What a wonderful sleep at Little Graceland. It was absolutely quiet, and just so peaceful. Monika had a great breakfast ready for us when we came downstairs. I tried to figure out if I could strap her coffee machine on my rear rack. What a neat machine! Her B and B is such a comfortable spot, with just two rooms. Check it out at www.little-Graceland.ch. Monika herself is just such a lovely person. She has a great sense of humour and is kind to people and animals.
Breakfast was also fun because of her other guest, Wilfried. The weather meant we weren't in a hurry to get going, and we had decided on a shorter day today, also due to weather. So we relaxed over multiple coffees and enjoyed the conversation. When we could put it off no longer we bundled up and headed to the barn to say good bye to the real horses and saddle up our Surly ponies. I was so bundled up it was hilarious. I was as layered as an onion. I kept thinking of the wise woman in Vienna who said there is no wrong weather, only wrong clothing!
Switzerland has a different plug system, and Monika wisely has an adaptor we could borrow, but this still made me laugh. I know it was OK because of the low draw of each charger, but it looks rather alarming, don't you think? The camera charger is empty because I had to retrieve the battery to take the picture. Like last year, between the two of us we have four lights, two iPods, one iPad, two phones, two battery packs, and one Garmin. Ridiculous. But we use it all. We each bring an adapter and a three plug power bar, which works very well. In this set up we had to plug one power bar into the other.
We rode away laughing and singing Elvis tunes. The forecast was for rain and cold...a potent combination I think, but the rain never materialized. In the first half hour there were some mild efforts by the weather gods, but it didn't amount to anything. That was the first unexpected part of the day...we stayed dry! It certainly was cold, but I was so layered up I was warm and toasty all day. Even Keith had to concede, and for the first time this trip he wore his long pants. So he was warm and toasty too. The beginning of route 77 went through some great little Swiss wine villages. It was a very grey day, and the views were good. Imagine if the sun had been shining. We love riding through vineyards
The combination of purple and yellow was great in real life. The picture doesn't do it justice.
Trail side views. This route was so well marked it was easy to navigate. In fact, I earned my keep as the GTW navigational device as Keith would be checking his trusty Galileo, and I would point and call "Go this way". The signage was that good.
More fall riding. The signs in Switzerland were a deep red/burgundy colour. When we crossed the border into Germany they became the familiar green on a white background, which is actually sometimes harder to spot. Kind of camouflaged in the foliage!
When we reached Lauchringen, I was starving. It wasn't logical, we had only gone about 25 km, but I was ravenous. For only the second time this bike tour, we ate lunch indoors. We noticed the locals piling into a tiny little spot. Keith checked it out first, and then sent me in to see what I thought. I didn't get past the threshold. It smelled phenomenal. In we went.
This woman was fantastic. She spoke perfect English, made great suggestions and was so welcoming.
The next big community was Waldshut-Tiengen. We were rejoining the Eurovelo 6 here. But first we unexpectedly came across an umleitung (detour) on the radweg. We usually go to great efforts to ignore these, figuring we can always claim we don't know what umleitung means. This was major stuff though, and after a few efforts to go through, we were forced to take the detour and were in big box store land. Absolutely hilarious. It was a fun ride (I know, that is hard to believe), and Keith actually made a foray into one, which looks like the German version of Home Depot. It is even orange. I will have to look that up. It really was quite the ride.
The no go zone. You would think it would be obvious, but we could see the path just past here, and it looked fine...
Shortly after this, we came across the next unexpected sight. Keith belongs to the Clover Point Men's Club, and we stumbled upon the most perfect CPMC vehicle imaginable. We were given permission to go inside and check it out. We loved it!
The cheap seats towards the back. I mean really, doesn't this look like fun? Clovergals (not to be confused with Cloverettes) this is what we need for our girls weekend in November. Wouldn't it be fun to take this up to Qualicum Bay?
Even a coffee machine. I suspect something other than cream goes into this coffee! Donna, do you have time to retrofit your van before we head up in November??
Then, another unexpected detour. I only have about twenty German words (and that may be an exaggeration) but I was able to deduce that while the radweg looked fine, the bridge was closed down the river, so we had to stay on the north side. Dogern it, it meant we had to go through Dogern! There we saw the brightest thing we saw all day.
View from the bridge to the south side, where we found the umleitung warning that the next bridge was....well, my German didn't extend to that. I just knew it wasn't possible to cross back on it.
We rode through an apple orchard and they had a farm stand. Keith said to buy one of each kind of apple, so I did. He looked at my big bag of apples when I came out in astonishment. Someone has to carry the darn things, so we will eat a lot of apples tomorrow to lighten the load. I guess I took him a little too literally.
We arrived in beautiful Laufenburg having had a great day, full of unexpected things, not the least of which was that we stayed dry. The last unexpected thing was quite funny though. We wanted to come back here with time to really explore because last year when we rode through here the place astonished us. It really is gorgeous. Today when we arrived we wanted to go get some snacks for the feed bag, and were directed up the hill to the supermarket, and there is modern Laufenburg, with all the modern conveniences, well hidden from the bike route. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised there is a modern Laufenburg, but it is so well hidden from the historical part and the radweg. We got our snacks, including seven! Snickers bars for 2 Euro, and are very cosy in our room.
Another short day tomorrow. We are going only as far as Rheinfelden to visit our friends Gerhard and Yvonne. Then it will be on to Freiburg and the babies. The time is going by way too fast. Today was another amazing day.
