Kilometers - 294
Passes - None worth mentioning
Can you say RAIN?! No pictures today because we were too busy getting RAINED ON! (and the cameras were safely tucked away under waterproof covers.) All three of us found out that while Arai makes very comfortable helmets, their performance in the rain leaves a bit to be desired. We found that they tend to allow water to drip off the helmet and into the inside of the face shield, then splash on the nose guard and make your face wet.
Memories from riding were the wrong turn roundabout that was under construction and was all loose wet gravel and muddy potholes with traffic. The other was the quarter mile, loose gravel construction zone. We also found that Rob's statement from a previous evening that "your whole world can change from the time you enter a tunnel to the time you leave a tunnel" was definitely true... when we entered the Lofer tunnel it was only lightly sprinkling. When we came out the other side it was POURING! Thank goodness there was a cappuccino stop not far on the other side.
We also found out about friendly locals today: we stopped (on a sidewalk) in a rainstorm in Bad Tolz to try and figure out which direction we were supposed to leave town. David was following and suddenly there was another motorcycle pulled up behind him. At first David thought it was another Beach's cycle, but after a second look (and probably wiping some of the fog off his face-shield ;-) he saw that it was a local. After a brief conversation in German, the fellow switched to English (yes, David's German is far from perfect) and he gave us directions for where we want to go and followed us for a bit until we were on the road. Shortly after Bad Tolz it started hailing (but stopped fairly quickly.)
David's pre-trip attempts to get Paige to buy a new pair of rain pants were vindicated at lunch when Paige finally admitted that she was getting a little damp on the backside and that her rain pants were not really waterproof. Brian took this very seriously and stopped at the first motorcycle shop we came to in Austria and bought her a PVC rain suit that the shop guy pulled from the top shelf and dusted off. We didn't even have any Austrian shillings yet, so we paid 90 Deutsch marks for it.
When we arrived at the hotel, the owners were greeting us with offers to take our wet clothing and gloves to their boiler room for it to dry. The sun came out just in time for dinner at 7 pm. :-p
After dinner Rob took those of us with interest into old town Salzburg for a tour. We took all those pictures with the APS camera using 400 speed film. The roll is only half done, so we'll have to scan in some photos to update this page. There was a big castle up on the hill which had been converted into apartments which were relatively cheap since it was a pain to get up and down off the hill. Otherwise we don't remember much except beautiful buildings and pretty gardens and David dropping his glove liners and Paige running back to get them...and they were still there!