Greetings from: UTRECHT

Our itinerary for the day: some Utrecht, then a leisurely ride to a castle about 11 km away, then maybe a medieval witch-city if we’re up to it. If a bike ride was good the previous day, then another bike ride would be twice a good the next day, right?

In theory, this would be correct. In practice, however, we hadn’t counted on two things: first, that the day would be much sunnier than previously. And, all things considered, this wasn’t much of a problem: we simply had to stay hydrated.

The second problem proved much more vexing: on the road to Vleuten, I got a flat. It’s a terrible sound, that slow hiss that comes from a broken stem. At first, I thought it may have been the sound of the traffic beneath me (I was crossing a bridge). But as the sound continued, I knew it was my back tire slowly deflating and collapsing to the ground, accompanied by my will to live.

So then: the long walk back to the Utrecht train station from which we had rented our bikes in the bright, bright Dutch sunshine.