Culpeper VA USA

Hello, The adventure started, well it started two or three years ago. In short; I longed for another adventure like I had in 2008 and 2014. I planned a trip to cycle in Asia, without the use of a plane. I saved some “old age hours” (I can’t explain that with better words) and wanted to use these in a 4 months trip. Cycling in South Korea, Japan and China on a folding bike, a Brompton. Covid came and went after a long time. Also, Russia was acting strange then and now. So, I changed my plans for another trip.

This became the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride, the GDMBR. A very hard mountainous trip on the watershed of the Rocky Mountains, This watershed is also called the continental divide. A virtual line along the peaks of the Rocky Mountains on which one side of that line the water that is falling will flows to the Pacific Ocean and on the other side the water is flowing to the Atlantic Ocean. Enough of the plans.

Last week I gathered al, gear and packed my bicycle in a card box box. When I finished packing it was about 4 kg too heavy, so I opened it up and removed 5 kg into another bag, which became an Extra bag. This morning I had help of my wife, Rieneke, and my son Max to put the, still heavy (30 kg) bag on the car. The rest inside and up we went…. It took us almost two hours to reach Schiphol and the extra time I was hoping to spend with Rieneke and Max was almost gone.

Checking in was going smoothly and surprise… I didn’t have to pay the extra fee for the extended weight. I was counting on a fee of at least €100. Because time was short, we didn’t have a nice drink and farewell together but it was good. Checking the hand luggage and custom went flawless and I went through to the gates. Before I did anything else I had to call my provider because I couldn’t call with my phone after receiving a E-sim card via mail.

This was sent to me because I could not call or receive a call with my phone at all since a couple of days, which was annoying, to say the least. I made the call and they helped me by sending a QR code for a new E-sim and told me I had to take out the actual sim card. This I didn’t know. After I removed it. Everything worked again, great!

The seat was good, in the middle of the plane and in the middle of the row, well, it will work out fine. The flight itself was, kind of boring, enough to eat and drink and that quality was good. I had my noise canceling headphone up and listened to an audiobook. But the main reason I held it up was to massively reduce the constant hum of the engines.

In Washington the exit of the plane and passing the customs was not too bad. There was a very long line of other passengers, but I was glad I was quite in front of that line. Luggage was found quick and I embraced my “old” friends Wayne and Dianna (83 and 87 years old!

We drove to their home in Culpeper Virginia which was delayed very much due to the rush hour. We had a wonderful conversation about our trip in 2008 and my stay in 2010 here in the USA. After a tour through the house and a wonderful and tasty meal I went to bed early. A final wonderful thing: I did know, but Wayne is a woodworker too and he showed me his workshop, it was so wonderful to see and talk about woodworking and all types of wood!