i never, ever worried about tornadoes. because they never touched down.

UNTIL LAST YEAR. a few blocks from our house. the tornado ripped the roof right off a house and they had to tear it down.

now i’m a little more edgy about tornadoes.

we’re just having a watch, not a warning right now, so i guess it’s ok. but they say there was a tornado warning in waverly, which isn’t far from here.

winnie the cat insisted upon going outside. “you’ll get swept away by the tornado,” i admonished him. he listened not and fled off into the night.

he’s back inside now, kind of soggy, as is honey, who is lying on the pillow right next to me.

mollie is sleeping in one of her many beds on the floor.

i gave her a second treat tonight because of the possibility of the tornado.

we’d have to all crowd into the bathroom if there was a tornado, because of our lack of basement. mollie, i know, would REFUSE to go in the bathroom because she’d be afraid i was going to give her a bath.

let’s just say it’s not going to happen.

it would be nice if fall were here. i don’t believe i’ve ever thought like this in my entire life. but i’m sick of the hot days. plus it’s too late in the year to continue to get mosquito bites. there’s at least one mosquito in the house now and it continue to chomp on me.

ok, a few more photos of our trip. this was still the very first day of biking, as we headed towards our hotel for the night, the hotel donauschlinge. it was in the town of schlogen, which wasn’t really a town at all. the town consisted of our hotel (a lovely place), a very nice rv campground, a marina, and another smaller hotel.

we’d been biking along the left bank and in order to cross the river, we took a small ferry. here’s a view of the hotel from the ferry.

view

like i said, it was a beautiful hotel and we had a lovely room with a balcony, and i videotaped it quite a bit, but kevin didn’t take many pictures. here’s one from our balcony.

balcony view

we walked around a bit, and had a good dinner in the hotel dining room. i had spaghetti. plus a good soup called fritattensuppe it was broth with slices of crepes in it. very good. they had an english version of the menu, so i didn’t order the liver dumpling soup. although they clearly accommodated english-speaking guests, the young people who worked there didn’t speak much english. i couldn’t imagine what it would be like to work in such an isolated, albeit beautiful place. our waitress said that she lived there at the hotel, as did most of the others.

the next morning, after a delicious breakfast, we were ready to head off. the trail was right there in front of the hotel – the easiest getting to the trail we had the whole trip. as you can see, by the time we finally left there was a new crowd of tourists coming in.

us about to hit the road

kevin took this picture of the ferry going back across the river.

ferry

we stayed on the right side of the road and it continued to be just beautiful. i think this was one of the prettiest parts of the trail. we had only ridden about five minutes when we stopped to take videos and pictures.

me and bike

and here’s a view of the hotel off in the distance.

hotel

this was one of the times when the trail was also the road, but i don’t recall seeing any cars at all. we had to pass a huge grass-cutting vehicle, but that was all. we biked on and on, and it continued to be beautiful.

i need to figure out how to update this website so i can then figure out how to post some videos. maybe the videos will be able to better capture the beauty of the place. but maybe you get the idea with the lovely photos.

how could anybody not love this ride? i guess that’s why it’s so popular.

have i mentioned that i’m trying to plan another bike trip? we’re going to go down to the Katy Trail in missouri, but only overnight, in a couple of weeks. it’s a trail that starts in st. charles, just west of st. louis, and runs for 225 miles. if you want to look at the website, it’s Katy Trail.

there are many many little towns to stay at, and many many b&bs and i’ve been obsessively trying to figure out which one would be best. too many choices, always a huge problem for me.

oh, and i’m also researching scotland bike trips. i found a company actually based in scotland that has a good selection of trips, and i can’t figure out why it’s so inexpensive.

not that we’ll be going to scotland anytime soon; it’s too cold there now. oh yeah, and plus of course we JUST GOT BACK FROM A FABULOUS BIKE TRIP.

yeah, i’ve been a little bit crazy about looking things up in the past few days. hopefully i’ll settle down soon.

ok ok ok,

is it really still only tuesday? grace.