Speyer

May 27 South of Mainz Germany
 
    Did well after my big night at the Perle on the Rhine Hotel in Bad Zalzig. Put on over 70 K in less than six hours. Had the same old probs with my front shifter, even though I thought I’d fixed it. I’ll try again tomorrow. If it doesn’t work I’ll find me a real bike mechanic.
    Wouldn’t hurt to clean up the area around the shift mechanism. I’ve ridden in a lot of mud and debris lately. Also have a tiny warp in the front, think I can adjust that.
    First part of my day was a ride along a highway, tho’ off it a bit, not exactly on, but beside. There was a couple Swiss guys about my age travelling the same distance for a while. Think they quit is St. Boar, or Doar, or Roar, I’ve forgotten and I’m too lazy to pull my map back out. Besides, its spitting some and I just dried the damned thing out.
    St. whatever oar it was, was a neat town. Sort of like a mini Banff. Really touristy with a lot of people speaking English, mostly Brit, but I did catch a Texas drawl or two. There was a hostel there! And another Gasthaus that cost half what I paid last night. Damn! Thought about stopping there, only 20 K into today’s ride, but the weather was decent so I pushed on. It stayed decent, except for the odd instance when it threatened to rain. It didn’t, not until I got here and was set up, then it started to sputter.
    Good half my was on lowlands behind a dyke. Never saw the river for hours. Actually got lost in there for a while, but it turned out I took a short cut. It was lovely land, with lots of orchards and poppy fields, long green wheat stocks, and in places multitudes of birds singing. There are many less birds here than in Holland. Last night there were none, not even gulls chasing the river boats.
    Ate for three or more at breakfast. Ham, cheese, bread, buns and butter, dry cereal, eight ounces of pineapple juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, raisin bread, coffee. Didn’t want to stop. Boss of the place, Markus, didn’t seem to mind. He kinda knew I was out to get my money’s worth. It worked! I powered up good today. Lots of zest even tho’ I forwent my usual dose of bee pollen. Think I did a good 50 K before I slowed down at all. I did slow down.
    Took a few breaks in the last 20 K then got a little lost entering Mainz. An old Romanian fellow, who was slowly ploddidng along on an clunker, guided me through the town to the river. He tried to tell me where to find nearby camping but I misunderstood him. We talked a bit, what we could. He told me his dad and him once cycled across Romania, not long after world war two. Man was 75 at least, spry, with a big smile. He had a cooler full of sausages he’d made on the back of his bike. It would be his dinner he told me.
    He left me a few blocks from the Rhine. I’d got confused after following the river for so long. Coming from the north the area of the Rhine near
Mainz is all industrial. The bike paths skirt it and have some confusing signs. I got twisted around a couple times, even wound up in some mud, and some strange happenings.
    Saw a man with a dog and asked him, Mainz, pointing the way I thought it was. He didn’t answer, so I asked again, Mainz? He pointed the one way I could not go, there was no path, then promptly fell on the ground. His dog when up and licked him. I asked if he was okay. He didn’t seem to hear me. Then he started to get up again, got halfway onto one leg, then fell backwards. Then he sat up and just stayed still, cursing like this sort of thing happened to him all the time. I asked again if he was okay. He didn’t respond. Then a guy who seemed to know him came by in a car. They both ignored me, so I carried on the direction I thought I should go. Eventually it led me to the path.
    I was hoping to stop in Mainz but the wind just sort of blew me right on through. Stopped a young couple and their little girl and asked about a
“camping platz”. They assured me all I needed to do was stay on the path. They seemed genuinely excited to talk to me, and were curious about what I was doing. When I told them their eyes opened wide with shock and they started prattling on at me in German for a couple minutes until they realized I didn’t have a clue what they were saying. They, particularly the guy, looked a little embarrassed after. They both smiled and waved at me when I said, “donkey shane”.
    Campground is kinda, not kinda, is the quintisential definition of “cheesy”. Its really a motor home park where everyone sits around getting drunk all the time. At some point they realized there was a lot of cyclists rolling by looking to camp, so they cleared a rough patch of ground and designated it for tenting. Basically I’m up against a fence out back of the lodge, between it and the Rhine Highway. No view of the river tonight, no view of anything. Just a patch of ground to put a tarp over and access to a hot shower, which I’m about to go enjoy.
    I’m sore tonight but good. Legs are hard like steel. Good spirits. Really relieved it didn’t rain. There’s only so much of that crap I can take.
    Will likely push on to somewhere near Mansheim tomorrow. I had hoped to give Mainz an extra look but I’m already past it. If I do make Mansheim tomorrow I’ll be in striking distance of Baden Baden or Weingarten for Monday. At some point I may just try to put myself on a train to Tubingen, then go back and see Baden Baden when I’m done there. I’m so close, I’d really like to get around to seeing my pal Angela soon. Its been nearly six years.
    Anyway, had a good day, and interesting day, a rewarding day. Campground ain’t no hell and I’m all alone, but things are okay.


