July 20 - PURE JOY

Today is the type of day that dreams are made from.

This morning we followed the plan and went to the front desk to check out, check our bags, and figure out where the hell the box of our cycle gear ended up. The receptionist was about as helpful as a molding vegetable, and as we don't speak any Czech our situation quickly became complicated. We decided to take a shot in the dark, and ran out of our hotel at 8:12 and caught a taxi directly to the customs office (whom according to our molding vegetable had no idea where our package was and recommended that we come back in a few days for it). And praise be, our box was there, and by 8:40 we were back in the same taxi and enroute to meet our group at 9 am (due to rush hour we were a few minutes late). We made sure to ask the molding vegetable for a pair of scissors so we could open the box that she couldn't seem to locate, and then asked her fine colleauge to even throw it away. Sean's mom had packaged the box such that we were easily and very quickly able to move it's contents into our luggage and join the tour just as they were leaving the hotel.

Now comes the PURE JOY. We drove 45 minutes out of the city, and started in the town of Benesov and rode to the village of Seldec-Prcice. Sean rode into the Hussite town of Tabor for our evening hotel (up a 1000 foot hill, and went an additional/optional 10 miles), and I rode in the van after lunch. Our 40 kilometers before lunch were the most beautiful roads we have ever ridden bikes on. Our tour group mates are 9 of the nicest people we have met on our trip. The road was rolling hills, ancient small Czech villages, fields of green wheat turning golden, corn, cow and horse pastures and emerald colored trees. It was 4 hours of breathtaking. Anyone who has ever enjoyed riding a bike, would LOVE this place. At times our faces actually hurt because we were smiling as much as possible (with closed lips as there were quite a few bugs busy pollinating all those fields).