Things you never knew about pillows (and never felt you needed to ask)

This is quite a posh place we are staying in (accidentally I hasten to add), which we have deduced from the fact that not only does our room have only one light bulb not working but also a shower that doesn't need a degree in advanced engineering to operate. The clincher though is the presence of a pillow menu! Each bed has 4 different pillows, the pillow menu describes 6 different types of pillow, none of the pillows are labelled. I won't bore you with the full descriptions but there are down feather pillows, sound pillows, incorporating speakers so you can plug in your 'device' and play yourself a lullaby(!!!???), hypoallergenic pillows (to counteract your reaction to the down pillows), magnetic therapy pillows, buckwheat pillows and Swedish memory pillows. I apparently have a seventh variation - bloody uncomfortable pillow!!!   Sadly we have arrived too late for International Pillow Fight day, held annually at DuPont circle in the posh area of DC - I would have been betting on the Buckwheat pillow myself.

Anyway, today started off warm, wet and humid, very overcast and depressing. We started with a tour of the Capitol building, or a small part thereof and then the Library of Congress, where you go through security on the way our rather than the way in! By the time we emerged the sun was out and it was scorching hot. We walked 

down to the White House, had lunch in a shady square and then hopped back on the open top bus to see Georgetown and other areas of DC not covered yesterday. As you will see from one of the photos the sun didn't shine all day. After this Chris wanted a return visit to the Air and Space museum, so I left him there and wandered back through the parks, wrote some postcards, had a shower and am now waiting for him to reappear.

One thing we haven't managed to do is take a ride on the equivalent of a Boris bike. I was rather hoping they would be called 'Barack bikes' or (even better) 'Bama Bikes', but rather boringly they are just bike share rentals. I don't think poking fun at politicians is quite the national sport it is back home.

Tomorrow we head to Virginia to rebuild the bikes and start the holiday proper. Pictures are of The White House and the delights of sight-seeing in the rain

Powering up - Please stand by

The title is the wording on the 'Do not disturb' notice supplied in our hotel room!  We were out for the count by 9.30pm yesterday and resurfaced to a grey Washington morning at around 7.30am today. We had breakfast at the deli opposite and felt like extras in an American film as we perched on high stools at the counter eating toasted bagels and drinking tea from the ubiquitous paper cups. Our plan for the day was to buy passes for the hop on / hop off sightseeing tour on a topless double decker. It was grey all day and threatened rain, which fortunately never quite arrived. Sadly all the pictures are rubbish as the sky was grey, the water looked grey and many of the buildings were greyish. We drove past the Capitol and a selection of the Smithsonian museums and hopped off for the first time to visit the Jefferson monument, the FDR (Roosevelt) monument, the Martin Luther King monument, the memorials for the Korean, Vietnam and second world wars and the Lincoln monument. Back on the bus several stops further on and off to Arlington cemetery to see JFKs grave and the tomb of the unknown soldiers. Then back on the bus to the Pentagon and back into Washington for further sights, including the FBI building - voted ugliest building in the world a few years back (I suspect this was an American poll and most of those voting didn't know many buildings outside the USA - I could make numerous suggestions for worse buildings that it).

Ended the day with a trip to the Air and Space museum, which is open until 7.30pm. We ate out at an 'Irish themed' pub and restaurant, which bore as much resemblance to an Irish pub as I do to Kate Moss (I.e the name was the same - Moss being my maiden name).  One more day of culture and then we get back on our travels ready for the business end of the trip.  Pictures yesterday were Chris with the liberty bell and the Capitol at night. Today we have monuments - see if you know which ones

Living the Dream?

So here we are, strategically positioned between the 'International Brotherhood of Teamsters' ( no I have no idea either) and the 'National Association of Letter Carriers' - an imposing old building which I suspect is housing the entire population of American carrier pigeons.  Journey here got better as we crossed the 'pond' (fortunately!) after an inauspicious start when the number plate recognition camera at Heathrow T5 long stay car park resolutely refused to recognise our number (pre-booked). Rang for assistance and after repeating the reference three times was told they couldn't find the booking. I then gave them my surname and they found it straight away, although I am quietly confident that we will be unable to escape the car park without more argy bargy. Anyway after shoe-horning the car into a space designed (I use the word loosely) for a Smart car we were duly transported to the terminal - arrivals section. This meant we had to manhandle two bikes and two bags up 5 floors, which involved trying to slalom our way through 4 sets of bollards which were not wide enough to accommodate the bikes.

On the check in, where we were asked if we had received a text about the flight. Alarm bells ringing we said 'no' and were then informed that the A380 designated for the flight was not available and the replacement aircraft took 140 fewer passengers. Luckily for us no text meant we weren't one of that privileged number. After that things got better with a slightly early arrival, no queue at customs and the bags / bikes off the plane almost before we got to baggage reclaim ( mine in fact was there waiting). Taxi in to DC, which just glided through as the roads were deserted and we were at the hotel by just after 3.00pm. Went for an initial stroll, back to cool down in the air-con and then back out to make sure we had walked at least 5k for our 365 x 5k challenge. We are staying very centrally and discovered that there is virtually nowhere to eat on a Sunday night, so we ended up in MacDonalds eating chilli chicken wraps - hence the title of the post. Finally going to bed at 9.30pm USA time, 2.30am body time - we should sleep well.

