Friday, September 25

From	To	Distance (km)	Average Speed (km/hr)	Max Speed (km/hr)	Odometer (km)	Riding Time (hr:min:sec)	Push-Ups
Meerburg, Germany	Bezau, Austria	101.75	17.7	52.4	998	5:44:36	200

(3100 words)

This morning we got ourselves out of bed at 7:30 and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast of emantaler cheese, cold cuts, seed-covered brötchen upon which I spread sometimes soft cheese and sometimes jam, a small glass of orange juice, and black tea. After breakfast, we packed and loaded our bikes, which the proprietor of the restaurant/hotel had told us to leave in the entryway to the hotel, and headed south along the north side of the Bodensee.

Returning the Key

Over the years I have managed to get a reputation for absent mindedness, and this morning as I left the hotel I pulled one of my absent minded stunts. While staying in hotels and Gasthofs in Germany, I had noticed that the management would sometimes request that I leave the key in the room instead of turning it in at the front desk. I wasn't sure if this was acceptable procedure in all hotels in Germany, but I suspected it might be. Nevertheless, I usually turned the key in at the front desk unless requested explicitly to leave it in the room. This I did because I envisioned that after I left, some sinister character might enter my unlocked and now vacated room and steal valuable objects or otherwise cause trouble for which I would get blamed. That is why this morning, after I had locked the door to our room, I slipped the room key into my pocket before carrying my bags downstairs.

It was, of course, about a half an hour later and several kilometers down the road when I noticed a lumpy feeling in one of my pockets. I reached a hand into my pocket and pulled out a key attached to a plastic red keychain on which was printed a big number four.

"Hey, Matt," I said to Matt who was riding beside me, "guess what?"

"What."

"I still have the key to our room last night."

"Oh, man! Why didn't you just leave it in the room?"

I returned the key to my pocket and proceeded to explain to Matt, as we continued riding south, about the sinister character stealing objects from our unprotected room and ruining our reputations. I knew that we had gone too far already to turn around and take the key back. If we had been on a car trip, we would probably have turned around. But on a bike trip, progress is sacred and backtracking a sin. I quickly decided that I would simply mail the key back to the hotel.

My next problem was figuring out the address of the hotel. I figured it would be easy to look up the number in the phone book and call for the address of the hotel/restaurant, if only I knew its name.

"Do you by any chance know the name of the place we stayed in last night?" I asked Matt.

"Nope."

"Did you get a receipt when you paid this morning?"

"Nope."

Although I was disappointed in myself for being absent-minded in the first place, I knew that figuring out the name and address of the hotel would at least provide a good challenge. When you must solve even simple problems in a foriegn country, you can often learn something. If nothing else, the phone conversations I would have to make would be good practice for my German.

As we rode, I formulated a plan. The previous night, as Matt and I returned from our spaghetti dinners, I had looked at the outside of the hotel/restaurant for a name. The only sign I saw that might have been the name was a small green sign to the left of the door that read, "Schwabenstube." My plan was to look "Schwabenstube" up in the phone book, and if I found it, to call them and ask for their address. If I didn't find it, I would call a travel agent in Meersburg and describe the place, hoping they could give me its real name.

A short while later, Matt and I rolled past a phone booth just before crossing a wooden covered bridge. As I passed, I peered into the phone booth and thought I saw a phone book hanging next to the phone.

"Hey, that was a phone booth," I said to Matt as we rolled across the covered bridge, "Why don't we stop and try to look up Schwabenstube in the phone book."

"Nah," Matt replied. "I'd rather keep making progress right now. We can do the key stuff when we stop for lunch."

"I think we should stop," I insisted, "because it might be hard to find a Meersburg phone book if we wait until we stop for lunch." I made an executive decision. "I'll be quick," I said.

Without waiting for Matt's agreement, I turned my bike around and headed back across the covered bridge. I pulled up to the phone booth and leaned my bike against it. The phone booth did indeed contain a phone book, but inside the phone book I found no Schwabenstube. As I exited the phone booth, Matt pulled up.

"No Schwabenstube." I told him.

We headed back towards the covered bridge, but this time we noticed a small sign across from the entrance to the bridge. All morning we had been following a bike route that ran along the north side of the Bodensee, the "Bodensee Rundweg." This route wasn't extremely well marked, and we had already lost the path on several occasions. We were, in fact, presently off the path. We had recently asked a woman walking her dog how to get back on the bike route, and she had directed us to the covered bridge. I thought she had said to go across the covered bridge and turn left, but she had probably said to go up to the covered bridge and turn left. This time, we turned left before the bridge (the direction indicated by the small bike route sign) and were back on the official path. We then rode non-stop along the bike route to Lindau.

