We originally had 4 dagen to go somewhere, even more if we included the Friday evening. We tried to plan all last week, calling hostels, and checking the prices of buses and trains. On Friday evening we road to Carrefours (the fake Wal-Mart) and bought a tent because it was cheap. We bought bedrolls because they were insulated and only 3 euros. We bought two light-weight and inexpensive sleepingbags because they supposedly fit together to make one bigger version.

If I was writing fiction the following would be a sure case of foreshadowing, because we ended up with two left bags, a tiny tent, and our four day weekend dwindled down to just a few hours. It should have been some sort of warning, but still we planned and guessed until the last minute. It was our chance. We burned through the daylight hours and made our way to Essen.

Forget Germany or the Belgian Ardens, we hopped the train for 3.80 Euros per person and rode over the country-side. Now we're a spitting distance from the Netherlands just south of a town with relatively few old buildings (due to the war) in a campsite for aging groups of bikers (not hogs, but bicycles) in a grassy camping spot between two perma-campsite getups. aka. small mobile homes.

You would think that a last-second day-long vacation would leave us short-tempered and easily agitated, especially if we had been planning for weeks for a 4-day German spell to buy Birkenstocks for me and drink out of steins. But we could hardly afford the one-way ticket there...let alone the ride back. This was a much better trip for our temperment and our budget. Once we pitched the tent and ditched the backpack we let our bodies wonder over the trails. We covered a lot of ground and talked about whittling with pocketknives, our approaching summer vacation, the beauty of the countryside, and the speed of grandmothers and grandfathers on their bicycles.

Trekking over the countryside on a trail made for bikers--little paved roads over hayfields and plowed rows, dirt trails through forests and parks, behind emaculate homes and rustic farmhouses. We walked km after km and came to the conclusion that we should learn to travel cheaply too. Learn to travel light and explore the backroads of this very country and it's neighbors...on bikes.

It was an epiphany of sorts.

As I've mentioned before, Eva and I are the dreamers of dreamers--if not the doing, then just the passing thought. Today saw us planning trips with bike bags and two changes of shirts, maps of trails, and an August that would urge us to begin the trip and just see where we end up. Tenting until we grow tired of stooping, biking until we grow sleepy, starting and stopping on whims. We would simply find a place to visit then stop. We'd stay until we got the urge to move on with nothing but our own pedal power and the fit of the saddle in the crack of our bottoms yes-ing or no-ing us along.

So though the trip is short lived, with only tomorrow left as a buffer between us and the regular clothes of working folk, we've made plans. Big plans. Cheap plans. Tonight over the loud, heavily accented, talk of a group of older women on a holiday golf adventure, we mapped out routes, made lists, and did what dreamers do. I dreampt of being tan and thinne r and Eva dreampt of the sun bleaching our her light-brown hair to blond again. Together we dreampt of how we would relay the stories of our adventures to our jealous non-riding friends or how we would learn the bits of bikes like the back of our hands, "Eva, I think my 3rd sprocket took a hit on that last turn."

And together we envisioned ourselves 30 years into the future. Gray headed, sweaty browed, wearing matching spandex jerseys, and pumping the pedals of a tandem bicycle with nothing but the open road in front of us. People will point and stare and think we're sisters. We'll have kilometer after km or mile after mile stretching out in front of our faces, our tiny little tent in a side bag, two changes of clothing in the other with nothing but time on our hands...then we'll think back to Essen.

IN THE NEWS:
I didn't happen to pay attention.