Day 4 Geisingen,Germany. Wow, what a first day of riding!

Tony's View

 What a day! So much to cover, so let's get started. First thing first, we had to get our bicycle downstairs and put it all back together. Not ideal, but hopefully this will be the last time if my planning and language interpretation is good.  We started out and took a few small turns and easily back tracked. Then, we ran into a bicycle path closed sign, but no worries. There was a path on the other side of the river. We got to the other side and there were fences on both sides of the trail. Signs on the fences were advertising a Cher concert. I thought she would be too old. A guy in a John Deere gator drove up and said to turn back around since there was no outlet. We went back and decided to try to go around to the left. We got a mile into it and we were going the wrong way, so we back tracked again. Now, I was thinking, Oh Shit, now what? We went a couple more ways and backtracked to the detoured trail. We decided just to go out of our way and follow these bike paths. We ended up at the Zurich Airport terminal, as you can see from the picture above, where we got picked up by Uber just a few days ago. The bike path went right by the departure gates. Good news. We got around the Airport and were able to get back on the directions that we had. We only went out of our way about 3 miles. Joan said, "I knew you would figure it out." I wasn't that sure.

 The detour out of the way did take us by the coolest bicycle bridge ever made. As you can see by the picture on each side here. Even the railing was awesome. Mixing bicycling and wood working in one spot. It doesn't get any better than that. What a beautiful trail cut through a field in the picture below.

The detour also took us passed a field of Super Food. Joan got off the bike and stood in the field of kale. She was feeling strong just seeing it. You will see later that we lost that feeling. 
Then after all that excitement, it was time for a potty break. Thank goodness for the 10' corn. We crossed the famous Rhine River, which was a surprise, even though I did the mapping for the trip. The next benefit was that later down the road we road on a trail along the Rhine River. There was a neat bridge with the cables coming from one side from the picture in the below right. We also saw a hydro-electric plant, below left. Yesterday, in the tour they explained that Switzerland eliminated all coal plants and they get all their power from hydro.

It was neat seeing the Rhine River. Maybe, some day we will start in North Europe and follow the Rhine River.

 We then had our first border crossing into Germany. There were about 6 guards and a dog, but they just let us go through, like most people. You can see the guard house on the left in the picture to the left. After we got into Germany, we took a picture of one of the many houses that have the barn connected to the house, see picture below left. Probably easy access to take care of the animals. Joan says that is typical in Germany and might be the reason they keep their barns so clean. We did get on several gravel paths today as you can see from the picture bottom left. It was a good thing I went with wider tires, because it caused little problems.

We were going down a path while praying our daily bicycling rosary and during the 4th mystery we saw this Mary chapel just along the path in the middle of no where. It was really cool with several statues inside a very well done building with great landscaping. We decided to stay and do a decade of the rosary there. Interestingly though, there were also 6 foot plus crucifixes along the road every so often in inconspicuous places. It is really neat to see.

We ended up crossing back into Switzerland and then back into Germany on the route I laid out. The picture on the right shows another crossing station. This one, there were cars pulled over, but we just cruised through again. It was interesting crossing the border three times today on a bicycle.

The picture on the left was a chicken farm with waht looked like a chicken playground where they would let the chickens out to play in all the chicken obstacles. They had all different kinds. I guess that is smart, free-range chickens. This is where all the climbing started and it was some of the hardest climbing I ever done. It just keep going up and up. Let me tell you, they have real mountains over here. We would go up so far and just stop, and breathe. At some of the stops, my heartbeat was so fast, it was hard to catch my breathe back. I was thinking at that time, "thank God I trained hard with Coach Troy." Coach Troy is my DVD coach that helped me train for the cross country trip. You can check out the blog here or relive it for the ones who followed Wade & I back in 2010 at www.tonychasingwade.blogspot.com .

The picture to the left is what it looked like when I was praying that I would breathe normal again. Joan just had to get off the bike to take a picture. My heartrate would come down and we would go again. The higher we got, the shortest distance we went between breaks, and the longer the breaks. The picture right above is me contemplating how hard it was. I stepped away from the bike and crossed the road to enjoy the beautiful view that all this hard work was getting us. My blood sugar was low as well. I needed to eat and was getting dehydrated. Otherwise, things were good. 😀😀 I sat there a while, ate, drank water and let my blood sugar go up. I was wondering how much farther I could go. Good news. The top of the mountain was right around the corner. It is amazing how a fast downhill brings back the energy. 

On the way into Geisingen, we ran into some zebras. Actually, they were horses dressed up as zebras, just to see if us Americans would notice. We got into the next AirBNB, (which is awesome) the latest we have ever arrived at the next destination. It was after 6:00pm. We were both exhousted. I took a shower and we went out to eat. I ordered my new favorite beer that breaks the language barrier. Large. Good night.

Joan's Extras

I am focusing on keeping my eyes open to finish the blog tonight. It was definitely a grand ride into Germany today. Besides making a zillion turns today, climbing an endless hill, seeing the Rhine again (I was on it in 1977 on a Glandorf, Ohio trip to Glandorf, Germany), seeing real Swiss and German homes, there are a few more things to add. We stopped several times for bike repairs / maintenance. Tony put the front bag holder on upside down, the chain fell off twice for some reason that Tony is growing more frustrated about, Tony's gears eerily shifted several times on their own which adds to Tony's frustration, the Garmin kind of quit working, and at one point it just fell off. Tony is patiently waiting for our next 2 day stop to do some much needed bike maintenance.

I had been looking all day for a sign that showed a distance to Geisingen. Finally, out in the middle of fields, up on a hill, between two small villages, I got my first glimpse. There was a mini celebration. ✨❉⭐🌟 The celebration, however, was short lived though because soon after we started the mighty ascent.

One more cool thing today. We stopped at a grocery store for lunch that had outdoor seating. Check out these beautiful blooming articokes!

One very last point. Our airbnb is on Nikolausstrasse, so we are thinking of you, Nick and Nick!