The bike route along the Bodensee felt very fallish to me. The morning had started out foggy and cold. After the fog lifted, the sky remained cloudy. The pavement was damp and dotted with fallen leaves. Many of the maple trees that we passed were yellow and a few were red. The air was cold enough that I wore my blue windbreaker the whole way. It was nice riding.

When we arrived in Lindau, we went first to the main post office. Matt sat outside while I bought an envelope big enough for my key and sufficient postage. I was pleased to discover that Lindau's post office had phone books from all over the region, including Meersburg. With the help of a friendly post office employee, I found Schwabenstube in the Meersburg phone book. It was under the restaurant category in the business section of the white pages. The entry may have also been in the first phone book I had looked in near the covered bridge, but at that point I didn't know how to look businesses up in German phone books. Armed with an envelope, some stamps, and a phone number, I exited the post office.

Matt and I meandered further through Lindau, stopping at a tourist shop to buy a new map and at a grocery store to buy our lunch. As it was cold outside, we ate our lunch indoors, standing at one of several tall tables near the exit of the grocery. After lunch I crossed the road, entered a phone booth, inserted my telephone card, and dialed the number. A woman answered. When I identified myself as someone who had stayed at the hotel the previous night, the woman's reply was, "Der Schlüssel!" ("The key!"). I appologized for my forgetfulness and asked for the address. Upon exiting this phone booth, the address was in my notebook, and the notebook was in my fist. All that remained was simply to send the package.

I was pleased with myself for having solved the problem without sacrificing much progress, only a few minutes spent in two phone booths and a post office. When I arrived back at the bikes, which were parked in an alley next to the grocery store, Matt was about ready to go. At the end of the alley, about 10 meters away, I noted a postbox. With great confidence in my problem-solving abilities, I decided not to expend the two minutes that would be required to insert the key, seal and address the envelop, afix the stamps, and walk 10 meters to the post box. I figured could send the envelop tonight after getting settled in at our next Gasthof. Now was no time to hold up progress. Matt agreed.

Matt and I set out on our bicycles. Following my compass, we rode south looking for the way out of Lindau. As we wove our way through the town, however, I felt some conflicting emotions. I was happy to be making progress, but a part of me wanted to look around Lindau a bit longer. The trouble was that this was not my first time in Lindau. Several years earlier, I had visited Lindau with my girlfriend, Siew, on the recommendation of Kurt Sohn, my relative in Eßlingen. I can still hear Kurt saying that Lindau is, "ein ganz schöne Stadt" ("a singularly beautiful city"). It is. It was beautiful in winter when Siew and I had visited, and it was beautiful now in the fall. I had a lot of nice memories from my visit with Siew that I wanted to refresh. But, alas, this was no time to be sentimental. This was time to make progress.

I resigned myself simply to try to pay close attention to whatever we passed as Matt and I rode out of Lindau. At one point we rode through a public square that I remembered from my earlier trip with Siew. The square sits on the water and has a pier and a tower topped by a majestic statue of a lion. I opened my eyes wide and soaked up the city as we rode through it. A few minutes later, we arrived at what was obviously a bridge. Confused, we rode across the bridge.

We had already figured out that part of Lindau is on an island, but we weren't sure why my compass would be leading us to the island. After some debate, Matt and I decided to turn around and head back across the bridge, because we didn't want to go to the island.

I already knew that traveling by compass is a bit of a black art. My compass seemed to be correct only about 80% of the time, perhaps, I thought, because of interference by man-made electomagnetic radiation. Matt and I continued heading south, as best we could given my uncooperative compass, which seemed to be in a mood for spinning around in circles. Nevertheless, we felt confident we were going in the right direction, because we were following a path that ran right next to the water. It was a very nice path, especially for me. I was happy because as I rode along this path, I kept recognizing places I had been with Siew. About 20 minutes later, Matt and I pulled into a public square on the water with a pier and a tower topped by a majestic statue of a lion.

With a nagging sense of déjà-vu, we rode on. In a few minutes we arrived once again at the bridge. Here we stopped and scratched our heads. I called out to a passing bicyclist, asking him if this bridge would not lead us to the island. He told me that we were already on the island, that the bridge would take us off the island. With this insight, the whole picture fell into place. Matt and I had unknowingly ridden onto the island when we first arrived in Lindau. All the places we had visited -- the post office, tourist shop, and grocery store -- were on the island. When we turned around the first time we crossed the bridge, we returned to the island and then completely circumnavigated it. Although this tour of the island didn't help our progress much, I was secretly happy for the opportunity to refresh my memories of Lindau.

