Europe 2023 from Frankfurt

Trip List Calendar

2023-06-20 : Luxembourg
The Beaver Bag is done. I will use it to ride for our last day (tomorrow).

I have been having problems with heat exhaustion for about a week, so while Brent and Laura have gone into Luxembourg city today, I’m staying at the campingplatz and taking it easy.

One of the things I had to do to occupy myself was to pull the badges off the Beaver Bag. I’ll keep the badges, but once we reach Trier tomorrow, the bag itself is going in the bin.

Bye bye, old friend. I will miss you.


2023-06-21 : Trier
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle To and around Trier
$0.00 15.00 15.00
This morning held a little more excitement than we would like. The couple camping near us started their camp stove on the grass. The stove then broke and started itself on fire and could not be extinguished. Brent and Laura realized that, if it was left alone, the fuel can would explode. The couple were not doing anything to extinguish it, so Brent and Laura rushed in with water and pliers, tried to extinguish it, and switched off the fuel source, saving all our asses. Brent gave his insulated gloves to the guy in case of a repeat, and the couple then used their stove to make coffee at the picnic table, which is where they should have been to start.

Today was supposed to be a 60km ride from Luxembourg to Trier - our last day of riding. Because of my heat exhaustion, however, we rode a short way to a town called Berchem, took a train from there to Luxembourg city, then to Trier.

We’re at the same campingplatz in Trier that we stayed in before, and we took Laura in to Trier for a good look at this beautiful city. Brent and I mostly saw stuff we saw already the first time, although we did make it into the Liebefrauenkirche, which we didn’t see last time.


2023-06-22 : Train to Frankfurt
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle Trier and Walldorf
$0.00 12.00 27.00
Low “Lambert” is coming for us as we try to take a train from Trier to Frankfurt via Mannheim. Supposed to be camping tonight - AirBnB not available until tomorrow. Wish us luck!

https://www.breakinglatest.news/health/weather-in-germany-heavy-thunderstorms-threaten-here-tornadoes-possible/

We have been watching the forecasts as they vacillated between light rain and heavy rain since yesterday. We only had a little rain overnight and otherwise nice but muggy weather. We left the campingplatz this morning, had a long coffee in Trier, walked around, shopped, and looked at the Karl Marx statue. Then, Laura got a notice from Deutsch Bahn that a low weather system that has been named “Lambert” is moving across Germany and may wreak some havoc with the train service. It may also wreak some havoc with our day, and our travel plans. We’ll see what happens…
The weather held through our train rides today but they’re calling for the storm to hit between this evening and tomorrow evening. We got to the Frankfurt airport train station, and it was an adventure to find our way out, and then to find our way to a bike path with all of the construction. We were going to ride about 15km to a campingplatz east of Mörfelden but the clouds were so threatening that we decided to take a chance on Waldcamping Frankfurt, which is on the NW end of Walldorf, and much closer. I haven’t been able to confirm that it actually exists, though, so it wasn’t on my choices for tonight.

When we got to the campingplatz we had to phone someone to ask to camp. The clouds were really threatening by that point and we didn’t know how long the proprietor would take to show up. Thankfully she showed up quickly and we just barely got the tents set up when a thunderstorm hit. It lasted ten or fifteen minutes, then cleared off and we went for Thai dinner down the street. I feel REALLY fortunate that we got in to the campingplatz when we did and that we didn’t get caught in the thunderstorm!!


2023-06-23 : Frankfurt
We had little rain over night, and got up today to lovely weather. Lambert is taking out his anger elsewhere in Germany… in fact, elsewhere in Hessen state (Kassel). We’re fortunate that we didn’t get what they got while we were in our tents - huge hailstones, flooding and fallen trees. :(

When we were in Luxembourg, I got a weird bug bite. It started off as just a black dot but then, as the days went on, started to swell and get red. Brent is worried about infection, so he opened a claim ticket with our insurance today and shipped me off to a walk-in clinic. The doctor put some special brown goo and a bandaid on it and told me not to worry - it’ll be gone by Sunday. Brent had also speculated that the black dot was a bug’s head. Thankfully the doctor debunked that theory.

We got into our Airbnb early - about 13:15 (instead of 15:00) and our host, Aurora was so excited to see us again and hear about our trip. She’s so great.

While we were waiting for me to see a doctor (I was told to go away and come back at 11:00), we visited a couple of bike stores and managed to find Laura a box that is a more appropriate size for her enormous bike. Yay!

