Day 15 Linz, Austria. Wet & Wonderful

Joan's View

Yes, we got wet today, but I am so thankful that it was today instead of our previous ride days since today all of our travels were on paved paths. I can only imagine what some of those gravel paths that we've ridden on the last few weeks look like now. 
We mostly followed the Donau as it flowed in and around the mountains in Austria. The view was spectacular even with the rain clouds and overcast haze. 

We usually see some swans on our daily rides as well, but today was the most ever. We watched them, along with the ducks, dive for food and just do their graceful floating. If you see foggy pictures, it's because of all of the rain. I'm pretty picky about pictures, but when it's raining, you just gotta get pictures when you can.



We took a picture of where the river does a big U-turn. The sign explains to bike riders how to get around massive cliffs on one side of the river. We reached that point where we needed to take a small ferry because the cliffs were approaching on our side. It was our smallest ferry yet, and the cheapest. 😁 Tony's plans were to go back to that side once we passed the cliffs, but we never saw the ferry that was supposed to take us back, so we continued on the side that we were riding.

Where the Donau does a big U-turn.

We see Mary statues or crosses every day, but today was a first. There was a monument out on a huge rock in the middle of the Donau. Very impressive.













There were lots of other long distance cyclists riding on our side too, included some guided bike tour groups. 

We passed this one group of American guys several times. We knew they were Americans because they are part of a select few who yelled out stuff about our tandem in English. We came to the point where we had to take a ferry back to the other side, so while waiting for the ferry to arrive, we chatted with the Americans. These guys are a bunch of fraternity brothers that never went to school together or even to the same school. They come from different parts of the country. The one guy owns a bicycle shop, another is an attorney, and another has lived all over the world but now lives in Lakewood, Ohio. They have done several long distance trips together in different parts of the world. Later, we saw them when we stopped to decide which way to go, and the guy that owns a bicycle shop offered to let us try his electric bike. Tony thinks an electric single bike would work for me when we travel with a motor home. 

A couple of other fun things we saw included these barrel shaped camping cabins. They have lots of camping places here, but many of them are very basic. This was neat to see and the trail went right through the campground, like many others.

Tony spotted this rider with a sign advertising our name, Schroeder, and he managed to get a great picture of it. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the umlaut (the 2 dots above the vowel) to work on blogger, but if you remove the umlaut, you must add an "e". That makes Schroeder! I do know that the Schroeder ancestors spelled it with the umlaut as well.

Speaking of names, we see tons of Mueller names here, Cindy. It seems like there is a Mueller something in every city, on vehicle advertisements, restaurants, road signs, etc. They have the umlaut as well, but I bet your ancestors changed it somewhere along the line, too.

The next picture is where we took a short break. There is a court in the background for a game that is foreign to us. We'd love to learn the game though if anyone has a court like those near them!

Getting closer to Linz, the trail again forced us to take a ferry back to the side we started on. We talked to the American group again, and this ferry was much bigger. The picture of me in line is me paying after the ferry started moving. The other picture I got is a view of Tony's dirt splattered legs. I am usually nice and dry covered by the fairing, but Tony gets all of the splatter from both tires on him. Tony said that he kind of drinks grit when it rains like this because the dirt sprays up on his water bottles too. The whole bike had a layer of grit on it by the time we got to Linz. We also took a spill coming into Linz. Tony is a great driver and it takes lots of strength to hold the handle bars sturdy with all of that weight, but we were trying to hop a high curb in the city, and with the cobblestone wet and the curb wet, the front tire slid along the curb and we fell. Fortunately, Tony was not clipped in and he just jumped off. I skidded a little, but I am buckled in and I had leggings on today. We are ok, just even more dirty. Thank goodness our airbnb has a washer.

We spent a long time when we found our place cleaning up the bike, the bags and us. Tony oiled the chains as well. 

It's still raining as we write this, but tomorrow looks clear again. We went to a grocery store and brought back food for dinner. I got some yummy fish, peaches and a kohlrabi. Tony got a salad, bread and peanut butter. He is second guessing his choice of bread and peanut butter because he is walking around grumbling about how this stuff would never sell in the U.S. Haha.

Finally, it's Grandma Monday missing her favorite smiley Luke & Todd faces, so you all get to share in a picture that I got of these cuties. 

Tony's Extras

It was an interesting day. It pretty much rained all day and brakes don't work that well either. When I crashed the bicycle in Linz, the traffic was bad and I kept my feet unclipped into the pedals in case I needed to use my feet for adittional braking. You know, like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Good thing I wasn't clipped in. It could have really injured me. Thank goodness Joan was okay. 
Yes, if peanut butter tasted like it does here, we wouldn't have it any where either. 😆 It is neat seeing all these signs of friends names back home. The one to the left is one that reminds us of Eric and Ann Marie Baumgartner. How cool that they have their own beer? I sent a picture to Fr. Chris Geiger today also. There are Geigers all over the place, too. I haven't seen any Geiger beer even though he makes great beer. It took a while to get the bicycle cleaned up today and Joan was of great help. It had about a 1/4" of sand and grit over the entire thing and sticking to everything. It is cleaned, oiled and and polished again, ready for tomorrow. The guy from Lakewood, Ohio near Cleveland, told Joan how lucky I was to have a wife that would go along, especially on a rainy day. That's something I totally agree with after riding 60 miles in the rain and crashing her along the pavement and curb.