LA

 

We are on a train heading east out Prague. The country side looks familiar, like that of central Minnesota with rolling agriculture land. Farmers are raising dust as they harvest corn and bail grass hay. Some fields are already barren.  

Earlier today Martin and his 18 month old son Timi met us at the train station and we had a most excellent visit as we strolled through Old Town towards his Charles University office near the Malostranske square. It was getting on in the afternoon to meet our train so we beelined are way back making me a liar once saying I never needed to cross the Charles Bridge again.  Martin helped us find our train platform and soon we were headed east to our stop at Ceska Trebova. 

The 271 train  continues its run south towards Brno before heading to Wein(Vienna). It’s a very punctual train.  At our stop in Ceska Trebova Daniela and her mom, Alena were anxiously looking at all the passengers disembarking. We were the last off and when they saw us they ran towards us with arms open. It was a glorious reunion. The last time we saw them was in 2019 when they visited us with Daniela’s sister Alća and we took a world wind tour through the Tetons, Yellowstone, the Bitterrot valley of Montana and traveling south along the salmon river to Stanley before going to Sun Valley so her family could see where she worked a previous summer. After the warm welcome we jumped in the car and headed to LA, or Lanškroun as it is marked on maps. 

That evening we ate a traditional svíčková. Look it up. Come to CZ and try it yourself. My words cannot do it justice. Later Ráchel stopped by to visit with her new daughter. What a blessing. Rachel was part of each of our previous Rescued and Travna visits and was a guest of ours in Boise when she did a month or two internship at church. 

After another early night battling jet lag we awoke and readied ourselves for a short 30 kilometer bike ride through the LA country side. Daniela’s dad, Jiři is our guide. The route was mixed with local roads, bike paths, nature paths, single track, and two track farm roads. It started following a stream bottom up through a narrow wooded valley. The trails and roads undulated and twisted there until we came to our first kava stop at a bistro along side the road in a small village. The cappuccino was joined with a fresh koláč, a Czech pastry staple. Afterwards we continued up before topping off overlooking rolling and hilly farm country. At one point we were traveling along a continental divide that separated water flowing north to the  North Sea or southeast to the Baltic. Then it was mostly downhill back towards LA along bike routes, fam field roads and some rough rooted single track back to LA and our last stop by a recreational area for a cool mug of pivo. Our 30 km turned into nearly 42km but I would do it all over again. 

That evening was a family gathering on the porch with all of Daniela’s family; mother, sister, two brothers, father and 5 nieces and nephews. Alena prepared another feast of traditional family foods. Body and souls made full, we slept well.