Last night I went to bed and thought to myself “Why would we ever want to sleep anywhere else? What are we thinking?!” Home is so good. Usually I’m not thinking this way until midway through a big trip!
The morning came quickly and we woke up early to finish up our packing and prepare the house for Josephine. The earlier we wake up, the easier it will be to acclimate to European time. To be honest, it’s been a bit overwhelming the past few days, weeks, months, (years…) and this morning I just wasn’t feeling too great about the whole thing.
But time marched on and when I was outside fussing with the bikes, Emily popped over to chat. She gave us a few delightful parting gifts: some dry shampoo and laundry detergent sheets that will come in very handy with our ultra lightweight setups. Best neighbors ever!
The goal was to get our bikes downtown to the bus station by bike, and we recruited Harald (the birthday boy, who’s always up for what he lovingly calls #CarryShitOlympics) to handle one of the bikes. I would tow another and Liz would document everything from a BCycle, which I would retrieve with a very therapeutic, mind-clearing walk to the nearest station.
Once I got back, Liz had finished the last of the packing and Harald arrived. A bit of finagling with physics and analyzing the angles and we had the bike secured were ready to go. Our modest convoy attracted a few second glances, but no major issues on our way. We did stop a couple times to tighten the straps and ropes, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Once unloaded, I quickly returned our loaner trailer to Pete’s all-thingz-bike depot and then met Harald at his place to drop our cargo bike off for safe storage, not far from the bus. He had kindly ghostridden a BCycle for me to zip back to the bus stop. What a guy! Then he sent me on my way with two slices of delicious birthday cake from Nicole.
At this point my mood was starting to improve. The rest of the trip went well, and as I type this, we’re waiting to board our flight to Amsterdam via Rejkjavik. Time for bed! It’s 1am in the Netherlands!
