Greetings from Slovokia

I came across Poland, and as a last stop I stopped in Krakow. It has a nice town square and "Old Town". But, you know what? After ahile these cities start to look alike: A square set up with sidewalk restaurants, several street musicians, A couple of churches. Several years ago, I was in the Amazon rain forest in Peru, and I happened to meet a veterinarian and his wife from Wales. One night, we were coming back to camp by a large canoe, and the man running the boat started pointing out the eyes of Caimans, a type of alligator, glowing in the torchlight. After awhile, the veterinarian from Wales turned to me and said "You know, after you've seen one caiman, you've seen the lot".

This sort of sums up my attitude toward cities. I much prefer the forests and mountain. ln fact, although I strolled around for a while in Krakow, I didn't take a single picture.

I decided to go tour the famous salt mine near Krakow instead. Let me tell you: If you are ever in Krakow, Poland, don't bother with the expensive salt mine tour. There is nothing there to see except some old displays to so how the salt was mined back-in-the-day.

There are also some big rooms carved out by the salt miners, and some pictures and statues made of salt.

So I moved on to Prague in the Czech Republic. My daughter, Jessica, is living there while her husband, Renaud, is finishing up a course in advanced chemistry.

Jessica and I rode across south Czech Republic to a town called Brno (They need to put some vowels in their language). We stayed at a hostel there. The people at the hostel had me bring my bike into the hallway rather than leave it outside where people might mess with it during the night. This is Jessica with the bike.

It was a restless night at the hostel, but today dawned sunny and nice. This is a welcome change after driving a lot of last night in the rain. We headed off Slovakiia.

It was a beautiful ride across smaller country roads and through an endless swarm of small villages. But somewhere in there I got a bug in my eye (I think -- I got some drops for it from a drug store. I sure hope they work.

Here is Jessica. I don;t think she has a bug her her eye.

We stopped at a beautiful pension for the night. I am loving it here: Clean beds, quiet, a marvelous shower which I hit right away. All the comforts of home.

Jessica is our trip leader, and she says she has a full day planned for us tomorrow. So I had better put this tired old body down for a long old sleep.