This evening, Brent and Laura are putting bikes into boxes. I’m being very helpful by staying out of the way. But I am very pleased that Laura is using the picture guide that I made for how to disassemble my bike.


2023-06-24 : Frankfurt
Today is the one-year anniversary of leaving my project, so I celebrated with a beer to say EFF JOHANNA.

We got rid of some beloved old gear that reached its end-of-life on this trip, including the cooler box (which was already old and on its way out, but also picked up some kind of stink at the end of this trip), our helmets, and the Beaver Bag. Brent’s helmet is eight years old and has a hole in it. It is no longer safe but he’s been continuing to use it because he likes it so much. Laura finally did what I couldn’t - convinced him to replace it. My helmet is still good, but I don’t want it so I’m leaving it at the AirBnB to be used with their loaner bicycles.

Our tent is also finished, to my utter dismay. We’re not leaving it here, though. We’re taking it back in case we decide we want to limp it through another night, or possibly try to repair it.


2023-06-25 : Laura flies home
Today Laura left to go back to Calgary. Alejandro from Großraum Taxi showed up a little early, 9:45, and whisked her off. Brent and I finished packing and are spending the day in the apartment hiding from the heat. Bleah.


2023-06-26 : Canceled Flight
Our lovely Großraum Taxi driver, Alejandro, showed up right on time and whisked us to the airport.

I’m wearing my tailbox as a replacement Beaver Bag for now. I got this specific tailbox many years ago because it had straps to use it as a day pack and never used it as such… until now. Better late than never.

Checking in with our bikes and boxes was extremely easy and it looks like everything is heading for our plane (including us). The flight is oversold and they’re looking for volunteers to take a delay in exchange for an ‘attractive bonus’. Yeah, no, Air Canada… it would have to be a VERY attractive bonus, and I really don’t trust you to make good on it anyway, sooooo….
Airplane Reboot: An hour after departure time and we’re sitting on the tarmac in Frankfurt while they reboot our airplane. Literally - they’re powering it down and back up again to try and fix a problem. This does not instill confidence…
Canceled flight: Traveling with the bikes is always challenging. Transport to (and from) the airport is a challenge. Just moving around hauling two bike boxes and two moving boxes is challenging.

So, after sitting on the tarmac for 3 hours, just to have our flight ultimately canceled, filled me with dread. When I’ve had flights canceled in the past, I’ve always had to collect my luggage and then bring it back for the rescheduled flight. The thought of having to navigate through the night hauling all the enormous boxes just would not be tenable, so even if they have us a hotel room, I didn’t think I would leave the airport until the rescheduled flight.

I cannot express how relieved I was to learn that they would hold the luggage overnight and put us up in a hotel.

We had a chaotic journey through the airport trying to find Air Canada customer service, but once we found the right place it was relatively easy. There was a guy handing out vouchers and who also took us all to shuttle busses to take us to the hotel.

The hotel included dinner and breakfast. But… well, dinner was at 8:30pm (yikes) and breakfast is at 6:00. Our shuttle leaves to take us back to the airport at 5:30, so I guess there’s no breakfast. Oh well. At least we didn’t have to collect the luggage!!

We had met a Calgarian woman, Bernice, in the waiting lounge, who then ended up being my neighbor across the aisle on the plane. She also ended up being our hotel room neighbor. So we had a drink with her and a German couple, also from the canceled flight, and then had the 8:30 dinner with Bernice.

Since our new flight to Calgary leaves early tomorrow morning, we’ll arrive in Calgary much earlier than our original flight. But, our replacement flight to Edmonton time hasn’t changed. It still leaves Calgary at 8:00pm so, unless we can change that flight, we’ll have an 11-hour layover in Calgary. BRUTAL.


2023-06-27 : Return to Edmonton
Left the hotel at 5:30AM. Unfortunately our free breakfast at the hotel started at 6:00AM. Rode the bus with 296 of our closest friends back to the airport. Then stood in a mob with them checking in then rode with them as a mob on the bus back to our plane, then boarded with them as a mob back onto the plane.

Thankfully we had an uneventful flight back to Canada. Our arrival time in Calgary was 9:00 and our connecting flight to Edmonton was supposed to be at 20:00. We asked about switching to an earlier flight and they were able to get us on something leaving at 16:30. It was still a hideously long layover so we walked to Tim Hortons and had a visit with my friend Cindy.


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