Hot, Hot Hot and a Sneak "Peak"

To Vercelli, Italy -- 38.1 miles, 12.3 mph, 1250 ft

Meg here today. We are back on the bikes after our lovely break in Venice. Today was all kinds of fun and different.  For one thing, we were only going about 40 miles so we could meet up with my good friend Federica and her daughter, Isabel, who are visiting their family in Novara, Italy.  I've had the good fortune of meeting "Fede" through mutual friends in the Bay Area.  Other changes were that it was relatively flat, and it was the first day that we've had some real heat (nearly 100 F in the shade). But the neatest difference about the day was that Kylie and Dex changed bikes, so she and I got to travel along together on the beautiful, pastoral roads getting to Vercelli.

Surprisingly, we were going past rice fields, as well as wheat, and even went through some kind of tree orchard -- the shade was a welcome relief.  I may have to try a rice dish, as that seems to be the main crop of the area.

When we were about 2/3rds of the way through the ride and still hadn't found a spot to buy groceries, we caught a glimpse, from behind the tall billowy clouds that were looming to the north, of the snow-covered Alps.  Wow, they really do jut up from the land.  The next couple of days are going to be interesting....

As for the ride today, Kylie and I reviewed the state capitals and did some spelling.  The kids do great with spelling when they aren't actually writing -- just wish we could get the two efforts to merge -- good spelling whilst writing... someday.

We were making pretty good time, thanks to the good roads and easy terrain, but we had hoped to find a grocery store as we had no supplies on hand.  As luck would have it, there was nothing about, so we just kept rolling, leaning heavily on the hard candies since the coast of France.  We rolled up to our Terra d'acqua B&B in record time -- 2:15 p.m.!

We were so early, in fact, our room wasn't ready, so, off it was to the Vercelli Carrefour grocery store for lunch of drinkable yogurt, roast chicken, focaccia bread, Coke Light, and ham.  We kept it "light" in anticipation of our dinner at Ristorante Pizzeria Teatro with Fede and Isabel.

The B&B Terra d'acqua was another neat room with bright colors and a small balcony.  We weren't too sure the AC was working properly; perhaps it just needed time to catch up with our demands. We did our usual post-ride writing, blogging, homework, and showering to fill in the time... still waiting for the A/C cool things down.

At 7 p.m., we got word from Isabet, our B&B host, that there was a woman downstairs waiting for us. We flew down the four flights to see Fede and Isabel.  It was such a neat experience to see them here in Vercelli!  Fede is a native Italian speaker, and it was great to hear it spoken without having to go to the simplest terms for us non-speakers.  The restaurant was a neat place with great food, fun ambiance, and, of course, easy conversation.

After polishing off our two appetizer's, bread and entree's, we were debating dessert, when we remembered seeing a Grom Gelato on the way into town.  Say no more.  Fede pulled a fast one and paid for dinner (grrrr); then we were out the door.  Isabel, Dex, and Kylie played tag along the way. At Grom, we again relied heavily on Fede and her mastery of the language -- she seemed to know the proper ordering technique.

On the walk home, we discussed the Brexit referendum that had just happened and were in agreement that a strong and united EU seemed to make sense.  Apparently, nationalistic feelings are creeping up all over the world.  Gulp.

We made it back to our hotel -- a bit stickier than when we left, thanks to the very quickly melting gelato -- and said our goodbye's.  

Back in our room, it was no cooler than when we left. Uh-oh. The kids had the great idea of wetting some towels and draping them over themselves to fend off the heat.  Argh.  My kingdom for an icy Diet Coke and a breeze.