Europe 2015 - The Maps

Denmark
July 18 - July 25
203 miles (327 km)

Germany - Rostock to Berlin
July 25 - August 3
225 miles (363 km)
Cumulative = 428 miles (690 km)

Berlin to Polish Border and Poland to Czech Republic
August 3 to August 14
444 miles (716 km)
Cumulative = 873 miles (1408 km)

Czech Republic
August 14 to August 23
292 miles (471 km)
Cumulative = 1165 miles (1879 km)

Germany - The Main Radweg - Bad Berneck to Mainz
August 24 to September 1
354 miles (571 km)
Cumulative = 1519 miles (2450 km)

Mainz, Germany to Turnhout, Belgium
September 2 to September 9
296 miles (477 km)
Cumulative = 1815 miles (2928 km)

Turnhout, Belgium to Hoofddorp, Netherlands
September 10 to September 17
190 miles (306 km)
Cumulative = 2005 miles (3234 km)

September 17/18 - Going home

Thursday - Amsterdam to Keflavik, Iceland to Portland, Oregon
Our flight doesn't leave until 2 p.m. so that's give us plenty of time to pack.

Notice the umbrellas. It is really only a little misty but we had a zippy tailwind all the way here.

Now it's really raining but we don't care :) (9:05)

Love these boxes! You put them together by following the numbers and they are big enough you only have to remove the pedals and take the handlebars off the stem.

Time to get started re-packing.

Two hours later.

This is the really tough part, moving through the terminal with these nice, big boxes.

We were hard to miss! Notice that this is desk #20. We left the elevator next to desk #3.

We had plenty of time to talk to our neighbors. Even later, after we passed through security, several people talked to us because they recognized us as the people with the bike boxes. Done with check-in at 12:10.....good thing we got an early start! We still needed to go through security and have lunch.

Headed to Iceland. Our seatmate, Dirk, is Dutch but now lives in Malta but spent most of his teenage years in Portland, Ashland, and Forest Grove, Oregon. He actually knows where Sweet Home is!

And, about 3 hours later, there it is. 

So far, so good......one of them is just a little wrinkled.

It is a balmy 50F in Keflavik....scheduled departure is 5:15 pm

Once more we have all 3 seats to ourselves between Iceland and Portland so Donna gets her window seat and Doug gets his aisle seat.

It will be quite awhile before we see land again.

Donna entertained herself for quite awhile making purple pictures for Tia on the touchscreen coloring book..... 

....and taking cloud pictures....there were just so many different kinds!

Almost there......the Columbia River. Arrival time 6:15.

It took us an hour to get through customs and to get our luggage. There is a short person behind there somewhere.

Doesn't look much more wrinkled than it did in Iceland.

PDX also has a bike assembly area but it is outside. 

It took another hour to get everything put back together and repack.

The sun went down an hour ago but our head lamps did a good job of showing us the way.

It is now 6 am Amsterdam time (9 pm PDT), at least that is what our bodies are telling us. It has been a LONG day!

Friday, September 18 - Portland to Sweet Home
Well, we woke up at 4:30 PDT and decided that the prudent thing to do would be to rent a car to get home. Riding another 3 days with body and brains in different time zones wasn't going to work very well. Our hotel didn't serve breakfast until 7 so we rode about a mile to one that was already open.

Portland has some darn nice bike facilities too.

And coffee on almost every corner.

It all fits! Just a couple more hours on the road. I-5 was pretty good for a Friday and we were home by noon. Nice to be back in our own place but what a wonderful trip it has been!!!
July 17 to September 18 (64 days)
2012 miles (3245 km)
0 flat tires
10,400 pictures
Gallons of ice cream, good coffee and peach tea
Miles of smiles
Countless Angels of the Road

And thank you for following us and being our blog Angels even when you didn't know where we were!

September 16 - Yes It's Wet but We Have a Little Tailwind

Wednesday - Leiden to Hoofddorp
We were not in a big hurry to leave today with only 20 miles to go. Besides it was wet and chilly outside. The weather is definitely making it easier to think about this being the end of our adventure but it still is hard to believe that the 2 months passed so quickly.

 Leaving the oldest part of town by the East Gate.

It is a wet commute for everyone.

Nieuwe Wetering - it was so dark it felt like evening instead of 10:00 in the morning.

It is a little hard to appreciate in the picture but that freeway is going under the canal. To us there is just something odd about water suspended over a road but not to the Dutch.

Leimuiden

There are three of these bridges along here. This one contains a traffic circle. 

We are back in Hoofddorp. It isn't much warmer but it has stopped raining.

This fort is part of a defense line built around Amsterdam (Stelling van Amsterdam) between 1880 and 1914. The enemy was kept away by inundating the land outside the defense line. The invention of airplanes made that strategy a bit ineffective.

We decided to have lunch at Doppio's, our favorite Hoofddorp coffee shop. We arrived at 11:45.

It started raining again while we ate. Hot chocolate and hot coffee really hit the spot! We waited in this pleasant place until it was a little brighter and drier before we headed to the hotel which was only 2 miles away. 

It started raining again about 10 minutes after we got to the hotel.  We really haven't watched TV this whole trip but this afternoon we watched the Best of the Vuelta (Spain's big bike race). Then we watched the Wallonia Grand Prix live. This bike race is in Belgium and it rained on them the whole time......we sure could empathize! We ventured as far as the hotel's restaurant for dinner.

We also caught up on uploading pictures to the blog and watched the clouds parting to the west as the sun set. It is always a little strange at the end of a bike trip. We've been crossing the landscape at a snail's pace for 2 months and tomorrow we will cross the ocean, a whole continent and 9 time zones in 13 hours.It is one of those miracles of the 21st Century.