The Weekend Plan

This November it will be 3 years since this photo was taken. At the time I dreamed of cross country rides or rides along Skyline Drive in Virginia. However with a family, there are other priorities which come before hopping on a Hog and disappearing for a few days. But alas, opportunity presents itself...

Since my family is in the US still and I am still (technically) a bachelor, I can go for a little motor tour. Now, never in my dreams would I have thought I would be doing the tour I am about to do though.

Here is the plan: We have become addicted to our navigation system and have already decided that we need one when we move back to the US. Luck would have it that TomTom released the second edition of their Motorcycle Navigation System. This second edition works with a car mount, unlike the first edition, so... we now have a Navi :) I spent some time this week getting it set up. The wonderful thing is that it came with a RAM mounting system for the handlebar of the motorcycle. It also came with wiring to hard wire it into the electrical system. The downside to this is that you connect the mounting bracket to the power, so if you hard wire it, it is permanent (or a lot of work to take the bracket off). Fortunately, my bike has a cigarette lighter. A quick trip to the local auto store and 15 minutes later we have a removable power cord.

So, tomorrow I am going to ride to Charles De Gaulle Airport, just outside of Paris. The Rugby World Cup is in France, so all of the hotels which are normally ungodly expensive in Paris are even more. But, the cheap ones at the airport are still cheap and a short 30 minute ride in. The purpose of this stop is to get some photos of the bike in front of some good landmarks.

After getting some early pics, it will be off to Lyon for lunch. From there I am going to make my way to Torino by way of Alpe d'Huez and spend the night in Italy. On Sunday it will be a nice ride back to Germany passing through the Swiss Alps, Basel, Mulhouse, and Strasbourg.

I may take the computer just so I can keep the iPod charged, but it might not fit on the bike. If it doesn't, you will have to wait until Sunday for photos.

The second half of the world

Ah! I know, I haven't posted in almost a month. It has been rather crazy since the last post. We picked up our daughter in Taipei and then traveled to the US with her. The days were a lot busier than expected and not much of anything got done that did not include feeding, chasing or cleaning a kid. If it wasn't one of those it was catching some rest.

Then, after the US, I completed my around the world trip and arrived in Frankfurt after a 5 hour delay in Philadelphia. I had about 4 hours to get home, unpack, repack and get back to Frankfurt for a 3 day meeting in Prague. I was then home for Saturday and most of Sunday and then back out again for 3 days in Paris, from where I just returned.

So, here are the stories you only get here...

After being in Taipei for a little less than a week, we learned we could leave 6 days early. Unfortunately all of the flights from Taipei to anywhere in the US were sold out until 4 days early. Even then, the flights that we could get had a 9 hour layover in Seattle before flying to Spokane. We thought about it a little bit and figured it was only a 5 hour drive with stops. So, when we checked in we convinced the ticket agent to only check our luggage to Seattle. She objected saying it would be a hassle to have to check it back in and get tickets again. I said, "I have two kids to take care of and 9 hours to kill. I am sure I can work it in. (he he he...)"

So we arrived in Seattle and hopped in a minivan. The first 2 hours of the ride were beautiful. The mountains and the lakes were just spectacular. The last 3 hours, flat baren, open and boring. It reminded me of driving across Indiana and Illinois on I-70.

Now, fast forward to this week. Most of you probably know I am a Jeckyll & Hyde when it comes to Paris. The tourism committee didn't decide to play off of the stereotype of the rude Parisien for no reason... For me, if I can avoid a lot of locals, I usually like it, but if I have to deal with a lot of them, well, my wife can fill you in on thosse phone calls.

The part I love is the food and the architecture. The buildings are just amazing! Well, this week I discovered a new way to see a lot of the city and quick. They have installed Velib', a network of a few thousand bicycles that you can rent really cheap and ride through the city. What you do is subscribe for a day 1 Euro($1.37) and then you take a bike from it's electronic lock with your pin code. Your ride it to another (or the same) station and put it in the electronic lock. The first half hour is free and then each half hour is another Euro.

So, at about 8:00 last night, a colleague and I picked up two bikes at Gare du Nord and then rode through the Opera, to the Louvre, along the Champs Elysee and then to the Eifell Tower to the 7th district. It was a great fall evening. A little cool, the smell of falling leaves, just nice. And some of the side streets that we rode through were just great. Buildings from when Napoleon was ruling.

Finally we locked them up and found a really good Japanese Resturant that had a great Sushi menu. I topped the night off with a taxi ride along the Sienne to get back to my hotel. The way the buildings were lit up and reflected off the river was great.