June 19th, 2014 - Why the blog or How did this all get started

This whole blogging thing is new to me. While I have enjoyed the blogs of many others, I have never ventured to create one myself. So, why the change? Well, last year Marvin and I did our first bike touring trip down the Willamette Valley in Oregon. While on the trip I wrote daily epistles via email to those who I thought would interested. Some of those people forwarded them on to others. Then, a few months after the trip, my iPad had a few problem and I lost my copies of all the notes I had written. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my notes from a sent folder I had not as yet emptied. However, that experience made me realize that I didn't want to only rely on my iPad so thought that starting a blog might be away of insuring my notes are not lost and that those who are interested in what Marvin and I are up to can keep track of us as we explore Germany by bike.

Yes, Germany by bike! We are so excited and the first day of our adventure begins tomorrow. Tonight we pull together the threads of weeks of preparation and in the morning we are off.

Our interest in bike touring started when our good friends Steve and Dodie Miller started doing tour cycling several years ago. Steve has been a faithful blogger for each of their trips. If you are interested in their exploits you can find them be googling "Grampies go by the books". I have to say, Steve has a very amusing way of expressing himself so his blog is very entertaining. Back to our interest in cycling. In any case, reading their blog and visiting with them got us excited to try out tour cycling for ourselves.

 Now I need to make it clear that we are not the hard core cyclists that Steve and Dodie are. With my fused ankle, extra weight and undependable right knee, hills are not just a challenge but also very painful. But... We wanted to cycle. Marvin then did a great amount of research and came up with the idea of us using ebikes. The ebikes give the extra push I needed for hills while still providing exercise at the same time. As we want to go at least 50 km per day, we use minimal power on the level, or none and save the power for hills.

Last year we started by doing trips around some local islands so I could work on distance and hills. We then topped off the experience by doing the Willamette Valley.

Then something exciting happened! The International Nurse Educators conference for 2014 was announced to be taking place in Amsterdam. The conference would take place just after we finished clinical practice for the term. That meant I could go to the conference, cycle in Holland, visit my brother and aunt in Germany and, drum roll please.... Plan a cycling trip in Europe!

So, this is the plan. We fly to Amsterdam tomorrow. The conference runs for three days. We then will spend a few days exploring some towns in easy cycling distance from where we are staying (we will rent bikes at the hotel). We will then take the train to Rotterdam, do some exploring there and then get picked up by my brother and niece. We will then travel down to Frankfurt and spend a few days visiting with family there and generally getting spoiled rotten by my brother.

We will be renting our bikes in Frankfurt. Then Peter will drive us down to Esslingen, a city south of Stuttgart. After visiting with my Aunt Friedel our cycle tour will begin. We will cycle from Esslingen to Heidelberg along the Neckar. We will then spend a couple of days exploring Heidelberg before hopping a train to Saarbrucken. We then hop back onto our bike and head down the Saar River. After a few days cycling we should cruise into Trier. At Trier we get onto the Moselle and cycle off to Koblenz. We then will turn right, cruise down the Rhein till Wiesbaden, turn left and pedal on to Frankfurt.    The trip will be just over 600 km and take us through gorgeous valleys and towns, along beautiful rivers, past vineyards and give us a chance to stroll through history. We will camp, stay in lovely gasthaus' and with new friends, enjoy German hospitality and unwind from a stressful year. The bags are now packed and at the front door. In the morning our good friend Bob Gauthier will
drive us to the ferry. We will then enjoy the view as we sail across Georgia Straight. Then it is onto a
plane and off to Amsterdam. And yes, I am very excited!