Around the lake, flat tire and barbecue on the beach

This day we started off with a geocaching tour (only partially succesfull...see post below) and went 12 km around the lake. Our way lead us through beautiful forests to panoramic views at the Lake and to peaceful spots in nature where we were having a rest. The only bad thing was a flat tire on Jales bicycle....all over sudden there was loud noise and all the air went out of the tire. Fortunately it was only the valve of the back wheel and we could travel on after I found someone that I could borrow an air-pump from. The tour around the lake was really pretty. Very nice nature but...much too crowded as usual nowadays. You couldn't hardly drive 200-300 metres without facing some bike trafiic passing you by.

In the evening we went to the beach where we were surprised to see nearly none lying in the green gras for a party, a barbecue or any other activity ;-) The good thing was, that we had enough space and took out our portable one-way barbecue grill, our sausages, our bottles of beer...and had a fantastic relaxing evening. Jale had so much to do with playing on the playground and playing on the beach that she had not even any time left to go on our nerves :-)
That's how we like to spend our holidays. We don't need any luxurious hotel or health resort. After an active day, we would always prefer a self-grilled sausages and a bottle of beer near the lake, or anywhere else outside.

Expensive bicycles, coffee kiss und eine geile Geocachingbirke

Since Jale is growing and growing (much too fast?) and enjoys bicycling more and more (yippiieee) she needs a new and larger bicycle. Her birthday will be in 4 weeks and I went to a store to find out about prices and the size she will need. And I was really surprised to find out that a 20" kids bike costs about € 150 - € 200,--!!! There are some cheaper ones though but kids should better not use them daily. I was really upset by this high prices...in about 2-3 years she will again need a new bike *sigh...

One of my favorite feeds showed me another mighty optical illusion yesterday.Isn't that fascinating??
If you are interested in optical illusions, you should frequently drop into Mighty Optical Illusions or add it to your feed reader. Highly recommended!!

Um den Tag angemessen zu beenden, hab ich dann noch eine kleine Runde mit dem Rad gedreht und eine kleine, feine Dose gesucht. Der Cache selbst ist ja eher unspektakulär aber der Name ist doch nett: Geile Geocachingbirke. Schön wenn man abends noch etwas geiles, unentdecktes besuchen kann...

6000

6000 kilometres on my bike-computer this morning. 6000 km in 14 months mean appr. 400 hours in the saddle, but an average of "only" 107 km per week. Looks as if I am beginning to get lazy....

Geocaching

Yesterday, directly after work it was time for some geocaching again. A storm was coming up and so it was really hard to go those additional 25 kilometres by bike. The first cache, a micro cache hidden in brambly bushes was an easy found, without any injuries, found after 12 kilometres.  The second cache was inteesting. In one of our favorite parks there will be a new lake in the future. Right now there is nothing to see except green grass and the owner asks all the cache-visitors to take a photo of the progress. Nice.

My efforts on finding the cache box have been somehow extraordinary for a D/T 1,5 rated chache. It took me nearly 20 minutes to find the cache box. Have I been blind? Was it too dark already? However, it was a nice cache, I found it and my bike computer was showing me an over all distance off 34 kilometes for that day.  A satisfying day.

5500 kilometres

Now it is one year since I bought my new bicycle and since then I drove 5500 kilometres over all. That's an average distance of 15 km per day, or 105 km per week. If you calculate an average speed of 15 km/h, it means that I have spent more than 365 hours in the saddle!!I was so very surprised myself when I noticed that very impressive distance that I drove and I am a bit proud of myself!!!

A Rainy Day and 40 kilometres by bicycle

That was a wet day yesterday...in the end I drove some 40 kilometres by bicycle, mostly through rain.

When I woke up, I realized that my freetime for the rest of this week would be limited. Thursday afternoon I wil have to go to the doctor again for some talking - more about that later. Friday night and Saturday I will spend with Jale (with pleasure).
So, I decided to make this wednesday and active but joyfull day. And that's how an active and joyfull day looks for me:

5.45h I got up and at 6.30h went by bicycle to the studio to do my fitness training. At 9.00h I was finished and went all the way to my work (15 km). After work I decided to do some geocaching in the eveings and again sat on my bicycle and drove 12 km through pouring rain to search and find a cache in Bremen (GPS Stash hunt) . Rain doesn't bother me too much, I have good clothes to protect myself. At 7.00 p.m. I was lucky and happily signed the logbook.

All in all I did some 42 kilometres by bicycle today and when I arrived back home at 8.30 p.m., I felt somehow physically worn out but also I felt very fresh in my brain - and those two feelings go perfectly together. If you do long distances by bicycle or walking, you have a lot more chances to look around, let new ideas and thoughts into your mind and let them grow or just spin around ;-) It is nice to me...sometimes.