Fingers Crossed

 Benesov to Pacov, Czechia -- 26.2 mi, 10.7 mph, 2560 ft

If we’d been running today, then I’d be pretty impressed with our 26.2 mi marathon performance. On bikes, that's no huge accomplishment.  Oh, well. There was definitely a fair amount of climbing. It was either up or down the entire ride.  To my surprise, Dex suggested jumping in the pool this morning "to wake up."  Normally that's Kylie's M.O.  Meg was the "odd man out" for the polar bear swim.

Restaurant with1500s farmhouse construction

We got an early start and enjoyed the idyllic countryside, rolling hills, fields of wheat and flowers, and the periodic small town.  Some with extra steep roads that taxed our lowest gears.

Almost there.

By 2:00 we were outside the apartment where we’d be staying, though we'd forgotten to call a half hour ahead of time like we’d been instructed.  No big deal, we sat under a tree and ate the little bit of bread and cheese we had left in our packs. Once again, we're staying in a pretty nice place -- two bedrooms, a nice bathroom, living room and kitchen -- much more room to spread out in than our four man tent! Everything looks like it is brand new… and I’m pretty sure, it's all from IKEA.

We hadn’t eaten properly since finishing our very nice buffet breakfast this morning, so Meg tracked down, what we thought was going to be Vietnamese food a ½ mile into town.  Actually, it was just Chinese fast food, but it was fast, tasty, and filling, so from that point of view, it was perfect. Dex even ordered a second plate of tempura chicken. Fortunately, there were pictures of all the dishes on the wall with numbers, so pointing and holding up fingers worked great for ordering.

"We'll have number five, please."

View of Pacov, Czechia

One problem we’ve been dealing with in the background, is that of our bike suitcases. We left them in Berlin with the expectation that they would beat us to the endpoint in Belgrade. They were scheduled for pickup the day we left, June 12. We’ve stayed in touch with one very dear, young woman, Marie,  that works at the front desk and learned that no one came that day or the next. I wrote to the company, ParcelABC, to find out what the issue was. The weekend came and went before we heard that the suitcases would be picked up early that next week. By Thursday, though, that still was not the case. However, Marie at the hotel had received a call from someone saying they would stop by on Friday, today...  but no! Still, the suitcases are sitting at the hotel in Berlin, nine days after they were scheduled to go. Fortunately, we don’t really need them in Belgrade until July 10, but this is getting to be ridiculous. We’ve already considered the possibility that one of us may need to go back to Berlin to retrieve the suitcases so we can pack up the bikes for our return flights. Maddening! I'm sure we can get our money back from Visa, but that doesn’t really fix the situation. We really just want the bags delivered to Belgrade as arranged.  Fingers crossed.