May 28, near Speyer Germany

    Another 70 plus K day!
    Wasn’t as easy as the day before. Well, it was, but I beat myself up a lot more.
    Things got rough going out of Stalag Lauderheim. Didn’t realize how locked in I was until I tried to get out. The place had two lines of fences, and a big gate, not at all unlike a Stalag, prison camp.
    Figured all I had to do was open the gate. So I went over and unlatched it and the damn thing swung open knocking me and Wheels to the ground. I
cursed, which I guess the matron heard, because she came along with a big frown on her face.
    Then she started walking with me towards the main entrance, which she had to key-unlock. It moved open, side to side, just enough to allow me and Wheels through. Once out, I looked back. It did look like a stalag, with the big fenced gates, barbed wire all around, and an old shed that looked like a tower. Funny thing was, all that security, and a low six foot fence along one perimeter that any kid could climb over. I was surprised it wasn’t electrified.
    I was eager to get away, so I took off, then realized my coffee cup wasn’t bobbing along on my handlebar pannier. I turned around, went back, tried to go back in the gate to retrieve it. It was locked. I called out, no answer. Finally I found a button. I pushed it.
    Through a little voice box on a nearby pillar came a gruff, “Morgan!”
    “It’s the Canadian cyclist, I forgot my cup. I need to come back in,” I said into the voice box.
    “Okay, one moment,” came the reply.
    Minutes later the matron appeared, walked across the parking lot and opened the gate, then walked with me to the second gate, opened it, and watched as I went in a fetched my cup for the low stump where I’d set it. I went back out both gates, hearing them clank locked behind me and took off again.
    The first few K were muddy, real muddy from all the rain. When I finally emerged on an unmuddied track, it was brickstone, which shook Wheels and I but good.
    Middway along this track I came upon a woman and her little boy. The little boy was in the middle of the track, sitting on one of those little red plastic fire trucks parents sometimes buy for their kids. When she saw me the woman moved over to the middle of the track and stood over her boy, I slowed down as I prepared to squeeze around them.
    Just as I was about to go around the little boy, who couldn’t have been more than 18 months old, made a mad dash from between his mother legs right out into my path. I applied my brakes but it was too late. I wheeled up into the muddy grass incline at the edge of the track, barely missing the boy and his mom. I could hear her scolding him as I continued to ride. I’d scared him about as much as he’d scared me. I hadn’t hit him or her so I saw no purpose hanging around as my route did a hard right and then switched back to climb a short hill to a covered lunching spot at the base of a steep vineyard. I stopped.
    Almost hitting a kid really bugged me. With the earlier smack from the gate, and now a near miss, I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to back off the riding today. I sat for a while and mulled it over. The sky was clearing after another rainy night. I felt I had the energy to put on some K. I couldn’t worry if a third mishap wasn’t just around the next bend. I had to get while the getting was good. So I did.
    In the next town I nearly got hit by a car backing out of a hotel stall. The woman getting in the car had made eye contact with me, so I figured she was going to give me a moment to get by. So there I was on cobblestone, in a narrow lane, ducking some bozo in a Mercedes. Good thing I’m at the top of my riding skill right now.
    I stopped in that town and tried to make an internet connection. There were lots of signals but they all had passwords attached. I tried hacking them. Five fives, six sixes, seven sevens, one-two-three-four-five. . . None of it worked, sometime it does. It wouldn’t work later either, in several different towns. Hell, there’d even been a signal in the Stalag, but it too was coded. I don’t know why people bother coding their wireless signals. You can’t hack into their pages from it or anything. It doesn’t affect their bill. Its just dumb, plain dumb. Actually, I think providers encourage their clients to attach passwords, just so people have to pay. It just wouldn’t do in a capitalist society to have folks communicating and getting info for free.
    The rest of the day I rode through vineyards, farm fields, along dykes and beside a highway, when I wasn’t getting lost in the bigger cities, where the signage can be downright confusing, and at times non-existant.
