Splitsko-dalmatinska, Croatia - Polarsteps

Sometime, eventually, we hope to catch up on this blog. We've had a pile of Bike Trip Administration to do lately (we have a major jump coming up in mid-June, and it needs us to be organized), and hard deadlines to get places, and our day-to-day reality of cycling, finding food and water, figuring out where to sleep at night, washing our laundry in sinks, cooking dinner on a camp stove, and setting up and taking down our home every day. I'm going to start uploading some photos-only steps, to at least visually share what we've been up to, with the hope of adding text in later. A summary since our last post in the south of Morocco: -We cycled north. We crossed the High Atlas a second time, then the Middle Atlas, then the Rif mountains. Children in the desert towns became a source of stress and road danger in a way that I probably can't properly explain to anyone who wasn't there; that deserves its own post. -We picked up a police escort! A rite of passage, and a nuisance. We were a bit sassy with them. -Two dear friends came all the way from Oaxaca, Mexico to meet us in Chefchaouen for a week. It was the best. Kini turned 36! -We left Morocco on the three-day ferry to Genoa, Italy in the company of five other touring cyclists; spent those three days sharing and debriefing on our experiences. -We ate pasta and gelato; I turned 36. -We cycled one day out of Genoa, immediately came down with covid (our first), and spent the next week recovering in a campground. Our route plan required maximizing our dwindling days left in the Schengen area; the lost week took our planning back to square one. We struck Slovenia and northern Croatia from our route and planned to take the ferry across the Adriatic from Ancona, Italy to southern Croatia. -Post-covid we immediately started climbing mountains; needed frequent "lung breaks". -We stayed in Florence with a host who basically runs a free hostel out of his home; it was a unique and quirky experience. Did touristy things; went to the Uffizi Gallery. -We realized we had just enough time to bike to Venice before heading south to Ancona to catch the ferry. We climbed mountains, made friends with a 23-year-old Italian cyclist at the top of one, and rode with him for two days. We camped together in some woods by a river and celebrated our one-year roadiversary with grocery store tiramisu, then rode the next day to a German catfish camp on the Po River, where the host wouldn't take our money and gave us cold beer instead. -We camped outside of Venice and took the bus into town for a single day. We met up with Alex, a traveller from Hong Kong who we'd met in our hosting situation in Florence, and he did an A+++ job of touring us around the city. -Flat coastal riding; beach resort towns on the weekend, bike lanes full of day-drunk pedestrians. -Overnight boat, slept on some couches. -The southern Croatian coast is delivering amazing views, big rewarding climbs, and a steady stream of touring cyclists heading both ways across the eastern countries. Side roads through villages are a joy. Elderly ladies blowing kisses at us are, too. The coastal highway is great visually and terrible in all the other ways. Kini might be on the edge of throwing rocks at cars; we'll see how the coming days unfold. -Still into it, still cycling.