Bike - weekend

50th Wedding anniversary and cycling tours

This weekend was full of activity... As there is much to wwrite about, I'll split this up and write just about Saturday now.

Valeska's "Bloomington-Worldwode-Friendship" - host family invited her to their 50th wedding anniversary in the "Life and family Worship Center", located at a romantic place directly nixt to the highway to Indianapolis. As Valeska didn't want to go there alone, she asked me to join her and finally she could convince me with the idea of combining this with a cycling tour. Se we cancelled the transportation, that was offered to us and went there per bike. Quite an adventure - not on the highway though, but on the Old State Road (the highway before the new highway was built - what was more a rollercoaster than a street because of the many "rolling hills") But it was such a beautiful ride....through large fields, over creeks and between farms....the air was smelling like in the Austrian Alps - cows, freshly moaned grass - very nice.
But as soon as we arrived at the Worship Center, it became very American again. The "bride and groom", Louise and Paul Bonney (you see them in the next picture; - they're by the way not related to Barbara Bonney, I asked) had rented a whole gymnasium that was decorated over and over in gold and silver with a huge wedding cake in the center:

There were round tables around that where the over 100 guests could sit down and eat the delicious but very American food from the buffet:


That's just the fruit section (Yes, this is really a very illuminated pinapple - as I said - American :) There were also meatballs with pinapple and cherry sauce, mashed potatoes (of course) mixed with cheese and cornflakes, green beans (also as always), then a variety of cheeses and raw vegetables, these fruits and then another dessert table, where you could grab brownies, cookies, or a kind of sparkling lemonade with melting ice cream in it.
While we were eating, a band was playing love songs non stop, like "Love me tender" or "You are my special angel" and the 2 sons gave speeches. (both named Paul, because their mother, the bride, loves her husband, also called Paul, so much, that she calls everything, even her animals, after him.)
Then there was the wedding cake - cutting ceremony, the elderly couple were feeding each other with pieces of the cake (just using their fingers) - then everybody was allowed to eat it. It was a bisquit dough with lots of sugar around and most people ate it together with salty peanuts. Crazy...

After this accumulation of calories I was happy to have the 2nd part of the cycling tour - here's Valeska on our way back - behind her the "Wahlplakate" for the city council election.