Day 13

Last Day -

I can't count! Today is our 13th and last day. Thirteen is a lucky number for me. Always has been.

First - a parents' guide to frustrating your teenage son is 5 or 6 easy steps:

1) break it to him that the next 5k is pretty much all up hill.
2) comment about flora and fauna mid gasp while asking him what he most appreciates about the BE-Utiful surroundings. Coo at Lamas and Baa at sheep.

(#1 and #2) can be combined for efficiency and may even be so effective that numbers 3+ become irrelevant.

3) 'whoop' mistakingly at summit, which turns out to be a switch back and revert to #2.

4) At 80% there, tell son that the GPS indicates we are off track and ride halfway down only to discover that halfway down, GPS now agrees and inform son that we have to re-experince #3.

5) comment on small number of his friends who have biked this course once, let alone twice

6) experience solid 30 minutes of cold shoulder.

......

So, the forecast was for rain everywhere. I got myself in mental shape by buying a bottle of wine for Charlie and me to share. I made it through 1/2 a glass and fell sound asleep (no coffee today).

The SUNSHINE (!!) woke me up and we were all delighted to see blue skies. We hit the road quickly since all the weather forecasts said rain, rain, rain. As we were leaving the hotel I leaned over to Lucas and gave him a big kiss on the cheek and told him how proud I was of him and how much I had enjoyed the time with him. As I looked up a man in a white BMW was waiting patiently in the small cobblestone street which was slightly blocked by our bikes. I waved him through and he stopped right in front of me. 'You have to take those moments', he said in Swiss 'they won't be around much longer by the looks of him' he added, jesturing at Lucas. 'I'll do that'.

Today was our hardest ride by far. Our total mileage was around 37 miles. The climbs kept coming and we had to soldier through them. The longest was the 5k one, I mentioned above. After a while we just expected them. We had a mix of the easy and the hard from the last two weeks in one day: wonderful straights surrounded by shire-like rolling hills and beautiful flowers, alps, swiss chalets, closed restaurants when we needed food, helpful people who served us despite the 'drinks only' sign, 5 minute descends with attentive and patient car, truck and bus drivers and, of course, the local bakery! After a few minutes of a light rain, the clouds left and we had lovely skies and a light breeze.

One climb was similar to Monteagle, when coming from Nashville, and halfway up there was a red light because one side of the road was closed. As we approached it I thought 'nice, that'll give me a reason to give my legs a break', but even just two weeks in, I wanted to keep going. My leg muscles have changed and simply last longer when there is not another option. On short breaks, we ate honey and apples and left over chocolate cake that Claudia had baked us.

At 4:51 (Lucas had estimated/wished 3:45 and Charlie had guestimated 4:45) we crossed the bridge into Fribourg and took a break to tell the kids 'Danke' was now 'Merci'. Actually it is the city of many languages; everyone, and I mean everyone, speaks fluent French, German and Swiss. I just decided to speak whichever one the person started with; at the Information Bureau everything was in French. But then the lady I was working with to find a hotel room, asked her colleague in Swiss about something. I was envious of the lack of thought required. My language switching works but I often get caught and say something like:

Est-ce-que vous pouvez me dir ou se trouve le Hauptbahnof. Merci vielmals. A mix of all three, which results in a look like, 'what type of hybrid are you?' I just keep tissue in my pocket for when the language starts dripping out of my ears.

We were all starving and found a great asian food place a few minutes from the hotel. I bought train tickets for Lucas and me to get back to Munich. We leave Fribourg at 7am and will be in Munich by 2, giving me plenty of time to take the bikes a part and pack them before we head to the airport. Our flight leaves at noon on Saturday.

I would like a massages


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