Day 7: 6/15/24

 Day 7: transfer day

Bike trip organizers often work rides into their travel days. Today is our first one. We leave Scicli and ride to our next hotel in Noto. They pick up our luggage from our hotel rooms in the morning, and when we arrive at our destination, the bags are in our rooms. Nice.

We got bussed to a start so that we would be able to skip a pretty steep climb out of town. On the way, we stopped by a hospital where the guy who broke his wrist had finished getting it set. He is scheduled for surgery on Monday, I guess to put in some pins.

We rode to an agrotourismo organic farm for lunch. Here's the owner showing how they make cheese.  


Hee's the guy who actually makes the cheese. (Cue jokes for "cutting the cheese.) That's one of our guides behind him.


Here she is dishing up pasta norma, home-make pasta with eggplant they grew in a tomato sauces, also from tomatoes they grew. 


It was delicious but we had to get back on our bikes. That's me huddling in the shade.


Somewhere on the afternoon ride, Mike had to pee and it was too hot to wait in the sun, so I pedaled to the next available tree to wait. That's one of the only ways I can get ahead of him to take a picture.


This is also unusual, but Mike stopped to take a picture.


It was a long hot day in the saddle. It felt a lot harder than a 40-mile ride we might do at home. 

We earned this:


The evening involved a tour of the grounds and dinner by the hotel restaurant.

Here's the owner, a descendent of the family that has lived there for hundreds of years.


They had almond trees on the property and she cracked one open. Two people gave it a try.


I love these. Baby cactuses.

The big excitement of the day was that Tom (the strongest rider in our group) and Deb found a drying rack in one of the stairwells. I should have taken a picture of the laundry.

Stats for the day: https://www.strava.com/activities/11658106801 


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