A Probability of Rain

Czech Republic to Italy and Back on a Honda Nighthawk

September, 1995

Friday, September 8th 4PM

Do you believe in omens? Sometimes it seems there is an omen at the beginning of a major trip and the bank was able to make available my funds only at the eleventh hour---the very last possible moment. I took it as an omen.

Positive or negative, plus or minus, good omen or bad? The uncertainty over money certainly fell on the negative side, but then it had worked out, after all. That smiling girl behind the counter had shoved across my cash at the last moment and certainly that must count as positive. Too dark a glass for more accurate identification---the trip would have to unfold and prove the omen, white hat or black. That's the best way in any case, to take the adventure as it comes and, at the end give the praise or blame to omens.

Picked up Misha at her office, away at last at 5:30 in the evening and headed for the German border by way of Pilsen, among darkly beautiful and quickly changing skies. A quick, hard shower twenty miles out of Prague and then something that looked more serious, clouds with meat on their bones and we pull under an overpass to scramble into raingear. The motorcycle running really well, but she's loaded to capacity and the low-speed handling is dicey. She's topheavy and the lack of balance shows at stops and slow city turns. Got to be careful not to dump her.

Steady rain at Pilsen and we stop at an unlikely looking pension-cafe in a not-so-great part of the city. But the choices are running out and in another half mile, we'll be out of town. Chancy looking or not, the food turns out to be first-rate and the room is newly remodeled, with plenty of hot water in the shower. Good choice or good luck or maybe even a good omen.

Saturday, September 9th 10AM

So much for early starts, but the air was cold and the bed was warm and, anyway, Misha and I agreed this was primarily a holiday and not to become some kind of marathon. Getting there is not the point. It's the pleasure of travels by motorcycle that this venture is all about. A lovely morning, but way colder than it should be this time of year. We got scammed for breakfast---it was to have been included in the room price, but the cafe is closed and the sign on the door says they don't open until four in the afternoon. So, we settle for brunch, twenty miles down the road at Klatovy, a fine grilled chicken with potato-salad, washed down with Pepsi. Knowing how to live well is half the battle.

We cross the border at Eisenstein, waved out of the Czech Republic and into Germany without even so much as a passport check, just a wave of the hand and we're gone. The Sumava mountains begin their modest rise from this point and we pile on clothes. Good roads---damn, the Germans are great at building roads and the Honda loves them.

The Sumavas are brief and beautiful at this point in Germany and we quickly drop into flat and richly productive farmland, changing into raingear again for scattered showers, some of them heavy. We cruise into Munich at about four o'clock and stop for hot chocolate and to check out the older parts of the city. We're in the university area and the cafe is quite grandly reminiscent of times when Germany had a king, all polished brass, dark woods and stiff-lipped waiters. The chocolate is served in individual pots, steamy and rich and three cups to a pot, just the ticket for a couple of chilled bikers. Munich is rich and looks it, broad avenues, expensive shops and a good deal of equestrian statuary.

We are sheltered from a thundershower in an arcade of antique shops, studying the map and bickering good naturedly about whether or not raingear is worth the pulling on, when the sky clears and we take off. More rich farmland to be enjoyed south of the city and in about an hour, the Bavarian Alps appear as backdrop to these well ordered fields. But what's this? There's a lot of visible snow at high elevations and we begin to wonder what may be in store. This was to be a camping holiday, with perhaps the occasional night under roof, but tonight in the mountains looks like another choice of pension over tent. A strain on the budget, especially this early, but perhaps Italy will be more hospitably disposed to campers. At dusk, we pull into Oberammergau, another of the leather-pants and alpine-hat perfect villages. The pension is lovely and beyond our budget, so we make amends by a picnic dinner in the room from our packed food supply.

Sunday, September 10th 9AM

A great breakfast included in the room cost, as is the custom throughout most of Europe and we head for the fairy-tale castle of Mad King Ludwig at Neu Schwanstein. The roads are great, the bike is humming and broad patches of warm sun are breaking through to us. Life is good.

We're climbing steadily now and, at a sharp bend in the mountain road, there's an information sign for motorcyclists and I make the mistake of stopping to admire it and to take a picture. The road is too steeply banked for me to hold the topheavy bike as we stop and I dump it. The bike and both of us are down, sprawled across the road and Misha's hurt---nothing serious, no broken bones, but her left elbow and wrist are sore and will get more sore. A motorcyclist appears and helps us get the bike up.

Once we're well off the side and back on the center-stand, it's time to assess damage, personal and to the bike. We're pretty much okay. Misha's shaken and her elbow will take on the hues of a piece of abstract art over the next week. I'm all right, except for my pride, which is badly bent. The bike is not so well off, undamaged except for the clutch lever, which is snapped cleanly off and lying in the road. It won't start without the clutch disengaged and, even if it would, there's no way to change gears without an operative clutch. It's Sunday and no place open, even if we knew where to go and we certainly don't know where to go or how to get there. First things first, I remind myself. Damn, it's only noon and we're going to lose a day and maybe two over this.

Below us is a lovely stream and a great campsite---illegal as hell, but this is an emergency and we load up and pack our gear down. An unexpected day of forced leisure, but it all seems much less serious as the afternoon wears on and we establish a very comfortable and secluded little camp. A campfire would be lovely, but of course I had the wisdom to quit smoking several months ago and have no matches or lighter. As the sun approaches the point at which it will drop over the mountain, a fire seems as much a necessity as an amenity and I climb back up to the road, flag down a bunch of Austrian bikers and beg matches.

So, instead of cold and shivering in the dark, we spend the night in quiet conversation around a streamside fire, watching occasional showers of sparks settle among the stars, as a log shifts in the fire ring. There had been plenty of wood to gather along the stream-bed---evidence from its location of the force and depth of the spring melt-off. With a log for a backrest, this unexpected disaster was turning into what we knew would be one of the more memorable and pleasant adjuncts that separate adventures from mere vacations.