Cycled 140 miles through Norway. 11,600 feet of elevation gained over five days. Not a flat country.

E-bikes have come a long way. The Cannondales we were riding weighed less than 40 pounds and still (mostly) managed demanding days on one battery. Unfortunately, they do not yet provide any kind of assist to an ass that’s unaccustomed to hours in the saddle.

A few highlights: jumping into a fjord from a floating sauna, experiencing true innovation in things you can put salt-dried cod on, and waking up in the Juvet Landskapshotell, which you might recognize from Succession Season 4:

The journey home started Thursday at 3:45a. Careful readers will recall that this is the point I’ve been expecting the trip to go off the rails for months now. A recap: after landing in Amsterdam, we’d need to ride a little bus back to the terminal, meet our bags at the baggage claim, recheck them with United, clear security and passport control out of the EU, and get to our other flight. We had about 45 minutes to get our bags turned over, and another hour to manage the rest.

…completely uneventful! Bags turned in with 10 minutes to spare, bodies at the gate almost an hour early. Then the rolling delays started.

Our flight eventually cancelled a few hours later. It took another four hours at the airport to get a new booking (for the next day, with a cartoonishly optimistic 65-minute connection through Newark), reenter the EU, and summon our bags back from the bowels of Schiphol.

But hey, on my fifth pass through Amsterdam, I finally left the airport! We made an evening of it with drinks at Tales & Spirits and dinner at Balthazar’s Keuken.

I accidentally ordered an America-coded cocktail at the former and it came with a little diecast General Lee that blared Dixie every time the waiter bonked it, which was roughly once every four minutes. Lesson learned.

Also, we eventually made it home ~40 hours late and United owes us €1,200. Know your rights when you’re traveling in the civilized world.

Thus began 36 frantic hours at home: Pick up puppy, water a very thirsty lawn, sleep, unpack, laundry, repack, make sure I didn’t catch COVID, back to the airport.

A general observation: everyone, everywhere, seems to be a little sick right now. I’m not sure if its just heightened awareness and it was always like this, but all public spaces, whether in United States or Norway or The Netherlands, are a gauntlet of coughing and runny noses.

And just like that: away to Toronto.