Let's cut to the chase -- we're here in Fiumicino! Which is obvious, because otherwise I'd not be writing this. The only suspense revolves around how bruised and battered our bikes and we might be. Both fared fairly well. Thanks for asking!

The first hour of our recent overseas journeys has involved a race between me, with the bikes in a car driven by my kind friend Fred, and my dear wife, who takes public transportation due to lack of room in the car. It's a gambit that has worked flawlessy so far. Anyway, today, Fred and I won the race by about 10 minutes.

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We worried about Labor Day crowds and recent reports of security lines that snaked into the parking garage. We experienced quite the opposite. It was smooth sailing all the way. I can't tell you exactly why that was the case, but I'm thankful. 

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Our luck continued as we settled into a plane of unusually mellow fellow passengers. As a result, we were in fine spirits until the last hour of the flight, when the time difference really caught up with us. Adding insult to injury, we endured a 4-hour layover, only to find that we were sharing the next plane's cabin with a large group of rowdy students returning from an English language institute. They weren't too bad, all considering.

So we trudge to the very last baggage carousel in the terminal and wait for our bikes. The din of teen antics dies down as they retrieve their bags one by one. A few lonely suitcases spin slowly in search of their masters. A couple whose luggage has obviously not made the flight, peek desperately under the car-washy rubber tassels that separate us passengers from the brutish behind-the-scenes reality of intra-airport cargo transport, hoping for a miracle. I focus on these vignettes rather than fantisize that our bikes appear magically out of thin air, because oversize bags run on their own time table and one must simply respect the mystery of it all, or else be lost in a quagmire of anxiety. Of course I say this while also reminiscing of our experience a decade ago at Heathrow, our first ever time flying with bikes*, in which we waited an hour before trying to track down an employee. In that case, we could see our boxes on the conveyor belt, a few metres beyond our reach, but it simply wasn't moving. Someone had fallen asleep at the power button (figuratively), and we felt foolish for being passive for so long.

This evening, our boxes do show up, late to the party but still looking dapper. It's dark outside, and we wisely decide to look for a van of some sort to whisk us and our boxes to a nearby guest house.

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After failed attempts to find a stand for local taxis (does one even exist?), we join the short queue of folks heading to Rome. The taxis and drivers have their own queue, which is much longer. I spot a van far back in this line, thinking that the hatchback drivers will direct us towards that guy, but no, the fella whose turn it is decides he's going to make this thing work come hell or high water, and by Jove, he manages to pull it off, much to our, and his, joy.

We're the last fare of our fair driver's long workday, so he's eager to be rid of us. In the ensuing haste, we realize that we've left one of our bags in the taxi! Oh no! With what little energy we have left, we first curse to high heaven and then start brainstorming. Just as we've resigned ourselves into hoping he finds our contact information in the bag, another taxi barrels down the street towards us. Hey, wait, isn't that our taxi? Why yes, it is! And it's stopping! And the driver rolls down the window and hands us our bag. We thank him profusely and let out a huge sigh of relief. It takes us a few minutes to process the rollercoaster of emotions that has just washed over us.

That was our one big mishap of the day, and we're glad there was only one. So much can go wrong when you're running on fumes. We have a safe and comfortable home in which to assemble the bikes at our leisure. Yes, we're growing soft in our old age, but I'm starting to think that we really were crazy to have done it any other way.

* That tour marked a lot of firsts: first time in Europe together, first times being a Warmshowers guest, first time riding in a country that takes bike travel seriously (Netherlands). Sadly, at the time, I hadn't yet discovered the joys of travel writing. I keep toying with the idea of piecing together a retrospective journal of the trip, but I think that without the element of immediacy, such an attempt would likely fall flat.