I love this picture… it looks like cycle touring heaven…

…but I’ll tell you what I was thinking. 

I was thinking, “These people better be worth it…” and mentally grumbling (again) about the Czech bike paths. We cycled through cornfields, hauled our bikes over downed trees and through ankle deep mud and rattled our teeth over more Eastern European cobblestone than I care to recount in the month or so we were in the Czech Republic. 

On this particular golden day we were cycling through farmers’ fields from the middle of nowhere train station towards the little burg of Cerna Hora, home to a famous brewery, and the best friends we’d never met.

Complete strangers had invited us to spend the night. People we’d met on line through a web ring for big families. We knew nothing about them. 

If everything else about our year long bike ride had been a complete bust, if nothing good had come of any of it, these people would have been worth all of the effort.

We intended to stay a night or two, camped in our tents on their campground property.

Instead, we stayed almost three weeks, everyone cried when we left and were instant family.

I’ve said it before, but by far the best part of our journey is the people we meet. 

I’ve written about the Adams before; we never miss a chance to visit, and I laugh harder in their house than I do anywhere else in the world. 

Instead of telling you again how much we love them and how great they are, I thought I’d share some pictures from our adventures with them instead:

Girls eating on the deck in Czech.

They came and camped with us in the rain in Austria (13 people in our tent!!)

Caleb taking a photo for us!

Tent girls... can you pick ours out of the bunch? (in the rain in Austria!)

Ashleigh and Tucker

Vienna light rail

Tucker and me: Brno, CZ

At the Punkva Caves & Macocha Abyss, CZ

Campfire songs, CZ

Sam & his Vienna subway poster

Natural History Museum: Vienna

Vienna has the BEST playgrounds

Me & Caleb. He leant me his socks when my feet were cold.

Morgan on her 9th birthday... she let me make her cake!

The girlies, having a tea party in Pennsylvania... mine is the big one.

Hannah & Ashleigh

Hershey's Chocolate World

Kisses

Me & Melissa

Boyz

Melissa & the mini-men

lots of boys