We are always looking for a place to stay. Whether it be a place to camp, a hostel or hotel, a home stay set up on warmshowers.org or couchsurfing.com, or a spontaneous invitation, we are daily in need of a place. So far on the trip we have had all of these, but we were not always welcome.
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After a couple days in Igoumenitsa, we were primed and ready to enter Greece… and it happened to be Halloween.
We found a LiDL grocery store (one of our favorites–like ALDI) that accepted credit cards, so we decided to stock up on groceries and Kallie and I decided to buy $15 worth of candy for our very own FBR Halloween celebration. We did this on the sly, and then hid some among Peter and Lindsey’s gear for a surprise. They were thrilled when they found it, and we were surprised when we found out Lindsey had also purchased $15 worth of candy just because they accepted credit cards. We had also heard rumors that the sheep dogs in Greece were somewhat aggressive, so we each picked up a “dog stick” in case any got too close for comfort. Peter’s was an intimidating yet mostly harmless dried thistle stock…
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It’s like cats and dogs. They can get along just fine, and many of us have both, but when they meet “out there,” there’s often trouble.
Just the other morning while I was journaling outside I heard a honk, and looked up. On the bridge in front of me I could see an early morning cyclist who was now stopped in the middle, and he was trying to communicate something to the driver behind him who had honked. Although I am not French, I thought his communication was quite clear. He was using some universal signs and gestures, and from where I was his muffled yells might as well have been English. I also noticed he was using another effective tactic–stopping in the middle of the lane to force impatient drivers to wait. He stood there staring down the driver for about 35 seconds, while a line of cars stopped behind him on the bridge. Then, when he had had enough, he got back on and kept biking.
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Our first night of camping we met a man walking two dogs who said to watch out for wild pigs. We took his warning seriously, but with a grain of salt. We saw no pigs.
Several other people gave us similar warnings, and Claudia back at “base camp” (Worms, Germany) told us how she was once chased on a horse all the way back to town by a protective mother boar.
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We try to wake up each morning at 7 so we can be on the road at 8. For some reason, I wake up at 6:30 each morning (maybe the turning of the earth toward the sun’s rays…). I first put on my bike clothes and pack my sleeping bag and pad. Then I zip myself out of the tent and peruse the stuff, usually dew-covered in our camping spot next to a corn field or in a woods. After whatever is most urgent, I flick a few slugs off of the CAMP GEAR bag, and pull out what we need for breakfast–most often bread, cheese, fruit, jam, and chocolate spread. Then I begin to load our trailer, Bob. Bob has been good to us, but also has received his fair share of curses, especially when we’re going up steep hills. It’s really not his fault. We put him up to it.
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As we were drying out our tents in Michael’s yard in Geneva, I began to think about the notion of
security. We were so grateful to be here, in a yard, where we could spread out our stuff to dry and have a hot shower and sleep under a roof… All these things are benefits and trappings of what we sometimes call the pursuit of security. And we were loving it. In fact, it kept us going to have these “security checkpoints” (so to speak). All of these security checkpoints for us were offers of hospitality and welcome from those who had gained some security in life.
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Our journey from Michigan proved three things for us – traveling together with all our stuff for 5 months takes patience, perseverance, and prayer.
First, we managed to break down our tandem and get it packed up with other gear, and still keep each full sized suitcase under 50 lbs. (Thanks Rod for help and Bill and Tina for the space to do that for 3.5 hours).
With a soft roof case and a bike rack, all 4 of us fit with our bikes and gear into Devin’s Chevy Malibu for the 10 hour journey to Tori’s relatives near Rochester, NY. [patience/perseverence]
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At church this morning Kallie and I found ourselves in a discussion about hope and sight. A friend said something that ignited in me thoughts about Fueled By Rice: he said according to statistics we* spend between 60 and 90 percent of our time indoors. Indoors is a world of our own construction. We build houses, engineer buildings, plan the space conveniently for our needs and wants—plenty of bathrooms, plenty of counter space, plenty of electrical outlets… It is a world we can control. As Cat Stevens says, “You can switch on summer from a slot machine.
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