We crossed the bridge a third and last time, and headed in the direction of Bregenz, Austria, at the southern tip of the Bodensee. Before long I saw a sign welcoming us to Austria. We were about a kilometer deep into Austrian territory, when it hit me that I had German stamps.

A bike trip, like life, is a series of little problems. I have always felt that it is important not to let the little problems bother you. I think you get more enjoyment when you take things in stride and suspect it is more healthy. If you have a problem, you solve it. You don't complain and you don't get mad. Sometimes, however, I seem to let the problems get to me.

For some reason, the realization that I had German stamps that I wouldn't be able to use in Austria made my color rise. It pissed me off. I instantly realized that my options were (1) to be a jerk to the Schwabenstube and wait until I got back to Germany (perhaps three days) to mail the key, (2) to waste time and money by finding a post office in Austria, buying more stamps, and mailing the envelop in Austria, and (3) to go against the grain of every cell in my bike touring body and backtrack to Germany in search of a postbox. This was going to require some serious discussion and negotiation with Matt.

When I informed Matt of our predicament, he said the most important thing to him at that time was to find a gas station where he could go to the bathroom. So we rode on and before long arrived at a gas station. While Matt took care of his business, I readied the envelop. I gently placed the key into the envelop and sealed it, then wrote the address of the Schwabenstube on the outside in block letters. After visiting the bathroom myself, I spoke with Matt about the key. We decided the best course of action was to go back to Germany. In silence, we climbed on our bikes and rode back the way we came.

Germany was just a little over a kilometer away, and we found a postbox just on the other side of the border. As I slid the envelop in the postbox, I knew that the one kilometer detour back to Germany was insignificant. The only problem was that I had let it bother me. As we again crossed the border into Austria heading for Bregenz, I tried to let the key incident go and get back to enjoying a bike ride.

Arriving in Austria

Before long we arrived in Bregenz. When we crossed from Germany into Austria (both times), I had noticed a sudden degradation in the polishedness of the infrastructure. The roads, bridges, sidewalks, and buildings seemed run down in Austria compared to Germany. Bregenz also felt run down to me, and not very friendly to bicycles. The city had too few signs and too much traffic. Looking at our map, Matt and I noted a river named the "Bregenzer Ache" running through the city. We decided to aim for that river. We pushed our way for several kilometers through city traffic and fumes, my compass as our guide, until we found the Ache.

As we had hoped, the Ache had a bike path running next to it. We rolled down to the bike path and headed west, towards the Alps. Once we were on this unpaved bike path, Austria started looking good. The water in the river was rushing fast, with lots of waterfalls and rock formations. Between us and the river to our right were trees. To our left were homes, fields, and more trees. And better still, it was not long before we began to see large mountains rising up before us.

We took the path to Wolfurt, where I pulled up next to a lady on a bicycle and asked for advice. I couldn't quite make out all she said, but I understood that Matt and I wouldn't be able to take the Ache any further. So Matt and I turned down a street that headed vaguely in the direction the lady on the bicycle had pointed. We knew from our map that we wanted next to ride to Schwarzach, but we couldn't seem to find any signs pointing the way. We rode for several kilometers by compass and intuition, but finally stopped at a gas station. I asked how to get to Schwarzach, and was told to keep going the way I had been going. About another 50 meters up the road Matt and I passed a big sign that said we were leaving Wolfurt and entering Schwarzach.

Just past Schwarzach we turned left onto a steep road that followed a winding brook five kilometers up a forested mountain. The trees and rushing water were beautiful, but the road had no shoulder and a lot of traffic. In part because of the traffic danger, and in part because we had the fire in our bellies, we rode hard and fast up this hill. When we arrived at the small town of Alberschwende, we pulled over in front of a barn and did our first 50 push-ups of the day.

We continued on to Müselbach, where we were rewarded for our climb by a wonderful downhill. The road was wide and well-paved, at just the right angle of decline that I could my put bike in high gear and pedal vigorously. I was in front, zipping down at 40 to 50 km/hr, trying to concentrate on being careful while noticing all the scenery. We were definitely in the Alps now. We were riding down into a valley that was lined on the other side by rocky, alpine mountains jutting up into the sky.

Once we reached the valley, the road flattened out. We encountered gentle uphills and downhills as we rode along the valley through Egg and Andelsbuch, finally coming to rest in Bezau. In Bezau we found a Gasthof, finished our push-ups, ate dinner at a nearby Italian pizzeria, and wrote a postcard to Mao, our friend Valerie's fluffy white cat.