    The Germans are funny people. They like to make you guess. Its not so bad when you’re following a river, you just keep it to one side, but when you get away from the river it can be crazifying. They also spell Rhine, “Rhein” which means clean. Its not!
    Got into Worms midday. There was a lot going on in that town, some sort of music festival, several beer gardens, major construction along the main route in and out. I would have hung out a bit but I was too busy trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. Suddenly I found myself in a quiet lane and back in the fields, with the Worms behind me.
    Same thing happened in the next big city, name escapes me but it was directly across the river from Mannesheim. A burg there was called Friesensheim. I think this may be the area once known a Friesen, where all the Friesens in Canada come from.
    It took nearly an hour and a half to get across the city and out the other side. There were no signs of campgrounds amid the giant turnpikes and other industrial crap. I found myself thinking, “if I wanted this I’d have gone to the US” as I rode through it all, having to double back several times in search of, or to verify, the conflicting trail signs.
    At one point I swear the signs had me going in circles. I finally used my nose to get out and was successful.
    Last part of my ride toward Speyer was passed looking for campgrounds. It was a nice ride along a dyke, and there were several places that looked like campgrounds, but were actually private clubs.
    Finally, after a turn in the road which I thought was weird I saw a “Zeltplatz” sign. Zelt means tent. I followed it and wound up here, which, except for the mosquitos, is probably one of the nicest Zeltplatz I’ve found, and one of the cheapest, 4,90 euro, but it comes with a two minute 1.50 shower, which blasts you so hard with hot water you spend two minutes trying to get it under control. Basically, I got some soap on me, got real hot, then managed to get some of the soap off me before the thing suddenly shut down. Maybe thats why the mossies are nuts on me. I smell like apple shampoo.
    Made a huge pasta dinner tonight, so much I couldn’t eat it all. Used up all the veggies and tomato I’ve carted around since Koblenz. My food bag may well be lighter than its ever been. I have tea, some pasta noodles, coffee, and museli left in it, along with some raisins and dates. Tomorrow I’ll need to do a shop.
    Its funny here in Europe, or at least the parts where I’ve been. Everything shuts down on Sundays. Everything but the petrol stations and the Beer Gardens. I guess there are some restaurants open, but I don’t see them, not being able to afford them anyway. Cheapest meals of any substance are always over 11 euros, that’s $22 CDN folks. I’m not going in, and it helps that I can’t see them.
    Feel a strong need for a day off. When I reach Speyer in the Morgan, I’ll check the train station. If the fares are competitive to those in Holland I should be able to transport myself to Stuttgard for about 10 to 20 euro. If I can do that I probably will. It’ll be my way of taking a day off.
    Tonight there was some pink in the sunset, and a lot of grey. I half expect a thunderstorm tonight, and the way the Mossies are going nuts, I may be right. I’m buttoned down in a corner off by myelf in this campground which could well be somewhere in Ontario for its appearance and the behaviours of the families inhabiting the place. The big thing is to build a bonfire and talk loud, and laugh, and listen to bubble gum radio, in between smears of bug juice and sessions of bug swatting. All in all Germanyy is pretty much the same as Ontario, the water is filthy and stinks, the air is rehashed, and the land is green and full of bugs. About the only difference is the people talk funny. Wait a minute, they talk funny in Ontario too. Heck, both places are about the same size too. Maybe I’m not in Germany at all, maybe I’m in the German part of Ontario!
    Oh well, packed on a lot of miles this past week. Nearly 500 k in all, since last Monday morning with the Dutch gestapo giving me the impetus to get out of town.
    Feel okay about it though. I’ve done the part of the Rhine I intended to do. My only German chores left are to visit Angela, pay a visit to Baden Baden, then move on to France. Think I’m going to have to train part way there. Misjudged the number of miles to the Pyrennes. If I’m staying with the June return to Canada I’d have to put on a lot more than 70 to 90 k a day to do it.
    Still thinking I’d like to stay the summer and see more. So if anyone out there knows where I can find work in Germany or France, let me know, and don’t say grape cutting, that doesn’t happen until September.
    Anyway, I’ll try to get a connect and send this out in the Morgan. If I’m successful, then I hope you’re all well. If not, then read on.


