D23: ROMONT, SWITZERLAND, HERE WE COME

After a couple of days off, it’s time to hit the road again. Today’s destination is Romont, Switzerland and the home of Charly Page, long time friend and one time friendly competitor. Alex Rudolph had done us the favor of entering all destinations into the Garmin so Schatzie would have no problems.

It was a beautiful day in Bavaria when we headed out of Schliersee. Schatzie was busily calculating route when an advisory popped up in the Garmin. “Too much information needed,” it read. “Will fill in later.” It must be the distance I thought, so stopped to enter Zurich as our new destination. Once there, we’d enter the original program. All worked fine. We zipped through Munich and headed for the Swiss/German border. Once again we enjoyed the experience of cruising at 110 MPH for miles on end.

Let me clear up a point here. Some readers have suggested that 110 kilometers per hour is only 66 miles per hour. What’s the big deal? Well, read again. That’s 110 MILES PER HOUR and is legal when allowed and fun to do. Sure keeps you focused.

 Schatzie was happy as a clam until we approached Lindau on Lake Bodensee near the Swiss border.  Then she suddenly said, “Take next exit and drive 35 kilometers on surface roads.”  Seemed suspicious but after the ferry incident, we felt we could trust her…even when the compass showed North and we should have been heading South.  Suspicion increased when the water of Lake Bodensee appeared on our left instead of right.  Then came a highway detour and we found ourselves on one-lane country roads, dodging cows and tractors, until the road ended in a farmer’s barnyard. Because he didn’t speak English, I used a map to explain our plight. “Wo ist hier?” I asked in my best Coffee-Break German. He pointed to a spot on the map clearly well north of where we wanted to be. “Wo ist Zurich?” I asked. He pointed to a spot well south of where we were. He then pointed to a spot halfway and said, “Ferry,” and made a motion like swimming. It was probably the only English word he knew but we connected. There was a ferry at Konstanz that crossed to Switzerland, so Schatzie did have something up her sleeve after all. Somehow we’d missed it.

Funny thing followed. With the ferry in sight, Schatzie suddenly called for a left turn that led us away from the water. By now I had no time to humor her. The ferry was about to leave so we made a mad dash and were the last car on. During the short trip we called our host, Charly Page, to explain. He said, “Oh, you’re only two hours away. We’ll have dinner waiting.” By now the five-hour trip had become six and we still weren’t near our goal.

On landing I asked a deckhand, “Wo ist der Zoll?” (border) and he pointed left down the street. Schatzie, instead, called for a right turn and off we went through the countryside again. An hour later we were still in Germany, not Switzerland and I was concerned. Then I spotted a border crossing and made a break for it. Finally we were in Switzerland. Two deft left turn instructions from Schatzie and we were back in Germany. By now I was raising my voice to not only the GPS but to Louise who was freely dispensing advice. In desperation I did something no man likes to do.  I stopped at a Shell station and asked for directions…from a woman no less.  She confirmed my greatest fears when she said, “You’re headed north, and you should be going south toward Baden and the autobahn.”

From that point on I ignored all Schatzie’s pleadings.  If she said, “turn left,” I turned right, desperately trying to reach the autobahn.  During the time I had two women screaming at me.  Louise trying to defend Schatzie and Schatzie demanding that I follow orders.  Finally, after some choice (and some crude) words, I succeeded in silencing Louise.  Schatzie was another thing.  After disobeying her every command, she became slower and slower in recalculating, finally slipping into lengthy pouts.

Here was the situation. It was growing dark; I was barreling through a foreign country and arguing with a machine that I could not let win. In the end I was victorious but it was a pyrrhic victory. My eyes were bleary, my voice hoarse and my temper extremely short and we were still lost.  On reaching the autobahn, I entered Alex’s original calculations for Romont and we were on our way in a silence you could almost feel.

 Our poor host, Charly Page, had long ago turned down the temperature in the oven and literally put our dinner on the back burner.  What started out to be a five-hour jaunt turned into a nine-hour forced march.  As we pulled into the driveway, his was the lonely figure in the window, wondering if his guests would ever show. Charly’s girlfriend, Huguette, had given up the ghost hours ago but he was ready with a glass of wine when we came through the door.

On recounting the GPS struggle with Charly, he offered condolences but little else.  He claims to be “technically challenged” and still considers editing videotape with a razor blade as a tremendous advance in technology.  To justify my own actions and explain our own lateness, I recreated the process of re-programming the GPS as I had done in Schliersee. Charly nodded sympathetically and then mentioned, casually, that it might have been helpful if I had changed the destination to Switzerland instead of Germany. Long silence.

In reprogramming, I’d made one little mistake and poor Schatzie tried valiantly to do as I had directed…stay in Germany at all costs. Tomorrow we’ll be on our way to France. I hope she still will be speaking to me.

Resting in Romont.

Louise and Ray