European Tour – July 6, 2009 In the Jesus House! (Written by Jake)

So it is about 8pm our time here in Hoxter, Germany. About half the crew has made it into town, the others still out battling the German terrain. Tonight we are staying at a local parish house, which is a huge plus seeing as a lot of our gear is wet from last night’s storm, or for some of us today’s storm. We have all prepared for rain but it is definitely nice to have a roof over our heads once and a while to dry out that gear. I have to give props out to the German accommodation crew, Sabrina in particular, because so far our accommodation has been fantastic.  We have been staying at some really fantastic and unique locations. Our hosts yesterday were just plain amazing. As mentioned in the previous blog, we were given free food and beer all day long. That trend continued this morning. Our hosts fed us a huge German breakfast, complete with much needed coffee, to fuel our roughly 100km day. It was a great start!

As always the ride today was different for everyone. So far all the pods seem to have really enjoyed their day, but each one took a different route into town. For myself it was apparently the shortest and quickest route, which is a nice change of pace. I was riding to Jenika and Shawn and we had a really solid day. Took our time at points but kept up a steady pace and ended up getting in first. The ride took us through some neat little towns like Detmold, Horn, and Stenheim, but the best part was the 15-minute downhill ride into Hoxter!

Now we’re just waiting for the rest of the crew to get in before we eat dinner. So far everyone is healthy and happy and I have no doubt the rest will come in the same!