In which Sid and Doris get a soaking going up into the mountains.
We expected this would just be a longish drive. As usual the top was down: Sid drove, Doris drove, Sid drove up the main roads and autoroute towards the Brenner pass en route for a fab hiking hotel in the Italian/German Sud Tirol.
First candidate for conveyance of the day is this cute caravan.
We saw the clouds but pressed on past the next service station as it didn’t look too threatening. And then rain came when we had to keep moving, hoping that somewhere to stop would materialise as Niagara water fell out of the sky.We finally just took the next exit and stopped in the emergency “where did I put my money for this toll gate” area to put up the hood – setting a new world record. Hermann helpfully evaporated the 4 pints or so of water now inside the car and inevitably steamed up so we sat there while his excellent heater and blowers cleared the screen.
And like so many mountain storms, it blows through, it clears, and you get to see other people getting wet.
When we were sailing, we were taught a useful rule of thumb: If you wonder whether it is time to put in a reef (reduce the amount of sail because it is getting windier) then it is time to put in a reef. And the lesson for autoroutes is: If you wonder whether it is time to put up the hood, it is time to put up the hood. Damper and wiser we drive on
As Doris said: it’s good to know you’re not in a drowner. The Mini has a heated front screen but we would still have had distributor anxiety. Hermann grooves on. His new XVS tyres do good work in water that the drains cannot cope with.
Leaving the autoroute we are soon into the apple and grape farms on steaming roads with German names [two facts which are not, I believe, connected – D]. As we pull into Hotel Weingarten we find the winning conveyance of the day, this Fiat jeep.
The sun comes out and Incy Wincy Spider resumes his never-ending journey back up the hotel’s marvellous drainpipes.