We had a fine breakfast at the restaurant at our Zimmer. (There were 2 empty rooms next to us last night on the 2nd (3rd) floor. We rode to Versam (partly up) and then crossed a high bridge
and rode the beautiful steep and winding path down through the Grand Canyon of the Rhine as we remembered from 2001.
There were some tunnels, one long enough that we were barely able see light at the end.
We came to Bandorez and stopped at a bike shop to buy a map of the Rhine Bike path. They didn't have one, but we bought a big regular map of the area -- for $25. We couldn't believe the price and it wasn't what we need. We went on and couldn't find our route. The signs told us to go back toward Disentis beginning with a steep climb. We looked at a large map in an information area, and it appeared that the bike trail only went around in a big loop. We couldn't find any way to get to the northeast like we needed to except on the highways, and there was just too much traffic for that to be safe. I was ready to go back home to Waco! We finally went back to the bike shop for advice (through all this time doing a lot of pushing our bikes uphill.) The bike shop was closed over noon, and we had to wait an hour for them to come back. When he came, we sold back our useless map and he took us outside to show us the bike trail sign we had missed seeing when we had turned into the bike shop. He told us to just follow the signs and we'd be fine. It was a nice trail, but it took us back to the same place, so this time we took the path that I thought went to Disentis and it took us to the right bike trail. In fact, we rode past a farm that I remembered from 2001 when we rode this trail. The trail was quite nice. We'd lost almost 4 hours in Bandorez -- and part of that time we were riding in the rain!
We rode on following the trail without trouble, but we did a lot of walking our bikes uphill. The area was beautiful, and the weather was cool and refreshing.
We came to the general area of Jenins, but it seemed to take forever to get to Elsa's, and a lot of the path was uphill. I finally got so tired that I could hardly walk my bike on the uphill climbs. In fact, at one point, Verle rode his bike up and then came back and got mine!
We reached Elsa's at last -- at 6 or so. Elsa had put an American flag on the upstairs flower box to help us find her house. It was such a joy to see her again.
She served us tea and sweet bread, and I quickly revived. Elsa is the same gracious lady that we remembered from 2001.
She was sick last winter, but is recovered now. Her home is much bigger than I remembered. I think we just sat in the sunroom last time. She had a huge guest bedroom ready for us, with a fragrant dark red rose and a candy bar on the table. We showered, changed clothes, put on the house slippers that she gave us to wear, and went down for supper. Elsa's daughter, Daniela (born October 3, 1962) phoned, and we had a good visit--in English. Elsa's son, Heinz (born January 6, 1966), his wife Sonya, and their son, Oliver (10 years old in 3rd grade) came across the yard to meet us. They are like us, living near one another. They work together in the vineyard. Elsa just finished several long days helping get the grapes tied up to their pole supports. The grape vines grew faster than usual because of the warm weather they had this spring. Elsa's daughter has one son, Colin, close to the same age as Oliver.
Elsa had a letter from Raisa, written for her in Russian by Raisa's aunt. She shared the information from it. Raisa now has Parkinson's, but is otherwise doing well at the nursing home.
We enjoyed the pictures on the walls including one of Elsa's confirmation and a certificate from her daughter's confirmation. Elsa's maiden name was Wills. Heinz looks very much like his father, who died 20 years ago of cancer. Other pictures on the wall are very old needlework that is lovely. Elsa has two lovely rugs on her living room walls -- she made them.
We enjoyed visiting and went to bed about 9:30. I was going to write this journal first, but the bed beckoned me too strongly after all the hard riding today.
No comments:
Post a Comment