Day 6 Rorschach, Switzerland - The Beauty Continues with Heat and Wind

 Tony's view

The views around Liechtenstein were breathe taking, something to praise God for the beauty. However, it was screaming hot mid to high 90"s and winds pushing 20mph. It took a lot out of me and eventually Joan, too. Some of you may not know, but in Switzerland there is very little of any A/C. So, I sleep in a puddle of sweat. Then I went on a bicycle ride and sweated even more. I couldn't drink enough water. Just totally exhausted today. Okay, since some of you know I like to complain, I thought I would get that in. The placed we stay last night was a room in the house of this super nice lady. We had a bedroom and a bathroom. Outside the house was this wonderful fountain to fill our water bottles with cold refreshing mountain water. In fact, we filled our water bottles the whole day in these random places.

Soon after leaving our Airbnb, we crossed the Rhine River for the first time and went into Liechtenstein. We rode in Liechtenstein for pretty much the whole length of the country, which wasn't much. We crossed to the Switzerland side of the Rhine River and rode right on the border of Austria and Switzerland, So, the Vonn Trapp family must have crossed there somewhere😃

                                                                                        

The beautiful ride continues along the banks of the Rhine.

We detoured from the banks of the Rhine to a quaint little city in Switzerland. Joan went into a Coop grocery store and I saw these old guys at a sidewalk biergarten across the street in the morning drinking beer. Being the nice guy, I am I decided to join them and drink a beer.

After having a wonderful time there, we headed out and found a door open on the side of a barn off the bike path. It said cheese for sale. We decided to go in and it was self-serve. We got Appel Strudel ice cream and Alp cheese. That came to 8 CHF. Joan only had a 10. We look over and they leave the cash box open so that people can make change. It so nice to have trustworthy people out there.

Did I mention it was hot out there? There were several times we had to stop for a break just to cool down in the shade. In fact, I am sitting in our Airbnb right now with the windows closed and sweating. The windows have no screens over here and it gets buggy. It is cooler in my sauna at home. Sorry, again for complaining. 

One of the stops again I went into the water and cooled off. When I finally got out of the water, someone across the creek brought their horses in the water to cool off. Made me feel better.

We then made it to the Airbnb, and it said no bicycles inside. They sent us the new rules after we booked it. So, Joan came up with this cleaver idea to cover up all the cameras and bring the bike inside. When we uncovered the ring doorbell and other cameras, I got a message asking where the bike is. Oops, they called several times and finally we answered. We told them it was inside, and they said it has to go outside. We begged and begged, and finally after talking to the boss they decided to let it stay inside if we gave them a $150 CHF deposit. What this tells us that we wouldn't make very good crooks. 🤣 Off to bed in a puddle of sweat.

Joan's Extras

Today really was quite the adventure. It was super fun and super easy until the winds picked up. Then, it was all about getting to Roschach, our destination. Near the end, my water bottle was empty, and Tony had a little left in one of his 3 bottles. 

At several points riding along the Rhine the path was gravel. This makes it even tougher for Tony to steer the tandem with all of the weight. We passed some farmers bailing hay or wrapping it I guess you could say. One of the tractors got in front of us on the path, and with the wind and the gravel, we got sprayed with lots of dirt. Dirt sticks to sweat.

Loved these birds and they love the farmers after they cut crops. Forgot the name that I read on a sign. You can look it up, Bud DeLand, and let me know.

I'm really so glad that though, that Tony routed us through some small towns to get some different experiences, instead of riding along the Rhine the whole way. Surprisingly, we never saw anyone out on the Rhine in the water. In the morning, the Rhine revealed lots of riverbed, probably due to all the runoff from the mountains. As we rode further away from the mountains, the river flowed steadily, but still no one fishing or boating. In fact, it seemed like we were the only ones riding in the direction that we were going, against the wind.