Across the Rhine

Today was a pleasant day of our usual 30 miles, without inclement weather, head winds or any particular illnesses.  A success by any standard.  The campsite has no illustrations in the bathrooms, but instead has 5 lengthy essays posted in each one, full or rules and consequences and who knows what else.  All in German, without a simple ‘Nicht Rauchen’ to be found in it. Hope none of it was important, because I will never know what it says.

We continue to camp with our German companions, and he introduced himself this evening - Jurg - barely beating me to the punch.  It seemed like after 4 campgrounds we should at least know each other’s names.  In the morning we consulted and agreed that this campsite north and east of Worms would be the best spot for the night.  We again left at our own pace, and they beat us to the campground by at least an hour I would expect.  Fun to see familiar faces.  

We also found again an amazing woman traveling solo.  She is from some part of Great Britain, and arrives in camps early, sets up her tent and chair in a prime viewing spot, and then spends the entire evening sitting, chain smoking, and drinking a continuous stream of instant coffee from the stove at her side.  She hacks pretty badly, and as the entire campsite can currently attest, snores robustly.  But, as I explained to the kids this evening, she is also one of us.  All sorts and conditions wandering around on bicycles -

Also, as the sites filled this evening, we heard a girl asking in English for some bike technical assistance, and the kids enjoyed sitting and watching another episode of “Daddy’s fixing day”-

Not perfect, but good enough to get them on the road again tomorrow, and hopefully they will also take my counsel to seek out spare parts when they pass through Worms tomorrow.  

Today we also reverified our approximate bike weights on a different truck scale, and came up with the same numbers.  So we are running about 400 pounds with Ruby and me, and about 300 for Liv and Lyle.  I had hoped Liv’s load was lighter, but they are strong and consistent at this point.

At the close of the evening a small group of us were gathered around some maps on the ground, while various folks held court.  The strongly opinionated Frenchman full of anachronisms and experience, Jurg and his family, and some folks I didn’t know, in 3 different languages, laughing at different times, nodding sagely at others.  Only one kid could handle all the languages at the same time, and he kept a running commentary going. I was just glad to be able to hold my own a little in French.  Another great campground experience that I expect will become more commonplace as the campgrounds fill and high season sets in.

They say rain tomorrow, but we will try to beat it out the door.  Supposed to be a small ferry back across the Rhine in the morning, and then the EV 15 route the rest of the way.  We are set for storing the bikes in Mainz, and have our train tickets, all for Friday.  While we are looking forward to a little break to see some different folks and some different things, it will be fun to start to push towards the sea and lots of new unexplored areas.

-Dave