Teaching is a weird profession. The kids are great. Their parents can be a pain. Since all parents went through the system, they are all experts. Some chose to withhold their expertise and let a teacher teach, but others come to conference loaded with humorless - I mean humorous anecdotes and pearls of wisdom for their son/daughter's teacher. Conferences were always fun.
I remember as a student in high school the varying ways teachers handled their less serious or less attentive students. My band teacher, Mr. Holbrook, threw chalk and erasers at the drummers when he would get mad at their inattention. Mr. Leuthy, my chemistry teacher, always had a smile and a joke to bring the kids back to the subject. Mr. Allen, my PE teacher and wrestling coach would flex his muscular arms and get in the face of the offender. After his encounter and susquent victory, he would turn to the rest of the class and sarcastically say, "S/he should just go play tag with the cars on the freeway." Every time he said this, I would conjure up an image of that kid, out on the freeway, dodging back and forth, jumping lane to lane, attempting to touch the cars without getting hit by them. In my mind, it always ended badly, which is what Mr. Allen was dreaming.
Today, Sally and I were playing a similar game of tag. Thank goodness it was not with the cars on the freeway. Rather, it is with the weather. It is forecast to reach 100° today. Of course, we are outside 24/7. Once it reaches 85° it becomes too hot for my beautiful red head to ride. She has a temperature meter built right in, her face. As she begins to overheat, the redness climbs up her face. Chin, then cheeks, nose and finally it creeps across her forehead. If her forehead is red, we are in trouble. Just like Mr. Allen's disruptive students, we must play dodge the dangerous objects.
To avoid the heat we rise early. Today, with 85° forecast by 1:00 pm and 100° by 4:00 pm, we rose at 5:30 am and were on the road by 6:15 am. Our destination was a campground on a lake 43 miles away. We were loath to leave Strasbourg, we found it our favorite city to date, and would have enjoyed another day exploring its streets, but 100° is too warm for such activities. The pool at the campground is what I call a courtesy pool, not nearly big enough, but built so they can claim they have a pool. We did not spend the afternoon in the puddle of a pool trying to stay cool, so we decided to dodge the weather and get to the lakeside campground before the heat became unbearable.
For the 21st day in a row, the route was amazing. We started on the streets of Strasbourg, riding along the canals, then up and over a bridge and we were out of the city and in the country, riding through forests, fields and past bird sanctuaries. Every kilometer we would pass a bunker/gun emplacement, pointed out toward the Rhine and Germany, part of the Maginot Line. Also, we rode right on the shore of the Rhine or on the dike that keeps it contained during high water. While on the shoreline, we watched cargo ship after cargo ship move up and down the river. We passed by a set of locks and stopped for a break. As we rested and had a snack we watched one set of ships raised up in the locks.
This area is undoubtedly the gravel pit capital of the world. We passed by mountain after mountain of gravel and sand, and rode around the lakes created by their removal. The rattle and hum of conveyor belts moving this product out to the waiting ships on the river banks was a constant background noise. The trail goes under many of these conveyances.
We really enjoy the early morning rides. The world is quiet and cool. This morning a cloud layer helped obscure the sun until about 10:00 am, making the morning even more enjoyable.
At 10:30 am, we stopped in Drusenheim, 25 miles completed, for lunch. We were going to buy the makings of a salad, but with the temperature growing and neither of us wanting to take the time to prepare it, we bought a small quiche, some chips and nectarines and leaned up against a concrete wall in the shade to scarf down our meal and get back on the road.
With 10 miles to go, and the temperature now 82, Sally's temperature gauge was showing the first signs of overheating. We stopped to wet her hair and cool down in the shade. A couple more stops, and we made it to the Saltz ferry crossing and the adjacent campground.
An enterprising man had a French version of a taco van set up with two party awnings in front an 10 or so tables with chairs. The beer was cold and shade looked inviting, plus we could see the campground across the street. We stopped in and met Stephen and Susan, two mid 30 somethings cycling from Basel to Karlsruhe on a long weekend. Susan had worked for six years in Washington DC as an aid for a member of the European Parliament. She was now back I her native Germany. Stephan worked in the financial sector in Brussels. After an hour we parted ways, they to cycle through the 100° heat toward their destination, us to the campground and the lake. We found a "pitch" in the shade of a large tree, and headed for the lake. I went in fully clothed, hoping to wash my pants and shirt and to stay cool after leaving the lake.
I noticed I was getting no service on my phone, the first time on the whole route. I had received a text from T-Mobile that morning that sounded remotely like they were discontinuing my service so I reasoned that perhaps they had. I gave them the benefit of my doubt and decided to ride into the actually town of Saltz, two kilometers away, and make sure it was not the remoteness of the campground that was the cause of my lack of service
In town, I found the same thing. No service. I restarted the phone and fiddled with the settings, but without success. I pocketed the phone and headed for a grocery store for some supplies, all the while imagining the content of the phone call I was going to have with T-Moblie.
When I arrived at the grocery store, as I was locking up my bike, I suddenly got service again. Weird. With food in a pannier, I returned to the lake. We used our now active phone to book a room in Karlsruhe tomorrow, our solution to dodging the heat. Air conditioning was a must.
We each went for a post sunset swim to cool off before going to bed. We had successfully dodged the heat and survived the day. Tomorrow we continue our game of dodge the heat, looking at the ten day forecasts, hoping for an end to the extreme heat. Maybe in a couple days.
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