYOIh70E-lDfEhyphenhyphennQU4ie0oc-BjhUw5qx38VYwI-MOv6ecBLYeCWy4Eum2FYzg_70N4qVvk_LgtIuTr4nXZKK5VGaZEzlq4ol8KBDZ0aBF-/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8W44dc-zQT7Ix9RapAkgJ0nb_8QYF7HBc5SYOIh70E-lDfEhyphenhyphennQU4ie0oc-BjhUw5qx38VYwI-MOv6ecBLYeCWy4Eum2FYzg_70N4qVvk_LgtIuTr4nXZKK5VGaZEzlq4ol8KBDZ0aBF-/s320/2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A house built into a rock cliff </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8Ed4Xp4P5boJkl2_L0mQ5lCdPzTRp1rINKMeJdoYuESTT0hyp8EjyNFFaQyRMC1dNgL1Sr5oFRH4-H53y_VLeN8u2803GKa4-fri8Ur7hT7tLZKM1HyfLqSnaK7cBWeh7odvSvj7Gshz/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8Ed4Xp4P5boJkl2_L0mQ5lCdPzTRp1rINKMeJdoYuESTT0hyp8EjyNFFaQyRMC1dNgL1Sr5oFRH4-H53y_VLeN8u2803GKa4-fri8Ur7hT7tLZKM1HyfLqSnaK7cBWeh7odvSvj7Gshz/s320/3.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cari and a Roman bridge</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We arrived to the Pyrenees about a week ago only to find that these famed mountains were enveloped in low-hanging, gray rainclouds. We know they're there; we can sometimes see the dark outlines of the mountains reaching up towards the heavens behind the thin, lingering clouds. If only they'd lift during the day rather than giving us clear, starry nights we'd be happy campers. I guess it was our turn to be stuck in the cold and rain. We completely lucked out along the Carretera Austral in Chile where we had the most perfect weather anyone could wish for while most people cycling that route are cold and wet for nearly the entire time. You can't win them all. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFqJNeR4kysVLBBRBJuWjkH1oQuOP9ndqFB3kVyNHCb6oVzw1KnRlNTi5jGdsXiBLW4NZ2FXITrIZcJpHzPLKvEFCptGbIgvTKeviUpS-NAvond0VuaQPd8Fly481lNWK1buulPl4219Y8/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFqJNeR4kysVLBBRBJuWjkH1oQuOP9ndqFB3kVyNHCb6oVzw1KnRlNTi5jGdsXiBLW4NZ2FXITrIZcJpHzPLKvEFCptGbIgvTKeviUpS-NAvond0VuaQPd8Fly481lNWK1buulPl4219Y8/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cloudy day in the Pyrenees</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsi0S1dmqp1Tn9I86UYKRMH_BFfE9EIGGRYvfhC0_h1iA3EKgpjCJt6C6GBe3e-uwh43V7FZy7uD1UqB54V63rwlgBVVTTz-mPENGoiC9Db19TYUmDTdU4OMhNU-VsidWCXydP_wLIXai/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsi0S1dmqp1Tn9I86UYKRMH_BFfE9EIGGRYvfhC0_h1iA3EKgpjCJt6C6GBe3e-uwh43V7FZy7uD1UqB54V63rwlgBVVTTz-mPENGoiC9Db19TYUmDTdU4OMhNU-VsidWCXydP_wLIXai/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike and Cari </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEqexKOQdisZMTGj08R64elhKlNRRmHYZW7XZHC5-oLCZTAkpwL-oGs4JMiHcgHB_vfyH3XdGEXB2WGvb-PmipCqa82GUh8-05Xy9fe12e7l0hkOsb5KG8KTZD0xpKcYQ5bBQ2Yc_op-Re/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEqexKOQdisZMTGj08R64elhKlNRRmHYZW7XZHC5-oLCZTAkpwL-oGs4JMiHcgHB_vfyH3XdGEXB2WGvb-PmipCqa82GUh8-05Xy9fe12e7l0hkOsb5KG8KTZD0xpKcYQ5bBQ2Yc_op-Re/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ainsa, Spain</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXk2Mksanefj9jfDhUfwvPnvo0fLdFJZV4VYt3LujS4wmUZ5D_T3r_Li33QWuVqtdmFbbucR-NiXVxbM2stWhdug0gmsbxUJRgJaUqkDE2yIBrnUrDKC38J-M4BPaeM41Dr-YPnubOE0q/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXk2Mksanefj9jfDhUfwvPnvo0fLdFJZV4VYt3LujS4wmUZ5D_T3r_Li33QWuVqtdmFbbucR-NiXVxbM2stWhdug0gmsbxUJRgJaUqkDE2yIBrnUrDKC38J-M4BPaeM41Dr-YPnubOE0q/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We got a glimpse of the mountains for a couple of hours one morning. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then it rained for the rest of the day</span>.