After three weeks of non-stop travel around Europe, it was nearly time to move on towards the goal - Germany. As much as I dream of a permanent life on the road (maybe in about four years we'll be there!), one unfortunately has to work for a living. And, on Monday, the 9th of October, that's exactly what we did.
Stefan is a hard-working guy. He spends a lot of time driving around meeting clients and doing odd jobs for them. Like me, he can pick up as much or as little work as he's in the mood to do. Another nice thing about his work is that he is able to help me pay for my visits. It seems that every time I go to visit, he's got another job with which I am able to help. During this particular visit, I raked in probably about as much as I had spent over the last couple weeks of travel. Not a bad arrangement! After a long day of moving furniture, we headed back to his town to have a very enjoyable dinner at the home of our friend Pascal.
The next day, I swapped out the battery on my motorbike with the one that I had bought in Spain. Then, after a quick oil change, the old thing started up as well as if I hadn't left it sitting in a shed for the last year! I was quite relieved because the last time I had ridden it, the old beast had just about every problem you can imagine (problems that would only get worse). As a few mechanics had warned me, these problems were signals of the bike's imminent demise. Of course, I only required short-term functionality, so no worries!
After my great success with reviving the motorbike, we all had lunch at Stefan's outdoor lounge area overlooking his town, Brittnau. The following day, I packed up my gear in preparation for my ride up toward Stuttgart.
It was several hours, with the usual adventures (I always say "it's not an adventure until something goes wrong!"): a pump that stole my money, a wrong turn up a beautiful stretch of autobahn... one of my brakes failing. Well, as my dad likes to say, "one of two things will happen." In this case, I'll either make it or I won't. Thankfully, I made it to my first camping spot... I just had to convince a forest ranger that I was just lost (he then directed me back toward the autobahn) so that he wouldn't come looking for me. I then turned down another road where I could camp without being found. Of course, I had the hammock that Stefan gave me, so that would probably afford a bit of leeway with locals anyway. As I've previously noted, the simple and non-invasive design of a hammock seems to have a slightly better appeal in the eyes of the authorities in Europe. So far, so good!
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