To Winnerath: almost more hills than we can handle (yet)

April 5, 2015

"I can't figure out where the snow is coming from" Patrick says as we are climbing out of the valley away from Monschau. We will have a 600 meter gain in altitude, then lose 200 meters only to regain later in the day. The occasional snowflake dropping down on us must be because of the relative humidity. The sky is blue and the temperature 25 degrees. My, oh my, it was cold packing up the tent and gear this morning. Frost covered our bikes and Patrick's riding shorts had frozen stiff overnight along with the water in our drinking bottles.

Once we reach a plateau, we cycle past a ridge of windmills being constructed. Up so close, it's amazing to see how big the base and blades are and how much effort Germany is placing towards developing green alternative energy sources. When we go through villages many houses have solar panels on their roofs.

This is Easter Sunday and nothing is open. Our food is mostly gevulde koek (cookie with marzipan filling), buns and chocolate. Luckily, we find a bar open and have a bowl of German goulash soup and bread. We have two "emergency meals" with us (backpacking dehydrated meals)that we may have to use so early in the trip. In past trips, the emergency meals stayed at the bottom of Rachel's back pannier for almost the entire trip. There is also a second Easter day and things will remain closed tomorrow.

Fortunately we have a very gracious warmshowers host.

Patrick had washed his riding shorts in the shower....we woke up to 25 degrees and along with frost on our panniers, the shorts were frozen.

"Yes, this is fun even though I can't feel my fingers due to the cold and the hill we are climbing to gain 600 meters," Rachel says.

We reach the plateau after a 3km climb to Winnerath where we have a warmshowers place to stay. We take a break and watch gliders and a bird of prey in the wind.

Today's ride: 74 km (46 miles)
Total: 349 km (217 miles)

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