< ![CDATA[  It is never a good omen when we awake to raindrops and half of the children crying. No one slept. The steady oo-cha, oo-cha, oo-cha of everything from ABBA to the theme music from Dirty Dancing to La Bamba turned techno did not die away until the sun was coming up. Even then the sounds of drunken revelry continued until we gave up and got up at six. The day was grey and wet. The children were miserable. Hannah, who has my temperament, was teary from exhaustion and none too patient with the perpetrators; some of whom were lying half in, half out, of their tents where they passed out. Elisha was holding his ear, crocodile tears running down his face. The fluid building in his ear over the past few days has developed into an infection. Happy morning. There was nothing to do but get up and get out. Staying another night would have been a re-run of the previous night’s misery. We packed, the sullen skies reflecting our moods. At eight thirty we rolled out of camp. A world record for us. We’re NEVER out before ten and eleven is our average. The next campground was 73 km... almost 46 miles... “No way we’ll make that today.” I said to myself. Who would have thought, with that beginning, we’d have one of our best days? The roads were flat. Netherlands flat, and there was no wind. We flew through the cool grey air all morning and found ourselves on the banks of the Elbe shortly after lunch. The Elbe Radweg (bike way) is 860 km long and runs all the way across Germany and clear down past Prague. We’re only riding a portion of it. We first found it at Wittenberg a few weeks ago and pointed up stream to the kids: “We’ll ride the length of this river clear to Prague!” They couldn’t believe it. As soon as we crested the little hill and looked down over the river Gabe announced to his brothers with manly authority, “There it is! The famous Elbe! We’ll ride it all the way to Prague!” And so we shall. The Elbe snaked its way through beautiful valleys walled with tall bronze cliffs and steeply terraced vineyards all afternoon. The boys shouted with glee and nearly rode off the path when the tourist steam boat came puffing along and docked gracefully right next to the radweg. Hannah and I enjoyed the various plant life, both wild and cultivated along the way. Sound bite from the afternoon, as we rolled up a little hill: Hannah: “Oh Mom! Look at all the raspberries!” Gabe, before she even finished her sentence: “Oh Mom! Look! A dead RAT!” It continued to rain lightly, off and on, all afternoon. As if on cue the sun broke over the castle and cathedral complex in Meissen as we rounded the bend in the river and it came into view. It was the first castle built to house royalty in Germany in the late 1400s and is the center of Saxony. The campground is in Scharfenberg, a little further up the river. We got the tent set up just in time to hunker down and hide from another shower. Tony is reading the next installment of Captains Courageous to the children. They love the fact that he does voices. He bemoans the difficulty of the text for doing voices. I knit as I listen. My Dad used to read to us just the same way. We’ve got dirty, wet, bandanas hung like Tibetan prayer flags from every support string of our tent, praying to the God who created the sun to please share it with us once again and dry out our lives. Dresden is a mere 25 km. south and if all goes well we’ll roll into the Czech Republic in just a couple of days. Tomorrow, being the Sabbath, we are going to rest and play the day away in this forest valley. We hope to pick blackberries and explore the castle and eat ice cream and NOT ride our bikes too much.]]>