More... Rain

Today I did not get to ride again because of the rain. This weather is just horrible. Once it rains one day, it seems like it rains forever. The only thing that made today better than others is that it was a holiday so I did not have to work today. Unfortunately, that also meant that not a thing was open in Germany today.

This gave us the perfect opportunity to go to Roermond, Netherlands to check out an outlet center there. Of course, about 5,000 other German's decided to do the same thing so a 1.5 hour drive, became 2.5 hours, but it was worth it. We got to walk around a nice shopping center with great stores. My wife made out really well with some new sneakers.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was as we were traveling up the A 61, we came upon a group of 8 Polizei Motor Officers. For a while, they were right in front of us, it felt like we had our own escort going!

You might be a traveler if...

Guess which one is mine...



For those of you who are not familiar with my travels of the past year, a little history.

I just got my first passport last January. I had traveled previously, mainly to Canada or one of the islands, but never needed a passport (all pre-9/11). So this was something exciting for me. I loved getting my first stamp on the relocation trip!

Well, I ended up traveling a little bit more than initially anticipated. Fortunately, a lot of the travels were to countries who were part of the Schengen Agreement which basically means I do not need to go through border/passport control when traveling between two countries who are part of the agreement, thus not getting stamped. However, I did make a few trips to countries that do have border control, Czech Republic, Ireland and UK.

Side note on Ireland and the U.K. They signed the Schengen Agreement, but do not participate in the open borders. I have also found, outside of the US, they can ask the most questions of anyone and make entry to the country feel a little bit like getting past the guards in "The Neverending Story". You have to solve the riddle before they let you in. In addition, Ireland uses a stamp that takes up an entire page of the passport.

Well, all of this travel, plus losing two whole pages to my German Resident Visa, put me in a little bit of a situation by the end of October. I counted the number of empty pages and realized that only a few more trips and I was going to be out of room. So, within 10 months of receiving my first ever passport, I had to have pages added to it. This did present a problem as I live in Germany, so getting the passport to the passport agency and back was not going to be a short process and it is rare that two weeks go by without me legitimately needing my passport.

Fortunately, on a business trip to the US I was able to get it to an agency to expedite it for me. When they received it, they decided that not only did I need to have a book of pages added to it, but I probably should have 2 books of pages added!

As you can see below, it adds a little bit of heft to ye old travel book. Some have looked at it and called it "dodgy", and it did cause a little bit of a stir the first time I was in Costa Rica, but after 5 people looked at it and examined the seams, they let me leave the country...



Two trips to Ireland - two whole pages gone...



Mexico and Ireland (left page) UK x4 and Czech Republic (right page)

Rain, Rain, Rain

Hello all! Sorry it has been a few days but it has been a little crazy here.

So, on Sunday, my neighbor and I joined up to go for a nice short ride. I promised my wife "No Railroad tracks". Well, about 13 km into the ride, that rule was broken, however my neighbor pointed out they were for a tram car and not a big train, so it doesn't count. What really didn't count was the fact that I kept the rubber on the road instead of the results of the last railroad crossing. We rode a new route to avoid all of the walkers and ended up riding a little bit longer than the hour I wanted to. 45.5 km later, we ended up home again. The rest of Sunday was rather unremarkable except for watching some of the Giro d'Italia.

Monday was an interesting day... a pretty normal day at work, came home and took a short 25.5 km ride. However, earlier in the day my son hurt himself at school and long story short, his pinky was not looking so good by 8 PM, so we loaded him up and off to the hospital for x-rays, yup, he is my boy! The first hospital didn't have anyone working that could take x-rays so off to hospital number 2. Fortunately, nothing broken, just a little tape to keep the pinky from doing too much.

The last two days were supposed to be short rides, however we are stuck in eternal rain here and with being out late on Monday I have decided to give my legs a little rest. I think they need it because the next 4 days are 4+ hours of riding each day!

No Pain, No Gain

So, the daily riding update. Today was to be a 4 hour ride, I decided instead of time, to go for distance, I wanted to do 100 km along the Rhein. So, I set out pretty early. Mother Nature decided she didn't have enough fun with me yesterday and decided to go from sunny to showers and back several times. This did not make it too much fun, but I was determined to make 100 km. At around 47 km, I came across a railroad track which wasn't exactly perpendicular to the road, I did my best to improve the angle, however, it quickly proved me wrong. My front tire hit the wet rail and quickly slid sideways and down into the gully of the rail, I quickly followed as well. Fortunately I only got roughed up, nothing serious. The bike only had some damage to the handlebar tape. Well, as I said, I was 47 km in and had to decide first if I could still ride, I could, second do I keep going forward to the 50 mark or turn around immediately. As I said, I was determined, so I kept going. There were a few rough parts, but in the end I am glad I did. I can now say I have done a 100 km ride here in Germany. Fortunately, tomorrow is a recovery day with just a 1 hour ride. I plan on staying along the river in Bonn for that one.



A few of the Battle Scars...