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidU9kKn52WXbIVVYcNrqf48rwMVr9c7N0tBhiKvxaMrSWbU226Y50ba-7qmlt9qEBsdRIm52vza9OohrYLtn7i6rxbfR0wqbaKfH8DnadBhyphenhyphenH-BZPJj5pQikehHQegKH0Fj3hEOM4cqnNb/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidU9kKn52WXbIVVYcNrqf48rwMVr9c7N0tBhiKvxaMrSWbU226Y50ba-7qmlt9qEBsdRIm52vza9OohrYLtn7i6rxbfR0wqbaKfH8DnadBhyphenhyphenH-BZPJj5pQikehHQegKH0Fj3hEOM4cqnNb/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taking advantage of a little sunshine. We had a lot of wet clothes from the day before that needed to dry.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been a bummer of a week in a sense that we've put in monstrous amounts of effort to lug ourselves up one steep mountain road after another only to get nothing for a view in return, but I have to say that these roads have been absolutely thrilling. Occasionally we have a section of road that is wide and sweeping and although they don't provide us with the grand vistas they're capable of, they do offer an exhilarating, though frigid, descent in which we're cruising at unquestionably dangerous speeds but don't want to grasp the brakes to ruin the happily squealing voices inside our heads. However, more often than not, we find ourselves on extremely narrow roads that switch-back their way up and down the steep sides of the mountains. We can look over the sides of the infrequently present guard rails down into the valleys below and seeing the sheer drop-off over the edge is enough to keep us from descending at anything more than a snail's pace. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qyMbGe5tzon5U8-u3ddaHxJxpOxrscaFEk9a9q4JjOKEntzvSF8WpSEHriHy0uzffRFz-p_t-eX9T4zQOz92hlCbFfq6EbCqDhZOTlBvNXuEBfLowR2Qsf_hkQgVB8qFMrgrpoLvysHZ/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qyMbGe5tzon5U8-u3ddaHxJxpOxrscaFEk9a9q4JjOKEntzvSF8WpSEHriHy0uzffRFz-p_t-eX9T4zQOz92hlCbFfq6EbCqDhZOTlBvNXuEBfLowR2Qsf_hkQgVB8qFMrgrpoLvysHZ/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mountain road </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6DCdGB8bzN4menmRbg89qiKB4bAeb9xVBFvOSreEU_3yEov1Uv5wDUWnhxv3qoVq_r-Nz3e_cmHPm53pSLFiG11pnwNjhoLilspnAv8m1qGb6IuWntQ0UjGFlPxkyeLMhdKZcZm5rN1N/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6DCdGB8bzN4menmRbg89qiKB4bAeb9xVBFvOSreEU_3yEov1Uv5wDUWnhxv3qoVq_r-Nz3e_cmHPm53pSLFiG11pnwNjhoLilspnAv8m1qGb6IuWntQ0UjGFlPxkyeLMhdKZcZm5rN1N/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Snaking mountain roads </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhScVvCDV-nN1U1PmzPKRF0D6cylZdNKnY2C391mFHm6Eny6lMye0b0oRQda6hvaRWYvin6u1U56_LSlqfeHpTnECRen2OCWio4CNLFukBrx1BIR7ByuHLnzbTj0ZaInmMrqwJzfuqHDvQ7/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhScVvCDV-nN1U1PmzPKRF0D6cylZdNKnY2C391mFHm6Eny6lMye0b0oRQda6hvaRWYvin6u1U56_LSlqfeHpTnECRen2OCWio4CNLFukBrx1BIR7ByuHLnzbTj0ZaInmMrqwJzfuqHDvQ7/s320/12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We could easily have been through the entire mountain range by now if we were pushing ourselves, but it would be such a shame to completely traverse them without ever actually seeing them. We've been watching the weather and although mountain weather can change in a nanosecond, the forecast has been telling us that we're going to get 2 days of decent, or at least rainless, weather on Tuesday and Wednesday. So today we're waiting. We're not really in need of a rest day, but we've found a campground that is comfortable and conveniently located and don't want to waste yet another day of potentially spectacular riding. We often have to remind ourselves that we're in no rush, have nowhere that we actually have to be and should therefore put aside our antsy-ness, take our time and wait out the bad weather in order to see the things we so enthusiastically want to see.</span></div>Cari and Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469057662024214874noreply@blogger.com5