July 2, 2016
My mind is having trouble making sense of what I am seeing. I’m nearing the top of the Arlberg Pass in Austria. It’s been raining steadily on the climb up and it’s also getting cold. I’m in a long tunnel, and thankful for the reprieve from the rain.
The tunnel bends, and as I exit the curve, ahead of me is a puffy, bright blue blob. It looks like someone put a blue light bulb in a large ball of cotton and stuffed it in the end of the tunnel. The tunnel’s edges are fuzzy, not defined. It’s hard to tell where the road goes, but the cotton ball is approaching fast. Suddenly I’m at it, and I realize that it’s dense fog. So dense I can barely see the front fender of my motorcycle. I can’t see the road at all, but I know I’m out of the tunnel and on top of a mountain, with drops on each side and little or no guardrails. If I look straight down, I can see the white stripe on the side of the road, but it fades into the fog within just a few feet ahead of me. I’m traveling about 50 kph (30mph), and I’m hesitant to slow down because I know from the tunnel that there are cars behind me. But I have to, because I can’t see where to go.
I flash my brake light hoping that will help, and begin to slowly lose speed. I can make out headlights behind me, or at least a bright spot, and I’m hoping he can see my tail light.
Suddenly out of nowhere there’s a guy on a bicycle in front of me, and he’s headed the opposite direction, up the hill. I can see him for all of about two seconds before he disappears into the fog again. This is crazy, but there’s no place to safely pull over. If I cross the white stripe, I risk riding off the road and/or off the mountain. I don’t think there’s a shoulder, and if there is, it’s not much safer to stop there than in the middle of the lane.
Within a couple of miles I’ve lost some elevation and the fog is lifting. I’m back to just rain, which before seemed bad, but now is welcome.
The rain continues on and off all afternoon, sometimes heavy, which prevents me from taking many photos. Even so, the scenery and the roads are beautiful. I’ve entered the alps in Tirol, in western Austria, and headed for Switzerland.
That tower is the top of the Olympic ski-jump in Innsbruck. It’s right in town, with a beautiful view from there overlooking the city.
I cross through Liechtenstein and into Switzerland, staying off the motorways and on back roads. The road marked T16 up to the village of Wattwil is beautiful; billiard-table smooth, with fantastic sweeping curves. I consider turning around and riding back down, just so I can ride this stretch of road again.
Yep, it’s a country. With a total area of only 62 square miles, it has the third highest GDP per person in the world, and one of the lowest unemployment rates at 1.5%.
As I near Lucerne, I decide that camping tonight is not going to be much fun, since it’s still raining and everything is very wet, including me. I decide to search for a hotel and quickly find a place with a nice view of a lake from my window.
I missed the 125th anniversary by one day.
Looking out the window of my room this morning. The rain stopped, and the sun is out. I had to carry all of my wet gear down and lay it in the parking lot to dry for a couple of hours.
Everywhere around me looks like this. Beautiful.
There used to be a dairy advertisement in California that said something like, “Great cheese comes from Happy Cows. Happy Cows come from California.” I’m willing to bet these cows would argue that point. Except maybe in winter. These cows probably dream of California in winter.