Category: News

Paris Day 1
Today was a travel day. Breakfast at the Staunton Hotel
in London. Taxi to the Waterloo Rail station to get on
the Eurostar train to Paris. Under the Chunnel Tunnel.
It was a little disappointing because we were supposed to
be able to go 300km/hr in northern France, but due to
“technical difficulties” (never explained) we were limited
to 220km/hr about 130mphr instead of 180mph. We were
only 15 minutes late arriving so not sure how much we were
impacted. The ride was very smooth and fast. The service
was very good. The train cars were configured with half
the seats facing one way and half the other. Janet doesn’t
like to ride backwards and our assigned seats were in that
half of the car so we ended up not riding together. It
appeared that most of the other people preferred riding
forward also since the forward seats were all filled and
only half the backward facing seats were occupied.
After considering riding the Metro (subway in Paris) to
our hotel we decided to take a taxi since there were
a number of stairs to traverse and we had quite a bit of
luggage on rollers but it is hard to go up and down stairs
and through the security gates. (width issue).

We are checked into our hotel de Lutece on St. Louis en l’ile
(the island just north of Notre Dame) and have joined the
locals in wandering about the island looking at all the
little stores and their wares. We plan to dine tonight at
our favorite restaurant on the Island. We call it the
“moo cow” since it is entirely decorated with cows. I will
find out it’s real name for a future journal.

The weather here today was clear sunny and warm. There
is scattered rain in the forecast but the temperature is
actually warmer than in London. It is forecast to be in
the low 60s or higher for the next week with some scattered
rain. I see that Boulder is forecast to be nice through
Friday but then it is supposed to snow on Saturday!

If you want to see pictures later – I will put them
on www.kenswitzer.com (click on news)
More about Paris tomorrow!
kws

Night Picture of The Staunton Hotel – (if you look closely you can see
Janet peeking around a post)

Daytime picture of the Staunton Hotel in London

Picture of Northern French country side from Eurostar
reymatter

Picture of front of Hotel de Lutece in Paris.

London Day 3
Today we slept in a bit, got a late breakfast at the
hotel and headed to the TKTS booth to get some more
half-price play tickets. We had lunch near Piccadilly
Circus. We went back to the hotel for a power nap so
we would stay awake during the whole play. We decided
to see a comedy called “Stones in His Pockets” tonight.
There were two actors that played a total of 14 parts.
We thought they did an excellent job – even on the women’s
parts. Sometimes it was a little hard to understand them
since half the parts they played were Irishmen. We have
a list of other plays we want to see when we come back
to London. We relearned that matinees are usually on
Wednesdays or Thursdays and Saturdays. That way you
can see 2 plays in one day!

Tonight we had dinner at the Cafe Flo with a French
cuisine. (to get ready for France tomorrow). We will
be taking the Eurostar high speed train through the
Chunnel tomorrow and should be in Paris by 2:30pm. From
looking at ads in the Underground I now realize that it
would have been cheaper to fly. Oh well – people say
this is a do it at least once experience.

We have been reading more about the barge trip and now
realize that we don’t start in Paris. We will meet
at the Hotel Regina (It was featured in the Bourne
Identity – if you saw that movie) and then take a bus
to St. Florentin south of Paris, and then each day we
go to these successive towns, Tonnerre, Tanlay, Ancy le Franc,
Ravieres, Montbard. From Montbard we take a bus back
to Paris. As near as I can tell the rivers we will be
on are the Armance, Armacon, Brenne, and Yonne.
According to the literature these are all in the
Northern Burgundy section of France and just south of Paris.
Hope all is well with all of you!
kws

Since we had dinner at the Porterhouse last night we thought it
fitting to send a picture of Salisbury. Janet in front of Cafe Flo!

London Day 2
I am happy to report that I got my computer working shortly
after I sent yesterday’s email from an Internet Cafe. So you don’t
have to send email to my yahoo address unless something happens
again!

We had a great day today. The weather was wonderful and we
had a good time seeing the sights. After a “full English breakfast”
at the hotel we went shopping for a few things that we needed and
then went to the half price TKTS booth at Leicester Square. We
bought tickets to see the musical Chicago. We had lunch at Covent
Garden, made sure we knew where the theater for Chicago was
located, and then started looking for a restaurant we remembered
from 8 years ago when we were here. We never found it so we
settled on a restaurant called the “Porterhouse” (for the steak
we assume). Then I tried to download some pictures we had taken
and I realized that I had the wrong download cable. Luckily the
electronic store heaven of London is only 2 blocks away. So I
found the cable in the second store I tried. By then it was time
to go to dinner and the Theater.

