Today was a buffer day – a day in case the bikes didn’t arrive with us, or in case we needed to sleep for 18h to catch up.
But no, I woke up without an alarm at 7. Who am I? What have I become??

While Felicity slam dunked her prequel blog posts with encouragement from Jessi, I went on a quest for breakfast supplies. Eggs are in short supply after outbreaks of avian flu, so many large grocery store shelves are empty. I found some, and local fresh bread from a basket, and cooked us up some brunch.
This town is a UNESCO city of gastronomy, so I had a high bar, but a hungry,  appreciative audience does wonders for ratings.

We biked into town, through several parks, running errands like visiting the ATM and buying wall plug-in chargers.

When we were unlocking our bikes to head to another part of town, I heard the telltale “phisss” of a fast flat, twice. Both on my rear wheel, and sure enough, when I flipped it over, found a thorn and a piece of glass both embedded in the tire. Of course it happened when we didn’t have all our bike repair supplies with us, so in order to see more of the town, I paid the bike shop around the corner to put a new tube in instead of walking “home” and back.

Murky as the river was, there were still cliff jumpers.

We made our way back for a reservation at Stillwater, which is housed in what used to be an 1840s mill.

We rode home fortified for the road ahead.

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