First things first. The disclaimer. My wife, Reina, came up with the title of this piece, and if she’s okay with it I think we can all be okay with it. Get it? Got it? Good!
Sometimes I’m riding a long and my brain is in hyperpercolation mode and the ideas for my Life Cycles blog just pile up on top of each other. It’s like there’s this Blog Angel whispering in my left ear, saying “You could write this . . . and this . . . and this . . . and this . . . and this! And then there’s my Novel Angel whispering in my right ear, “But what about me? You’ve got to give me some attention. You’ve got to finish restructuring so you can get that first rewrite underway. “You’ve got lots of ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy” (Sometimes my Novel Angel channels Ricky Ricardo.) So I guess I’m slipping into that tormented, conflicted writer thing. Hooray! Well, on with today’s blog. The novel will just have to wait, Ricky. But that's good news for those of you who have been asking where's my Life Cycles blog fix!
In the early 2000’s Reina and I were blessed to go on four biking trips abroad. We traveled with Vermont Bike Tours. This is an amazing company . . . totally ‘Top Drawer” in every respect. From the relationships with the other riders and the leaders, to the detailed work involved in hauling people and bikes around countries, to the selection of beautiful and unique lodging, to the locales for their tours our experience of this company was superb. Check them out at VERMONT BIKE TOURS
Our first tour in 2001 was the “Salzburg Sojourn”. You meet at the train station in Salzburg and they haul you up an alp and then for a week you ride down the alp. You start with a stunning short ride to the tallest waterfall in Europe, complete with cows standing around wearing cowbells. Then you follow a river down the mountain for days stopping at beautiful bed and breakfast inns. The Austrians have a respect and reverence for bikes that we don’t find in most places in the U.S. There were times when we were on a ten foot wide asphalt bike path traveling through pristine forests. There were many times when automobiles would pull off the road to let us go by. Reina and I had a rather rude reintroduction to cycling in America the next week when we were nearly run off the road at a major intersection by a crazed parent on the way to drop off a teenager at school! The tour concluded with a delightful bike tour around the city of Salzburg including Mozart’s home, and various scenes used in the filming of the The Sound Of Music.
In 2002 we toured Prince Edward Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. More beauty to be sure and a lovely places to stay on each overnight, but here’s a little heads up for you. Never ever go on a bike tour where the description in the catalog says something like “Revel in the beauty of the windswept shoreline!” The winds on PEI were relentless. It didn’t matter which way you went, you were headed into the wind. How could that be? It’s still baffles us today. The whole island was covered with wind, every hour of every day. On more than one occasion we were pedaling hard going downhill because the wind was blowing us back up the hill! One day we rode on a road that had trees on both sides. We sighed and said, “Finally, a wind break.” Oh no, by friends. It turned out to be a wind tunnel! Enough said.
In 2003 we traveled around the big island of Hawaii to celebrate Reina’s 50th birthday in our 50th state. Pretty fun most of the time. There was the day that they took us to a volcano. Here’s Reina’s account of that day . . .
“When I was on a cycling adventure in Hawaii, sweating and powering myself up that volcano-high hill, feeling the fire in my thighs and the burning of each and every one of my cell fibers, my mind reeling with every reason why I should quit, all of a sudden my best friend Jesus was cradled in behind me. Wow! He was so close I could feel Him. And then "whooooosh"! Something changed. His feet nudged under mine atop those pedals, providing a source of power that enabled me to gain renewed strength and energy. Then he just jumped off the bike and ran behind me, giving me that amazing push that propelled me up the steep incline. And then there he was again, sharing my seat, pressing, pushing, controlling those pedals.
But wait! We arrived. We had reached the top of that mountain peak. Would I be on my own now? Would I be left alone to simply coast down the hill at a leisurely pace?
As soon as the two of us reached the summit, the peak of that mighty hill that just a few minutes ago we just seemed to float up, Jesus was on the handle bars...no He was snuggled in behind me on that tiny little bike seat... either way, there we were, flying down the straightaway, legs extended side by side, almost perpendicular to the bike, toes pointed up, the breeze whipping under and around us, our mouths an open door to every tropical insect flying by, as together we squealed with joy and delight.
But wait! We arrived. We had reached the top of that mountain peak. Would I be on my own now? Would I be left alone to simply coast down the hill at a leisurely pace?
As soon as the two of us reached the summit, the peak of that mighty hill that just a few minutes ago we just seemed to float up, Jesus was on the handle bars...no He was snuggled in behind me on that tiny little bike seat... either way, there we were, flying down the straightaway, legs extended side by side, almost perpendicular to the bike, toes pointed up, the breeze whipping under and around us, our mouths an open door to every tropical insect flying by, as together we squealed with joy and delight.
What a rush! What a ride!
Jesus was my strength that day. He was and is my power every day. He loves to share my journey, support my challenges, and soar with me in every fun and beautiful moment in every day.”
Jesus was my strength that day. He was and is my power every day. He loves to share my journey, support my challenges, and soar with me in every fun and beautiful moment in every day.”
Yeah, I know Reina should be the writer in the family, huh!
Then in 2004 we rode the Tuscan Coast. Nice enough ride with more extraordinary experiences and scenery, but the real revelation to us was two weeks after we returned a friend asked us to join him on a ride from Bonita to La Jolla. A 50 mile round trip from the inland area in the South County of San Diego to the North Coastal area of San Diego. Absolutely beautiful sunny blue day. Riding along the La Jolla coast and later sitting on the veranda of a restaurant overlooking one of the most scenic coastlines God has ever created, it dawned on us that we had spent thousands of dollars a few weeks before to travel to Italy and we had an even more enjoyable experience right in our own backyard. Sometimes you can go home again.
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