Train Station, Karslhue

    Well, here I am on the train. Got on in Speyer after a short rainy and cold ride. In hour I’ll be in Stuttgart, then I’ll attempt the short distance to Tubingen, where I intend to surprise my pal Angela, unless of course I find an internet connection between here and there, send this message, and she happens to get it.
    Slept in this morning. Got up about nine and was rolling at 11. Had a nice sit down breakfast, that I think may have included a few dead mossies. They were going nuts this morning in advance of the rain.
    As I was leaving the very likeable unilingual German woman who ran the campground proudly showed off an English word she’d learned over night,
partly I think to let me know she liked me. As I pulling out the drive she said, “Cheers!” then gave me a big smile. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a Brit and Aussie term, not Canadian. So I called out, “Donkey Shane” and caught a blast of her warm smile as I went for the rain.
    Last night was the first night without rain in many. It held off until the moment I finished packing Wheels up. As soon as it was ready to go the rain began. It poured. I made short the ride into the intriguing city of Speyer. Its a grand city and I was sorely tempted to take a room and stay the night. The
architecture alone is probably worth the visit. To boot the streets were alive, full of people wandering around, outdoor cafes, and apparently lots to do.         There were thousands of young people and lots of bicycles. In a way I’m sorry I got on the train instead.
    Getting on the train was a bit of a fiasco. I showed up at the station to find a long line up waiting at the ticket booth. Stood there for ten minutes in the line, until one of the two only open wickets closed for lunch. Seeing that I excused myself from the line and went for ride, looking for some bushes to pee in. I found them, then went back to the depot. In the ten minutes I was gone the line miraculously disappeared. I went up to the counter and asked the     burly man behind it if he spoke English.
    “No, none at all,” he said in perfect English, then refused to demonstrate any more of it.
    I asked about Stuttgart, saying Stuttgart, me and my “frei” bicycle. He punched some keys on his computer, stuck a paper in his printer, then handed me the results. E 19, it said, 15:13 departure.
    I asked how much for my bike. He said, “free,” waving his hands in the all clear motion.
    I paid the 19 euros and collected my ticket.
    A while later I was reading the departure board and noticed that bicycles were not allowed on the 15: 13 departure. I went back to the ticket wickets and talked to another ticket seller, He misunderstood what I was asking and told me I had to pay 3.50 euros for my bike. I paid up. Then asked again about the sign that apparently said no bikes on that run. He again told me I’d paid for my bike.
    Later on I found out, from a nice young fellow waiting for the same train, that bikes in fact are not allowed on that run but no one cares. When I got on the train there were already four bikes on board.
    I had to change at Karslhue, which I’ve done, and the train is now rushing through the Baden Wurtzburg countryside, which is hilly, but more bumpy when compared to home. In less than an hour I’ll be in Stuttgard, one of Germany’s newer old cities. It was one of a few the Allied forces bombed into obliteration during the big war. Back then it was an industrial nerve center for Hitlers Germany.
    Anyway, my adventure continues. The rain has ebbed, and there’s actually some blue sky out the window. Who knows, perhaps I’ll have a pleasant evening ride.
    Whatever happens, you’ll all hear about it soon.

May 29 Tubingen, Germany

    When I arrived in Stuttgard I found out there was a train leaving for Tubingen in minutes, so I paid the 10 euro fare and off I went, arriving at supper time to streets full of young people milling about. Its a university town full of coffee shops, hills, pierced hippie types, bicycles and a mix of modern and medeival architecture. In many ways it reminded me of Nelson and I felt quite at home.
    After about an hour Angela made her way down to the train station and found me. It was a tearful and emotional reunion. We walked together in the pouring rain on medeival streets through an ancient cemetary then up a long hill through a forest talking. She told me all about how she and her classmates had come out for months in the pouring rain and collected Salamanders from the forest trails, an effort that eventually led to the area being protected from motor vehicle traffic, so the Salamanders would have a chance to survive.
    A half hour later we arrived at the apartment high above the town, she shares with her boyfriend of 10 years, Andy, a likeable fellow with a warm smile and gentle manner that belies the great physical strength evident in his warm handshake. The apartment is small but A-typical, crowded with plants, pictures and memorbelia of their eventful lives together trekking Europe and Africa. There are photos of family going back several generations, and of friends from around the world. Books, magazines, posters, maps and ornamentation are everywhere. It is a very lived-in space and I am quite comfortable in it.
    After much more talking we ate, talked some more, and about midnight, crashed.
    This morning it is ugly outside, about five degrees with a chill wind and heavy rain. Though the aparment is crowded and I had barely space to roll out my bedroll, I'm feeling grateful I haven't woke up on a damp patch of earth with miles to ride in the inclemency. My sleep was good, tho' a tad short.
    Angela has asked me to stay a week, so we can have a proper visit and she can introduce me to her family. I'll likely take her up on it. I'm eager to renew our friendship, to explore the town, give the weather an opportunity to change, get to know Andy, fix Wheels (its gears are still messed) and get off the road for a while.
    Shortly I will go off to one of the many local universities and schools and see if I can find a wireless connection and send out this email.
    Hope you're all well.

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