Because the Underground (subway) is nearly ubiquitous in the
areas we want to go, we didn’t rent a car and are getting around
by a combination of Underground and walking.

We enjoyed the production of
Chicago. The actors and actresses were great and the dancing
marvelous. The energy level on stage was very high.
We are pretty much caught up on our sleep and feel our energy
level coming back too. I am enclosing a picture of a London
bus to prove that we are here! More tomorrow!
kws

We had very nice flights yesterday from Denver to
Chicago and then Chicago to London. Terry and Ginny
Hackney were on the same flights. We rode the subway
with them from Heathrow airport most of the way to our
Hotel. Their hotel was at an earlier stop than ours.
We have tried to adjust to the time zone change by
staying up on a normal daytime schedule, (even though
we didn’t get much sleep on the flight). We were able
to check into our Hotel about noon, and get a shower
and a change of clothes. We have ridden the
Underground(Subway) a number of times going various
places to try and familiarize ourselves with where
things are located. It is coming back to us, but we
are still feeling the effects of sleep deprivation.

I haven’t been able to get my computer to dial up the
local earthlink Internet provider. I will keep trying
but until further notice if you need to send me email
please copy my yahoo email address kws11111@yahoo.com
in addition to the regular email.
Hi from London!
kws

Three days in London on our way to Paris!

After starting out in Council Bluffs, IA, we headed for home.We got as far as North Platte, NE, and when I went to start Bob’s Infinity SUV, I couldn’t get the key to turn. Unfortunately we were the 4th car in the caravan, and the other 3 cars had
already gotten on Interstate 80 by the time we figured out we had a problem and the next exit was about 15 minutes drive. Bob called AAA and they sent out a locksmith, but he decided that he couldn’t fix it because there was a possibility of messing up the cars computer and it would be costly to replace. After lot’s of discussion we decided that the rest of us would continue to Boulder, and Bob would stay overnight in North Platte, and get the car fixed and then drive it to Snowmass on Monday. We had lunch at Ole’s in Paxton.

The rest of our drive was uneventful, except for the huge detour we took because the previous day a cloudburst washed two interstate 80 bridges out and we had to go way out of our way to get home. Also we had a Dairy Queen stop in Sterling. We made it home about 7:00pm Sunday evening.

I got an update that Bob had trouble getting his car fixed, so he rented a car and was home by 6:00pm Monday night.

We had a great bike ride, but it is good to be home!
kws

Today was the last day of our ride. We had breakfast at the motel at 5:30 and were off shortly after 6:00am. (picture 1) It looked like it was going to be a nice day with a cool temperature and fairly strong cloud cover. We went a different route than anyone had been before, and were surprised by some fairly steep hills early on. Things were going well, we were making great time, and then we started hearing thunder in the direction we were going, then seeing lightning, then it started to sprinkle, then rain lightly. The road was quickly soaked and starting to splatter on our feet, and for those who didn’t have any covering on our back tires, splatter on our backs. Those of us who planned ahead for all eventualities, put on our rain gear. Those who decided to risk it either took shelter or kept going. The rain would stop and then start up again. We would make forward progress when the rain was less, and then take shelter again when the rain got stronger. Stores along the route that had something hot to drink or eat were inundated with riders seeking warmth or sustenance. I did not pack my rain gear so I stopped at an Ace Hardware in Muscoda and bought a bright orange rain outfit. The jacket fit fine, but I ripped one of the legs putting it on and then ripped the crotch when I put my leg over the bicycle. But it served the purpose of keeping me warm but not dry. We all rode one way or another the 31 miles from Richland Center into Boskobell and found the restaurant we said we would meet in for lunch. At this point we were all completely soaked. We all had a second breakfast or brunch to help warm us up. (picture 2 and picture 3)

After a lot of discussion we decided to call it a day and used the two sag wagons to send drivers for all our cars into Prarie du Chien and bring all the cars back, while the rest of us waited at the restaurant. Since we were 30 miles away from Prarie du Chien, and it was raining pretty hard it took a while. We then drove back to the shower area at the end of the ride, changed clothes, said our goodbyes, and started for home. We caravanned to Grinnell IA and had dinner at an excellent restaurant there. I am writing this from Council Bluffs

IA where we are staying at a Days Inn for the night. We will be up for breakfast at 7:00am and be off to Colorado by 7:30!

