Making Tracks

It's about time for another tour before summer draws to a close. We started the season with a flurry of tours in Bavaria: First a two-day tour near home, followed by nine days in Lower Bavaria. We took two separate trips to complete the Romantic Road, first from Füssen to Donauwörth and then Donauwörth to Würzburg.

Then the summer was filled with other projects, hot weather, other trips. Janos traveled to Warsaw to visit an old school friend whom he hadn't seen for 60 years. I was busy enough with photography, family and friends, oh yes, and my bicycle challenges which helped me keep active on my bike.

But now it's time for another trip, but where to? We originally planned to drive to Alsace and make day trips from different spots, doing a kind of in depth exploration of the area. But we never managed to work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for the trip. Then came the idea of doing something we thought we couldn't do.  We even had the Bikeline cycling guide for the route.

Wait a minute, no, we didn't have it any more. We just gave it to Miriam, our 23-year-old granddaughter, along with other useful things for her first solo bike tour. She had chosen the Alpe-Adria bicycle route. I knew she was a strong cyclist, but she had no experience with touring. We could help her there. She would be riding my old mountain bike (which she has been riding for the past several years), wearing my cast off bicycle shorts (which somehow got too small for me), sleeping in our little Mutha Hubba tent, cooking on the Trangia. You can imagine how excited and proud I was!

Sweet Miriam

So a couple of weeks after Miriam left -  she is long since on the Adria and beyond - we plan our departure for Sunday August 26. We will cycle from our front door and pick up the Alpe-Adria bicycle route where it starts in Salzburg.

Now this isn't directly related to our tour, but it does have to do with cycling and granddaughters. For our birthdays, Janos and I got an invitation from the youngest granddaughter, Nisrin, to eat ice cream together. Yesterday we all had time and it was ice cream weather, so we cycled over to the place selling the best ice cream and ate our ice cream cones sitting on a nearby bench. I had one scoop of lemon meringue and one of blueberry cheescake. Too good!
It was ride #84 for the 100 Bicycle Days challenge.
15km.

Lovely Nisrin

And while I'm at it - and the subject is grandchildren and cycling - I'll tell you about the 13-year-old twins, Nelli and Valentin, both very athletic. They did a one-week cycling-tenting tour with their dad from their home to Lake Constance this summer.

So proud of them all!

Nelli and Daniel

Valentin is camera shy.