In the Starting Blocks

The team are now at the Travelodge at Terminal 5 Heathrow - be still my beating heart! This bastion of mediocrity (I'm being kind) is our launching pad for what may yet prove to be an even worse experience in Washington, but the odds are heavily stacked in our favour!! We have managed to clean the house, cut the grass, return all the library books and get everything packed in the car without killing each other, which in anyone's book must count as a result. The journey up only produced one set of roadworks and one tailback due to an accident - so a smooth run by UK motorway standards. Since we are directly under the flight path for aircraft taking off there is no danger of a good nights sleep and the alcohol offering was insufficient to ensure we would sleep through the the noise - so hopefully jetlag will be trumped by exhaustion when we finally get to our destination.

Poor picture (apologies) of the car packed ready to go

Another year, another cycling adventure

So here we are on 31st July 2015 and yet again I have failed to find a sensible way to change the name on the blog :(

We fly out on 9th August for this year's pandemonium in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (and yes I do know the song thank you very much), but you will have to suspend belief and follow us under the heading of Bristol to Perpignan.  As my nephew Stephen would say 'Build a bridge and get over it'

At this moment The Mechanic has dismantled the bikes and packed them snugly away in their travel bags, although I'm not betting against them reappearing before we leave.  We had planned to go on an organised trip this year, with the luggage being carried for us, but it got cancelled late on so I have been reorganising everything so we can do it ourselves. I think the only outstanding item is currency, but I am confident of being proved wrong between now and next week. Intermittent posts between now and departure, thereafter I hope to get something up most days - don't feel you have to read it, but I'll post photos for those in a hurry!

The photo below is just to prove we are not totally bike obsessed - the Humes at the end of the 2014 London Marathon wearing sweatshirts from two of our 100 mile events.

Final thoughts.

A very long journey home (34 hours) left me too tired last night to even think of finishing off this blog, but after about an hour back at my desk this morning I am in serious need of distraction therapy. On the last night, with 16 of the 20 members of the group suffering the after effects of the D&V bug, the hotel produced huge vats of shell fish for dinner - most of which went back to the kitchen untouched! Such a waste of food, but with nearly 20 hours in a coach ahead of some of us it seemed like an unnecessary risk........

Sunday morning dawned calm with hazy sunshine, so we got our obligatory photos with the Med as background and then started to go our separate ways. 10 of us rode up to the pick-up point for the European Bike Express and the hung around an industrial estate until it arrived more or less on time at 15.00. It is a very clever means of transport, with the bikes safely racked up in the trailer and only the handlebars needing to be turned. The panniers wedge in round the wheels and they are ordered for ease of removal at the various drop-off points in the UK. Then followed 20 hours on the coach, laughingly described as 'luxury, club class, air conditioned accommodation for cyclists' - basically a coach with insufficient room, a toilet that required advanced gymnastic skills to enter or leave (we didn't try as there were enough breaks and we were still dehydrated from the ride) and an air con/ heating system that froze you overnight and left you to boil to death during the day.

There was a problem with the gears and we just missed a ferry in Calais, so it was 3 hours behind schedule when it got to Dover. We decided to bail out there and start 6.5 hour trek back to Bristol. Bikes reloaded we set off for Dover station just as the heavens opened, so were saturated by the time we got to Dover Priory - just as the train to Victoria pulled out of the station. Rather than wait an hour in  sodden gear we hopped on a train to Charing Cross, which was mercifully quiet so we were able to keep the panniers on the bike and hang our jackets up to dry. It was 2 hours to Charing X during which it hardly rained, but as soon as we pushed the bikes out on to the Strand the next downpour began. Then followed a mad dash across central London, with the Mechanic hanging on to my back wheel so he didn't get lost (obviously that last statement should not be taken too literally or I would be in the cells and he would be in hospital).

Were too late for the last really cheap train to Bristol, but with seconds to spare and still dripping wet, we got the bikes on the 15.15 train and were back in Bristol at 16.45, with just the final ride home, the mountain of post 16 messages on the answer machine. We didn't even try to unpack!

So overall 1,500 miles traveled, around 80,000 ft of ascent, 2 punctures both on the Mechanics bike, a failed rear wheel on mine, the Pyrenean Traverse completed, several squillion calories consumed and even more used- we have both lost around 6 lbs in weight. 

Shower technology in south-west France needs some input and why on earth are they still using bolsters instead of pillows. Nearly all the later hotels had nasty narrow bolsters ( not as deep as your head) some of which appeared to have been filled with rocks from the nearby hills. However the showers remain a mystery. Why would you create an en suite bathroom with no bath, just a shower cubicle, and then equip the shower cubicle with a hand held shower? The added problem was that some of the cubicles were so small that using a hand held shower us only for the truly acrobatic. Even better was the hotel that having installed the shower cubicle and found a shower with a fitting to attach the shower to the wall, the welded the wall fitting to the taps!!  Finally we had the rooms which had obviously managed with just a bath for years, but had fitted a shower over it - without a shower curtain - thereby ensuring that he first person having their shower flooded he bathroom, soaked all the towels and most of their own clothes. Happy Days!!!!

Anyway I'm signing off now and starting to plan the next adventure. Thanks for following the ups and downs(!!!!!) of our trip and hope to see at least some of you soon. A last few photos appear below

Just to prove we did it!

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