I want to publicly thank Patti and Ruth for their magnificent job supporting our ride with delicious lunches and many other ways they assisted us in making our ride easier, safer, and more fun. (picture 4)

Also I want to recognize the ringleader without whom this ride would not have happened, and the winner of our naming contest last night, and champion water gun shooter at all us dry hot people, demonstrating his prize from the Devil’s Head Lodge – John Jensen! (picture 5) (I had an even better one but somehow it got erased!)

Your loyal and tired reporter,
kws

It is hard to believe that this was our next to last day on our ride. We ate breakfast at 6:30 at the Devil’s Head Lodge (Picture 1) and were on the road a little after 7:00am. Ginni Hackney had a flat after 1.5 miles. (Picture 2) How many engineers does it take to change a tire? We rode 14 miles to get to the start of the ride in Sauk City. So while everyone else had a longer ride yesterday, we had it today. We crossed the river on a ferry (Picture 3) and got to Sauk City about 8:45am. We bought a bunch of banana’s and started off on the real course for today, and it started sprinkling. Several of us had checked the forecast and there was no rain in sight. It never really rained hard on us, but it had rained harder on some parts of the road we were riding, and we had to watch out for splash back from cars and other bikers. We had some surprise hills since we were on a route that none of us had been on before. In other areas it was very flat and we made very good time. We got to Spring Green and the Frank Lloyd Wright school where we had lunch prepared by Patti and Ruth. John Taska rode with us for much of the morning (see picture 4), and Patti Taska and Heidi joined us at lunch time. (picture 5)

Ingrid had a flat tire just as we started out after lunch. Picture 6 After lunch the cloud cover we had all morning disappeared and he temperature got markedly hotter. We figured we still had 30 miles to go to get to Richland Center. Luckily the rest of the route was very flat and we made good time. Part of the group went on an old railroad bed that has been covered with crushed limestone and packed to allow small tired bikes to be able to ride on it. We got some great pictures of some of the farms in the distance. (The other part of the group took the standard route. Luckily we all ended up at the same place – the White House Travelodge in Richland Center. After cleaning up we all went to eat at a nearby Mexican restaurant that was suggested by some locals. The food was great – some of the service was slow – but we had a good time. We have decided to eat breakfast here at 5:30am, leave at 6:00am and go to the end of the ride before we try to take showers. After we get cleaned up nd say our goodbyes, we will be driving back towards Colorado in a caravan. Nick and Martha will be heading to Annapolis, MD, and Herb and Ruth will be going back to Minneapolis, MN. We plan to overnight at a Day’s Inn near Council Bluffs IA tomorrow night, and then drive on into Boulder Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow we will ride 64.7 miles from Richland Center to Prarie du Chien. The journal article tomorrow night may be very short. I hope you have enjoyed these capsules of our progress. There are many more pictures than I am able to send with these emails. If you are interested I could send you a CD to view the other pictures.
kws

Happy Fourth of July! We all added small American Flags to our bikes or personal decoration today as part of our celebration of the day.

I got separated from the group and didn’t get as many pictures as normal, plus some of the narrative is second hand.

We started off at 6:00am – bright and early – with scouts out for the first open cafe that was serving breakfast. We saw one in Friendship that claimed to have the “Best Breakfast in Town” and the smells oozing from the building seemed to verify its claim, but it didn’t open until 7:00am. The next one was open and we parked our bikes and entered. One way we could tell it was open was that there were a bunch of other bikes parked out front. The food was great, the portions heaping. Those who ordered hash browns got mounds “twice as large as any human should need, but he ate them all anyway” according to Dick Burkley. (see picture 1) {{popup day5breakfast.jpg day5breakfast 1490×870}}Breakfast in Friendship

So we didn’t really get started on our ride until about 7:10. But for the first morning this week, the air was actually cool and some people actually put on long sleeve shirts for a while. Food must have been on our mind today, because about an hour and a half later, we spotted an ice cream delivery truck. We flagged it down and asked if we could buy some ice cream bars. He said the smallest amount he could sell us was a box of 24. John Jensen bought a box for $10 gave bars for free to our group and then sold the rest for $1 each to other riders who had stopped and cleared $5 on the deal. – Thanks John! (see picture 2) {{popup day5icecream.jpg day5icecream 1355×666}}John the Ice Cream Bar Man!

