Always iced

Longing for home on the road

One thing that delighted me on the Rhine River trip, especially after the mercury climbed, was setting up my bike for the night in an air-conditioned storage room. Yes. At least two of the hotels we stayed in had deluxe bike storage, with AC, even when some of the rooms for humans lacked AC.

I was always happy when I could securely lock up my bike, plug it in, and store a few bags. The bike storage room at the lovely half-timbered Altkölnischer Hof hotel in Bacharach was the best—spotlessly clean, with bike racks, electric plugs, a nice air compressor, and cool AC. While I was looking forward to the cool room in the hotel for my own sweaty self, I was thrilled to tuck my bike in for the night in such luxury. Did the bike care? Probably not, but I felt better about it.

At Berg’s Alte Bauernschänke hotel in Rüdesheim am Rhein we had a lovely room overlooking the town and our bikes were safe and cool.

My fondness for AC (for myself and my bike) probably comes from a childhood in the south, Georgia and South Carolina, when my parents kept the house cold and we’d run in from the summer heat, greeted by an icy blast. And a shout, from somewhere in the house, “Close the door!”

And 18 years in Texas, when the heat would rise off the black tarmac while the sun beat down from above as I finished a walk in the neighborhood. I’d open the door to a refreshing coolness on my skin, and then I’d go straight to the kitchen for ice water. Always iced.

At Hotel Rheinfels at Stein am Rhein the bikes could even study the map at night

So in the canicule of France last summer, and the heat wave of Germany – well, pretty much everywhere we traveled along the Rhine after Basel– I found myself longing for coolness. The rush of AC air on my skin or the feel of a tall cold glass of ice in my hand. In Europe, it’s not easy to find (1) ice; (2) tall glasses of water; (3) restaurants willing to offer both for free. But I never gave up trying.

I remember my first international trip in 1984, when I was 21, in Asia. I spent two very challenging weeks in China, well before it was a tourist destination. It was so hot, and impossible to get cool in the decrepit hotels with squeaking fans. My mind held the image of a tall glass of iced lemonade. That was my one dream, my one homesickness.

A rare cold, tall drink with ice.

Later in Nepal, where it was usually cold, I found myself longing for my bed. My duvet cover, silky smooth from years of use, and a mattress that held me just right. I actually didn’t even have a bed at that point, as I’d been sleeping on a folding futon in my sister’s spare bedroom for six months. But I held onto that mythical bed in my mind, through nights of dirty, thin foam pads on wooden bunk beds in the tea houses. And my fancy inflatable camping ground pad, supposedly one of the best but not very effective against the rock and ice of Everest base camp. The coziness of my bed and its silky sheets became my vision of comfort. Of home.

This is the view in my head when I imagined being cold during the heat wave. We were wearing four layers and hats and there was snow.

As the heat wave established itself along the Rhine after about a week on our bikes, we figured that traveling north was the right move, and we stayed on our route. But then the heat wave became a dome, and it didn’t move. Or maybe it followed us. We eyed the Netherlands, where temps were still under 90, and cool at night. We took some trains to skip the hottest sections. We found expensive hotels with AC. And by the time we got off the train in Emmerich am Rhein, Germany, ready to cycle across the border into the Netherlands, the heat dome had found us and gripped this country that rarely knows temperatures above 85. Two days of cycling lay before us, the first day 95, the second 98.

Along EuroVelo 15 in the Netherlands, a lovely cool stretch near Doorwerth. I was so happy to see the smooth, reddish cycle paths of home.

We managed. We found shaded paths, coolish cafes, and lodging with AC. But for the final day, I took my last train from Utrecht to Amsterdam, wheeled my bike into my apartment building, up the lift, and into my home, right up to my bedroom door. I got a tall glass of ice water, opened the door, felt the coolness, and lay on my bed.