Edit - One week home update: To date, Jacinto gained back one pound, leaving him with an 18 pound loss. He says that's all upper body muscle loss from not lifting weights. He does like the idea that riding standing up incorporates upper body muscles and perhaps his upper body weight loss isn't as bad as he thinks. 

I returned to my usual wheat free diet, and lost eight pounds in one week. I think a piece of the weight problem is edema from sitting on the plane. We haven't taken such a long flight in years. I did not wear compression socks as Alison suggested, but now realize now they are a good idea. My feet were swollen up, with puffy white Pilsbury doughboy toes. I couldn't see any veins or tendons! I ended up down four pounds from my pretour weight, which is typical for the summer touring.

I also came down with a summer cold a couple of days ago. On our Madrid flight there was a woman one row back who was coughing and blowing her nose constantly. I blame it on her, except I was home for five days before I had symptoms. Jacinto has no symptoms. I had been going for a daily ride to stretch my legs. Now a walk around the neighborhood seems like plenty of work.

How it went:

Our travel day went well. We had a friendly shuttle driver from France, who was touring curious. The other shuttle rider was from Copenhagen. He said in his area, the cyclist is never at fault in an accident (even if he truly is), therefor the auto drivers are extra, extra careful around cyclists.  That was interesting.

Once we were at the airport, I found us a cart to load the bikes on. We had to go up one level, but the elevator was big enough. Iberia airlines was jam packed with people. We needed American. Which direction to go? I stayed stationary with the gear while Jacinto found American. They weren't too busy, but we got even luckier. Because we had oversize boxes, we were taken to the Priority Boarding, where a woman checked us right in. Easy peasy! 

Off we went to security. There were many people snaking around, but the line kept moving like a congo line. Even when we got right to security, it was basically walk right through. I did not have to remove my Sketcher shoes, although the girl in front of me had to remove her tennis shoes. Jacinto had forgotten a 4E bottle of juice in his bag, which he wasn't allowed to take through and was quite unhappy about. In front of me was a woman and baby. She had a number of baby bottles with milk. One was shaped like an animal, which caused some issue with the machine they were using to test the bottles. A supervisor was called over. The solution was to hold some sort of test strip over the top of the open bottle. Not to dunk it inside. Then the woman was good to go. Jacinto had his juice tossed in the trash and we were good to go also. 

We had an advertised 22 minute ride to the S section - although I don't think it was anywhere near 22 minutes. Perhaps that included walking time to the train?

In the end, the getting to the airport, checking in, and through security was all a smooth experience. It was a major airport and we had bike boxes, but it went well. There was a group of six men who had their bikes in fancy bike bags, and were checking them in at at the same time we were. Jacinto was quite jealous of their bags.

We had a ten hour flight to Dallas. I slept some, and read an entire book. Jacinto watched several movies and didn't sleep at all. We were both hungry when we got to Dallas. We were talking over the potential meal choices as if we had been stranded on a desert island! We agreed to get towards our gate, and then see what the choices were. There was a Mexican restaurant. We saw nachos go past to a table. Those looked good. We went in and ordered nachos to start, with steak. $17. for the nachos and $3. for the steak. I don't know what we saw going past, but it wasn't what we received. We got a rectangular platter with 8 chips - each one with meat and cheese. At the far end of the platter was sour cream, tomatoes, guacamole, and lettuce. Eight chips! I counted. That has to be the worst value for the price of anything I've ever ordered. Ever. We had also ordered burrito bowls, which were fine quality, not outstanding, and seemed to us to be typical airport price/value ratio. 

We had six hours to kill in Dallas. I was reading a good book, but Jacinto was very wiggly. The time went slowly for him. Once we got on our plane, their was a delay for beverages to be stocked, and another delay waiting for a tug to push us back. We were finally off at 11 PM, a half hour late.

We were 20 minutes late landing. I felt really guilty for our friend that was picking us up at this hour. Mike was nice, no problem, happy to help, etc. Our bags came around on the carousel, but we received a text that our bikes did not make the plane. There were 5-6 other people who didn't get their bags. Jacinto went over with them to fill out paperwork to have the bikes delivered 'the next day'. It is now 3 PM on the next day and we have heard nothing about delivery. It's a very good thing the bikes weren't delayed at the start of our trip!

It was 2:30 AM by the time we were home, and in bed. Jacinto was awake at 7 AM.  It was wonderful to sleep in our own bed, with my own pillow, etc. I could have slept longer, but wanted to go for a stretch my legs ride before it got too hot. 

I've done all two loads of our laundry. There's something to be said for being a touring cyclist - it's a limited wardrobe, so laundry doesn't take long!

I have a roast in the crock pot, and I've made fresh salsa. I really don't feel too bad. I expected to crash and burn in the afternoon. Right now it's 3 PM, and I'm still awake. 

Jacinto lost 19 pounds in five weeks. He says what he always says when he loses weight on tour - that it is upper body muscle lost because he wasn't lifting weights. He doesn't usually lose that much! Let's be vague and say that I did not lose weight, I gained weight. I will try to come back and update those weight numbers in a week or so - see if they stay true or not. Typically we both lose a little weight on tour. I don't generally eat wheat, but ate it with abandon this trip. I think that was a factor for my weight gain.

It's been a good tour, and we are already talking about next summer. It will be fun to see where we go.

Thank you for following along!

Edit - I no more than made this post than my doorbell rang, with a courier delivering our bikes. The box that holds Jacinto’s bike was all chewed up on one end, but the bubble wrapped bike inside looks ok. 

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Bill ShaneyfeltIf you gained weight, it might not be jet lag... ;-)
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9 months ago

Kathleen JonesWelcome home.
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9 months ago

Cathy Burkeswelcome home
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9 months ago

Rachael AndersonGlad you made it home okay and that your bikes got delivered. Don’t underestimate jet lag, it’s awful! But getting some exercise does help.
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9 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesA very enjoyable blog! Nice direct writing.
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9 months ago

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