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September 4 Monday cloudy Bicycle touring Germany Started the morning bicycling on a smooth road. In a couple of kilometres, I managed to pick up a piece of sharp brown glass that sliced through my tire and poked my bicycle tube. Wouldn't want to go more than two days in a row without a puncture. Of course, it's my rear tire, so I had to unload the entire rear rack as well as take off my panniers. Then getting the quick release past my freshly oiled chain is always a treat. Arran and Rebecca phone home to New Zealand. Arran was hoping to talk to everyone, but only him mom was home. His dad was off to a conference in Australia. His sister is off working on her master's thesis. His Mom says one can't even talk to her right now as she is so wrapped up in technical thinking and jargon. Arran told his mom that we had been camping in forests. His mom said they better not do that in Poland. He didn't tell her we had slept in a bus shelter. We have been getting fairly early starts to our bicycle touring days in Germany and then bumping along all day over rough roads. We're carrying lots of weight in food. We had just got up before Arran phoned home, so he said conversationally to his mom that he was feeling a little tired. "You better take it easy," she cautioned him. "Get plenty of rest. Don't overextend yourself." He wasn't as cheery when he got off the phone. Rebecca was next to phone New Zealand. She phoned her co-author. Rebecca was working on writing a book about New Zealand's earthquakes and volcanoes. Apparently there are problems with proofreading the part on earthquakes. Her co-author is a specialist on volcanoes, so even though the earthquake parts of the book sounded good to him, when he gave it to another fellow to read who is an earthquake specialist, he returned the work, saying, "I can't read this. It's all wrong." So, needless to say, we had two downtrodden Kiwis on our hands after their uplifting calls home. As Arran's mom said, "Only thirteen weeks to go and you'll be home." I'm not sure this fact overly cheered him either. But, she added, "The daffodils are just starting to bloom. It's getting warmer." At least they'll be returning to New Zealand when it's their summer. The scenery (or lack thereof) in this part of Germany of flat farm fields continues. Some fields are plowed. Saw a heavy-duty tractor that was pulling both discs and harrows at the same time. Some fields have corn, others have potatoes, still others have sunflowers for as far as the eye can see. The fields of sunflowers would make for a splendid sight if not for having been struck by frost. Now they're brown and wilted ... their heads sagging to their chests. We see lookout platforms in the fields along the road. What can they be for? Certainly not for the view. I wonder if they sit up on the platforms and shoot the filching crows? We haven't seen or even heard many birds. Or, come to think of it, many insects either ... other than the vulturous yellow jackets that will move in on any meal without the slightest hesitation. It's particularly disturbing when they land on me and crawl around. Oh, yes, and ticks. The ticks seem to be particularly attracted to Sharon. Along many of the roadsides we are cycling are apple trees. We've picked a few to eat, and have made some into dessert, cooked with sugar. As we're bicycling along we see plum trees planted along the road. Most of the plums are still green, but a few are ripe. They're tasty! Later in the day, as we rode past trees, I reached out my hand and snatched plums off the branches. One time I even got two plums at once. Talk about drive by fruiting. At 6:30 PM we were still fifteen kilometres outside Dresden, Germany. I wanted to camp. But the group decision was to ride through Dresden before nightfall as it will probably be less busy than in the morning. The road we were cycling turned to smooth cobbles (whatever that may be), then it became rougher, then the street became filled with trolley lines and real live yellow trolleys shuttling off in all directions. We had to be careful on our skinny-tired touring bicycles to cross the tram lines as perpendicular as possible. Dresden has some impressive old buildings in the downtown core. Even though it's been fifty years since the end of World War II, they're just beginning rebuilding since the bombing. Construction seems to be everywhere. Just outside Dresden we bicycle into a forest. Arran's mom would not be pleased, but it is almost dark. I think we'll be fine as long as we don't step on any old land mines. No wonder we never see any people in the forests. |
