We woke up on our first sunny morning in Germany and hit the road. We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to bike as a family for the past . . . 5 years? We used to bike in Monterey, but left our many bikes in storage since we were only going to be in Egypt for 1 year. How many times can we laugh about that?
Anyway, the resort we stayed at has bike rentals for the entire family, including a trailing bike for Camille. She was thrilled to be riding with the big boys. We all got geared up and fitted with the right size bikes and off we went.
Germany is AMAZING for riding. I am not an amazing photographer while trying to ride.
Our route today would take us about 30 minutes down the road to a gorge where we would hike and explore.
Camille was so relaxed, she was riding one handed and throwing up peace signs.
Oh German countryside, I love you. Clean air, breeze in my hair, sun shining on my face. Paradise.
Approaching the Olympic stadium ski jump — I just looked up that it was built for the 1936 Olympics. I didn’t realize it was that old. We don’t head for the stadium today, but turn off and head toward the mountains, to the gorge.
Proof that I was there too.
We rode along the river and between the mountains.
We parked our bikes at the entrance to the gorge and walked in. There were lots of other tourists today because the previous few days had been dark and rainy.
I have to come to terms with the fact that none of these photos are going to come close to showing how green, beautiful, sparkling, saturated, and alive everything was.
There’s a path that hugs the mountain on one side with a wire guide rail on the other while the river rushes below.
Since it had rained heavily the night before, the waterfalls were streaming down the rock faces. We all wore our raincoats to stay dry.
Looking down on a double rainbow
The path ahead
The two men in this photo are Josh (in front) and Calvin (grey backpack). Two summers from now he will have graduated from high school and be figuring out what to do with his future. I can’t even imagine.
We made it through the gorge to the other side. The hiking opportunities are endless.
We decided to follow the river and take a path that headed up one of the mountains. The sign said if we walked for 10 hours we would reach Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. We aren’t that hardcore. We’ll take a bus to get there later in the week.
Snails are a novelty. Caleb found a huge one and named him Fat Albert.
Tadpoles! We haven’t seen these since our time in Northern California.
They were daring each other to eat one, like they did at camp, but I told them that once they had eaten one, they never had to prove it ever again.
Instead they had a contest to see who could hold their hand in the freezing water the longest.
Back down the mountain and to the gorge.
It’s amazing that there are places like this on earth
the raincoats go back on
Through the gorge and time to bike home
She finally figured out how to pedal forward
We miss being able to do things like this while living in Bahrain. Too much traffic, sand, pollution, heat, and crazy drivers. Plus, there’s nothing to look at except buildings or oil fields.
Tour de Chartiers
A perfect adventure. Then we went back to our hotel and ate dinner there and the kids ran around on the lawn and played at the playground. It doesn’t take much more than some grass to make them happy. Meanwhile I relaxed on a patio chair and read a book. This became a point of contention later that evening as Josh felt like my idea of a vacation meant “checking out” and I thought my idea of a vacation was “checking out.”
He expressed that he was unhappy spending our evenings at the hotel (Little America) whereas I thought it was delightful that the kids were having such a good time meeting other military kids and hey, it gave me more time to read my book! (Rob Lowe’s “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” in case you’re wondering what I was finding so absorbing. Fantastic writing and storytelling. Read it.) Josh didn’t care two bits about my book and I told him he was acting just like my dad when he took us to vacation on Balboa Island and was mad when all we wanted to do was stay in the beach cottage and watch MTV, which we didn’t have at home and besides, they were playing New Kids on the Block’s “Please Don’t Go Girl” and Van Halen’s “When It’s Love” every hour. I made the point that dad was getting his money’s worth because he paid for the cottage and we were actually using the cottage, but he wasn’t impressed by that argument.
Josh wasn’t so impressed either, but somehow we worked things out to where he understood that if the kids were getting something that they can’t get at home then it was OK to “do less” and I agreed to read more judiciously (meaning, I agreed to choose him over Rob Lowe when possible).