Day 17 - Basel - Luzern - Sept. 10

Up early and at breakfast by 7:30 – the early birds have got the bikes all checked out and ready to go – each morning the tires are given a good going over to see whether there are any foreign objects such as bits of glass or small stones embedded in them which could cause a flat tire somewhere along the way. It’s not fun to have a flat tire on the road…..just ask Andy who has had his fair share of them.

Well I think we have finally hit a perfect day – it looks to be very promising even first thing in the morning. The trip out of Basel is not as complicated at other days. Once we get out in the country, the scenery starts changing – we have hills all around us with lush green farmland everywhere. There are vineyards growing up the hills and we see cornfields yet. There are cows grazing, sunflowers and other flowers growing in abundance and we are enjoying all of this either from the bike seat or the seats in the van. Some of the cyclists are getting a wee bit concerned, how steep will be the climb today?

I have given up trying to list all the towns we are passing through on any given day – most of the time we can’t pronounce them let alone try to spell them. The keyboards on the computers in the places where we do have access to them have all strange characters on the keys and the letters are not where we are used to having them on our keyboards – so thankful for my own laptop so I can get the blog updated regularly.

There’s nothing like hearing cow bells while we drive along or smell the freshly cut hay that is laying on the hill sides. We have seen how this is done and we are amazed – the tractors are working their way across the hill side and the hay wagon is behind it with a person using a fork, putting the cut grass into the wagon. We’ve seen teams of horses pulling these same wagons in other parts. We’re waiting to hear some yodeling…..that would make our day.

We're obviously going the right way.....

Lots of today’s ride was on a bike path - #3 to be exact and the van tried to follow the path as well – we were not always able to do so and met up with them at places where Bill had ascertained that the bike path and road met. We even came across a golf course today right along the bike path – the first we’ve seen on this trip. There was about an 8 kilometer patch of path that was gravel – the cyclists did it but it was not their favorite. The cyclists got a good workout today but also got their thrills by going downhill for a long ways. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day for everyone! Thank you Lord for such a great day!

Our accommodation was at a youth hostel – everyone arrived just before 6:00 – we were served an excellent meal – started with delicious cream of zucchini soup – there was lots left so we had seconds of soup after our main course which was also very delicious. Can’t say we have had a bad meal yet…..but anything tastes good after a hard day’s work.

Distance cycled 110 kilometers Flats 2 Total Flats 16