We've been back for almost a month, painted the house, bought a new car, and now we're finally finding time to update. Whew! So much for a soft landing.
Though our posts have generally kept up, we hadn't posted any pictures since Slovenjia. So that's where we'll start.
Here we have the beautiful town of Piran. It was a great place to stay and an awful place to get to. It's part of the "Slovenjian Riviera," on the Adriatic. We rolled in on Friday night, after taking the train from Postojna. There were supposed to be bike paths all the way in, but we lost them rather quickly. So we ended up on the main roads, along with
all of Slovenjia. Imagine Highway 20 into Anacortes on a Friday night, or rush hour ferry traffic. The difference, of course, was that we were on our bikes, and everyone else was not. Yech. Lots of uncomfortably close calls.
On our way there we went through Portoroso. It was like one giant tourist resort. Thinking that the whole area might be like that, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. However, as you can see from the picture, Piran is a very nice little peninsula, with only one road that sort of skirts it and heads uphill. The buildings are packed together, the alleys are narrow and windy. It was much calmer than Portoroso, though still full of Slovenjian tourists. I may have told you this all before...
It was hot, though. We spent most of the day in the water, wishing for an umbrella. We did walk up to the fortress, though, and got our picture taken by a funny Croatian man.
We managed to find, and stay on, the bike path all the way from Piran to the Italian border. It was very nice, winding through farms and neighborhoods. Too bad we couldn't have stuck on it on the way in. This is a view back at Piran on our way out.
In Italy now, riding from Asti to Alba, our first day of riding. We stopped for lunch next to a town bocce court. Unfortunately, no little old Italian men playing...
Rolling into Alba, headed for the tourist information to find a place to stay. Alba was a very interesting town, with practically hundreds of medieval towers sprinkled all over. We were there on a Sunday and Monday, however, so it was rather quiet.
The view from La Morra of the vast vineyards of the Piedmont region. How did we get that view? By sweating! A lot! In Slovenjia, all the churches were on hills. In Italy, all the towns were.
Church/house with vineyard. I think this was on our way back down from La Morra.
You've already read the post that I wrote in this picture. It was called "Too damn hot." Now you have the benefit of enjoying my fleshy white upper arms. Too damn hot, indeed...
On our way to Acqui Terme from Alba, on our anniversary. We woke up early to beat the heat, but even in the morning shade was a refuge. Do you think they built those little shrines for the benefit of bike tourists?
In the Cinque Terre now, having left our bikes in Genova at the hotel. This is the view of the harbor in Riomaggiore, where we stayed for three nights.
Erin, Riomaggiore, and a prickly plant
Another view of Rio. We stayed in the red house at the top right of the picture. On the top floor. We walked a lot of stairs in Riomaggiore. A
lot. Glad we didn't have to lug our bikes up there.
A top-down view of Rio, from the window of our room.
Manarola, as we near the end of our hike through the five towns. Long and
hot.
Ah, the
Via dell'Amore...
Lots of cats in the Cinque Terre. Along the trails there were cat feeding stations. These three found a comfy spot in Vernazza...I guess.
The hike sent us up and down and around. This is looking down on Vernazza.
Our Italian savior, Emanuele, who guarded our bikes while we were off vacationing, helped us find boxes, called us a taxi, made Erin coffee, helped us navigate the bus, and recommended a nice little curry/kabob/pizza spot. He helped us out so much. Things would have been much more difficult, and I would have gotten yelled at more, if he wasn't there. Lots more nice people in Italy than we expected. Not that we were expecting mean people. But we were often surprised by kindness and help.
Spending the night in London, on the swankiest bench in Heathrow. Our 18 hour stay was made easier thanks to finding Elizabeth, who was also hanging out, waiting for the same flight, as she had missed her scheduled departure. A lot of funny things are funnier with a third person laughing. And it was great to have someone to watch stuff during bathroom breaks, etc.
Back in the USA, with the bikes strapped tightly to the top of Bert's car. I didn't even take them out of the boxes for three days or so. Erin already returned hers for
a speedier one. She was sad to see the Randonee go (almost 1000 miles of her life!), but it never quite gave her a good fit, and wasn't set up how she would have liked. We'll keep our eyes open for a new one, for the next tour.
What a trip! We had a great time, and being on bikes was a unique and interesting experience. Worth doing, and worth doing again. Hills are rough (but only half the time), but the perspective is incredible. Slow and pleasant. Things you just don't see or notice from a train or car. There were certainly times when the bikes were a pain (like, whenever we weren't riding them), but it was a great experience overall. Can't wait for the next one.
Thanks for following along! Keep coming back! We'll keep using this blog for all of our adventures.
Here we are up in the snow at the Lower Mt. Baker Lodge, two weeks ago. Today has almost as much snow! Who knew we would have our own winter down here. I love it!
This is what our porch looked like this morning at about 9 am.
Brindzi was excited to play in the snow. She loves the snow. When we went out a couple hours later, her earlier tracks were all covered up.
On our way back from our friends house, Adam had Brindzi fetching snowballs and bounding in the snow.
She was quite tempted by the birds and chased a few down into the snowy ditch. She almost got lost in the snow drifts.
This is what our porch looked like at about 3 pm when we arrived back from our walk. Brindzi wanted to measure it herself. 
Here is what it looks like now. We think it's a winter wonderland! I am sure the media is calling it "The Thanksgiving blizzard '06". I am so glad we drove back up yesterday and are not stuck in this mess on the Freeway. Western WA doesn't have enough snow removal equipment to deal with this much snow all at once. 
We still LOVE Gryffin! Here he is all wrapped up in our Christmas ornament paper. We put up the Christmas tree today. It really did feel like Christmas. Cheesy Christmas music on the radio, snow falling outside, the smell of fir trees. Yep. Too bad it's still November.
