June 20th Immendstadt to Fussen

We woke up to a warm morning, and wasted precious time looping back and forth trying to regain the bike route. Because we weren't married to the Bodensee-Konigsee bike route, we decided to just use Google maps to route to Fussen, which might have been a mistake, since while we ran into other cyclists, the route they took (and which Google recommended) immediately took us up grades north of 12%, which eventually surpassed my aerobic threshold and forced me to get off the bike. Bowen was willing to get off as well, but Boen was not, forcing me to push him and the loaded bike up the steep grades.

We paused to rest at a house with a rabbit hutch and questionable tasting water. I threw away a whole bottle before a passing cyclist told me that it was safe to drink. One more steep pitch that necessitated walking went by before we descended to Nesselwang with a supermarket and lunch. Xiaoqin found a great ice cream place where we took on fortification before the final push to Fussen.

After lunch, the climbing began again, but never so steep as before, and we entered a forest which granted us relief from the unrelenting sun which made me question the rain forecast. Once at the summit however, the ride turned into a beautiful series of rolling hills in the downhill direction which were a joy and granted us great speed, with the wind cooling us off even in the sun.

For whatever reason, Boen had no problem with sleeping that day, but at the bottom of the hill, just 8km from Fussen when we stopped to refill the water bottles, he enjoyed the fountain so much that he threw a temper tantrum when it was time to leave. We stayed a little longer but he still cried upon leaving, and so it was that we rode through the Hopfen am See with Boen crying the entire way, and he didn't stop until we got within the Fussen city limits.

This was my first time staying in old town Fussen, and our Apartment Hotel told us to park our bikes behind the visitor center just outside old town. I looked at the receptionist quizzically about this, but she insisted that it was safe. I wasn't concerned about the triplet, but the ebike was obviously valuable even without a battery installed, so I locked that to the triplet using the flimsy cable lock I had anyway and hoped for the best.

Dinner was at the Italian restaurant where the waiter did a great job of pretending to be Italian even though he was plainly German, eating the fresh strawberries we'd brought into the restaurant. I told Xiaoqin about the plan for tomorrow, which was that I'd go buy the tickets, and then come back and we'd ride over together for the tours. Then, because I had zero trust in the weather forecast, we would just ride over to Reutte in Austria. Little was I to know that it was going to be far more challenging a day than I had planned.

That night, before bed, I received a call from an Austrian phone #. I picked it up and the hotel asked me when I was planning to show up. I said that we were arriving by bicycle so didn't know. We back'd and forth'd a bit before I realized that she'd mistaken my reservation for tomorrow for today! I corrected her mistake and she apologized.