May 28, 2025 to May 30, 2025
Flight
So we're going 'home', or at least back to Portland. Home is where your storage unit is, I think the old saying goes. And we're going home over a half year earlier than we hoped when we set out, but not for the reason that we knew from the get-go could end up cutting us short of goal, which was my vision. Would we be able to manage the biweekly blood draws the rheumatologist needs to monitor my disease? Would my vision worsen to the degree that we should be returning home? Would I be comfortable biking the roads in Europe even though I'm now sightless on the right side of the road? Would any of the initial GCA symptoms recur and send me to an emergency room here for another round of intravenous steroid injections?
None of those bad things happened. It hasn't all been smooth sailing but we've gotten down the blood draw thing, and I already had sites for the next three draws lined up when we changed our plan. None of the original GCA symptoms (massive headaches, excruciating pain when chewing, etc) have recurred, and other than the side effects attributable to the cortisone I physically feel fine. And while my vision in my left eye is off somewhat from when it was at its best, it still feels like a pretty minimal change that might be correctable by a better prescription for all that I can see.
And I feel confident that I can bike safely in Europe with this limitation, just as I discovered in Tucson over the winter. I put in close to a thousand miles on the bike over here and was starting to get some climbing strength back in the legs toward the end. We're leaving with me having the sense that we'll be back.
No, it's the knees. We're going home because I can barely walk five or six blocks without the pain being bad enough that it's not worth it for me to continue. And with Rachael's issues with arthritis that leave her more interested in hiking than biking, it's harder for us to share experiences. She's not biking much and I'm not hiking much, which is fine for some of the time (it's nice to have different experiences to share and compare notes on at the end of the day), but not for most of the time.
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Our trip home begins with us taking up János' generous offer to drive us to the Lyon airport, where we're booked for two nights in the four star NH Hotel right across the street from the terminal. The story really begins the night before though, with the discussion over dinner about how early we should leave (9 AM, so that János can return in time to pick up Suzanne and drive them to their hotel in Switzerland on their trip back to Gauting) and whether there be issues fitting our suitcases and other gear into János' car. We tested out that proposition after dinner when Rachael wheeled both suitcases down to the parking lot for a test packing.
The next morning finds the five of us moaning and grousing again about the fact that there are still no chocolate croissants or meusli in the breakfast buffet two days after they ran out. How hard can it be for the best rated hotel in town to keep up the inventory for its €17 breakfast, we complain to no effect.
At nine though we're all downstairs, the car is loaded, my bike goes on the back (I'll suitcase it later at the airport), hugs are exchanged, and then János and Team Anderson are off for the Lyon airport just over an hour to the west.
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About twenty minute later the drive is lengthened when we make a wrong access to the toll fee controlled A7 expressway and find ourselves driving south toward Marseille rather than north toward Lyon. So that's an aggravation that adds a half hour or more to János and Suzanne's already long day. Eventually though we make it to our hotel, we unload our mountain of crap on the sidewalk, additional goodbyes are exchanged, and we're on our own again.
The first task is to suitcase my bike, which goes smoothly enough; and then we check ourselves into our hotel, happy to find that our room is ready so we quickly unload our gear in our room, and then head back downstairs for lunch.
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So it looks from our travel log that we've packed each bike 72 times, and unpacked and reassembled them 72 times in the last 25 years.
Or in short, my first thought in response to this: too damn many.
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
What is there to say about two days at an airport hotel? Quite a bit actually, so I'll just hit the highlights. For one, we don't mind being here for this long. It's a relief to have plenty of time to relax and organize our gear for the return flight. For another, it's a disappointment that Thursday is another national holiday, and the hotel restaurant is closed.and what is this - the fifth holiday we've experienced in our seven weeks here? We didn't starve, but the cafe meal we got at the airport was several big steps down from the meal we imagined. For another, Rachael managed to get in an eight mile walk to the nearest grocery store to get breakfast fixings, but it was thin on atmosphere and scenic value.
And, finally there's this shocker when we emptied everything out and resorted it for the flight: not one but two pedal spanners! If you were following back then you'll remember our exasperation and panic when we nearly missed our flight to Tucson because I couldn't remove the pedals from our bicycles after presumably having left the essential tool in the Barcelona airport a month earlier.
As it turned out, we hadn't left it in Barcelona after all, and we found it at the last minute before flying to Italy. The real shocker though was to find that we actually had the older, lighter one with us all the time also. I really have no theory about why things like that keep happening to us over and over again. It reminds me of the time I bought a new iPad in Mount Vernon at the start of our ride from Victoria back to Portland, convinced that I must have left mine back in Seattle - only to have it mysteriously reappear in my panniers a month later. Such a large object to be unable to find in an exhaustive search.
We get everything packed correctly, we make it to the terminal for check-in on time, and there are really no issues at all for the flight home. We have an easy hour and a half flight to London, and then a three hour layover before our nonstop flight home. The time in London goes smoothly as I'm wheeled on a series of wheelchairs and people movers from our arrival to our departure gate, with an hour layover in a waiting room in between until our gate is announced.
When we get to the gate though there's a massive surprise when someone shouts out to us - it's Bruce Hoffman, a man neither of us has seen for over seven years, a colleague from our careers at Saif Corporation. There are the shocked and surprised exchanges you'd expect from such an unlikely encounter, and then he takes our photo to include our story on Facebook page for Saif retirees, a place where you can see what interesting things your old coworkers are up to now. Bruce agrees to include a link to our blog, so with luck maybe we'll start hearing from other former colleagues we've lost touch with over the last seven years.
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The ten hours between London and Portland pass in the usual way, and then we make our way through passport control and to the baggage carousel. Because we've speeded through the line by virtue of our Global Entry participation we're among the first to collect our baggage, pass through customs and leave the hall. Our two Samsonite suitcases are offloaded right next to each other, and I quickly jerk lift them both off the carousel and check one of them to insure they're ours. And then we're off to the bus that takes us to the main terminal, where we'll make our way to the car rental center to pick up the car we've reserved for the next two weeks.
We're off the bus and wheeling our suitcases and a baggage cart down a long empty hall when Rachael gets a call on her home phone number. Seeing it's a local call she decides to stop and take it, thinking it might be our AirBnB host. It's not that though - it's some woman wondering if we might have her suitcase.; and we do! What are the odds that there will be three Bike Friday suitcases on our flight, and that the one that's not ours will get unloaded exactly adjacent to mine?
So the next ten or fifteen minutes are passed waiting a that hall until finally someone turns the corner pushing a Bike Friday suitcase that looks just like mine. So, two lessons here: always check the tags on every piece of your luggage; and always put a phone number where you can be reached on your tag. It's a good thing Rachael took that call!
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2 weeks ago
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And there's more that could be said about picking up the rental car and meeting our Airbnb host and showing you where we'll be staying for the next five weeks, but that's really more about arrival. Might as well stop here, for now. Home!
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