Epilogue: Bern to Zurich to San Francisco

 In the morning, after a breakfast (in which the kids discovered a fresh orange juice presser and delighted in pressing their own fresh squeeze) Xiaoqin and I took a walk around the city, admiring the street fair/farmer's market that had sprung up in the morning, amidst the gorgeous views of the Swiss Alps. Our journey was at an end, and upon returning to the hotel we checked out and headed to the train station. There was a mix up as to where Boen and my train were, and when we finally found the platform, it was far easier to ride the tandem out and over to the platform than to walk it through the station, so that's what we did. We had time to get onto the train and hug each other goodbye, and the Bern train station's elevator happily took our tandem. 

Once on board the train back to Zurich, we could relax, since we had no exciting time-tight transfers today. Upon arriving at Zurich, I noted that we could have taken this train all the way to the airport, but it wasn't raining and I'd neglected to make the bike reservation, so we exited the train. Getting back to the surface was easy: take the panniers off the tandem, then get onto the escalator and hold on to the brakes for dear life. 

Exiting the station, I set a course for the Airport Hilton. Garmin took us on a route unfamiliar to me but turned out to be better than the one we had used before. Near the hotel, the route took us through a residential neighborhood and then up a rough stuff traverse to avoid the busy highway in front of the hotel, dumping us onto the hotel parking lot. I was impressed! The rain had held off so far. 

We checked into the hotel, and extracted the bike boxes and luggage, and took apart the tandem while rain drops fell, one at a time, on occasion on us. We were all done with the packing of the bike by the time the rain really started, and we went into the hotel after leaving the bike boxes in the hotel's luggage. 

We went down to the Coop and the Migros to buy a supermarket lunch as well to pick up extra chocolate to bring home. The storm on the way back was intense, but we managed to get back without getting too wet. We booked a shuttle to return to the airport for the next day. 

In the morning, we ate the breakfast we'd bought the night before in the room and took the shuttle to the airport. At the United counter, the counter check-in person was so enamored by Boen's story of riding in the alps that she didn't even bother weighing our bike boxes, just led us to the oversized counter with everything tagged and wished us luck! 

We spent our waiting time at the Sprungli chocolate for lunch and bought a hundred dollars' worth of chocolate to bring home. 

On the flight, I started writing the trip report. Upon landing, the bikes showed up quickly and in one piece, and Xiaoqin picked us up, having arrived a couple of hours before. Our tour was over.