Back on track

The last few days have just flown by. It’s amazing how fast we went from barely knowing each other into our tight knit family unit. I have caught a little flack from some people for making it seem like we are having too much fun. Well, I’m sorry, but we really are. When it comes down to it we are on this wild and crazy adventure that is totally different each day and there isn’t a group of people I’d rather be doing it with. Sure we have tough days and rough patches but whenever anything gets bad we just have to think, is there anywhere else we would rather be right now? The answer is almost always no.

I also feel like most of the group has reached a point where the mileage we are doing each day doesn’t really matter. This has been a great break through as it means we can focus more on the internal conversations. For example my pod going into Linz did 155km and I wasn’t actually that tired afterwards. We also have really started to try and work on our internal program to get into the various interests that everyone has.

On the host note, they’ve stayed as amazing as ever. We’ve slept at international artist communes, sustainable farms, kindergartens, and all sorts of fields, and each has had something totally unexpected about it. I find it very amusing how easily everyone in the group reverts into a seven year old whenever we get the chance. Staying in a kindergarten means playing with as many toys as possible every time. While this is a very amusing character trait that we all share I think it also says something about the way we all think about the world. We are all very in touch with our inner children. I think this is great as children always seem to have the best ideas. Whenever you tell them that they can’t do something their answer is always simply ‘why not?’ I feel like a little more of this would go a long way to solving many of the world’s problems.

We are also now out of the Czech Republic and into Austria. I think for many people the Czech Republic has been their favorite place so far. We may just always see where we are going as better than the last place but there did seem to be something special about the Czech Republic.

Riding into Linz yesterday was also a crazy experience as we went from 700m to sea level in 10km of downhill. I just want to say that I wouldn’t want to be riding this trip the other way around. Although we have had some crazy headwinds, so having them at our backs would be nice.

That’s about all I have for now. We are now in Vienna and saying goodbye to our documentary crew today so it is a bit of a sad day. It is almost hard to believe everything I keep writing about has actually happened as half the trip seems like a dream at this point.

The only real downside so far has been that it has been raining crazy hard and overall been very cool. We actually saw our breath as we were riding the other morning. It was smoking hot today though so things are looking warm and sunny again. Maybe our stuff will finally get a chance to dry.