The next town was the Wisconsin Dells. The 4th of July traffic was heavy, but the route this year got us through town and back out in the country faster than last and soon we were at Mirror Lake state park for lunch. Patti and Ruth picked a lovely spot near a swimming beach, with running water and facilities. Bob Boylan and John Taska joined us. Patti Taska and their dog Heidi arrived before we all finished. It was a nice, restful, delicious lunch, but when we started out again the temperature was no longer cool. Twelve miles later we were in Baraboo, where we had planned to stop for ice cream. I looked all over for the place but didn’t find it. The rest of the group did find it and said it was as good as last year.

Next we climbed up and down into Devil’s Lake. Some people went swimming at the South Beach. Then we rode a few more miles to the Devil’s Head Lodge where we are staying tonight. By staying here we cut 12 miles off our ride today of 77 miles, but we will add 12 miles to tomorrow’s route. It also moved our ferry crossing from today to tomorrow. After showering many of us went swimming at the Lodge’s pool. I wish I had gotten a picture of the laundry drying area. It was quite a site to see everybody’s biking attire hanging out to dry. At this point we are all washing each day to have something to wear and hoping we have something that is dry. Many of the riders had on red, white, and blue jerseys or some other decoration to help celebrated the 4th. {{popup day5bae2.jpg day5bae2 1176×904}}Ingrid and Martha show one example in the 3rd picture.

We had a great dinner in the main dinning room of the lodge. John and Patti Taska joined us. Tomorrow we will have breakfast here at 6:30am and try to be off by 7:00am. It will be a 79 mile ride tomorrow to Richland Center. It seems amazing that we only have two days left. Hope you all had a great Fourth of July!
kws

This was the best day yet. The weather was a little cooler, sunny, but with high thin clouds that made the sun less of an issue. We had no flat tires, no falls, the wind was mild or to our backs. We started nearly on time (6:30am) , went longer between rest stops, had fewer hills, averaged a higher speed, so in every way it was an excellent day. The early riders got to the destination around 2:00pm which is the earliest so far this week. I guess I reported the distance today incorrectly. It was planned for a distance of 69.5 miles

The first picture is at the start of day 4 and has everyone but Bob Boylan of the riders in the picture. Left to right we are : Robin Guilford, Terry Hackney, John Jensen, Dick Burkley, Martha and Nick Shuck (Annapolis, MD), JoAnn Burkley, Ginni Hackney, Ingrid Jensen, Ken Switzer, and Herb Lauritzen, Ruth Lauitzen, and Patti Guilford were also not in the picture. The second picture is at a paper mill along the route, where they were unloading logs from a train car. The person in the picture is not from our group. The third picture is of John Jensen and Dick Burkley demonstrating their strength with Terry Hackney and Nick Shuck looking on. The fourth picture is of us at lunch where Patti and Ruth laid out a wonderful buffet in a park along the route.

We were saddened to hear that a 12 year old boy, riding with his grandfather from Kansas, was killed yesterday on the outskirts of Wausau when he hit a patch of gravel and fell in front of a logging truck.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to go from Adams-Friendship to Sauk City, but instead we are going to the Devil’s Head ski lodge where we stayed last year. It cuts a little bit off the predicted distance of 79.8 miles, but we will add it the next day when we have to go further to the start. During the day we go through the Wisconsin Dells, and the town of Baraboo. We will be getting back into hills and so our time will take longer.

I had some computer trouble yesterday, so I was very tired when I sent the email and appologize for any mistakes. Some of ourluggage got wet in the sag wagon and it affected the battery on my computer. Once I figured out that was what the problem was everything was ok. I was very nervous until it was all resolved, because I had just erased all the digital photoes in my camera, and wasn’t sure if I could get them all. Anyway it is all better now.

I want to keep all email with pictures that I send under .5 Mb in size. Last night when I was so tired, I wasn’t paying attention to the size and sent an email that was over 1.1Mb. Because of the size, some of your mailboxes are filling up and I am getting email rejected mesages when your storage is exceeded. For those people I will send you a text only email, and when you free up enough space you can email me to switch you back to the email with pictures. If there are other people you want me to include email me their address, or you can forward them yourself.

We wish everyone a Happy and Safe 4th of July! Keep thinking cool!
kws

Pictures from Day 4:

{{popup day4logs.jpg day4logs 691×549}}Day 4 Logs
{{popup day4lunch.jpg day4lunch 1270×621}}Day 4 Lunch
{{popup day4muscles2.jpg day4muscles2 1008×785}}Day 4 Muscles
{{popup day4start2.jpg day4start2 1265×587}}Day 4 Start