June 30th: Galtur to Feldkirch

 The morning came, and Bowen had been to the toilet twice last night. "I'm still too weak to ride over the pass," he declared. There was nothing to do but to put him, Boen, and Xiaoqin onto the bus, load up the panniers on the triplet, and ride that darn thing over the Silvretta by myself, since there was no way I was going to take the triplet again after painstakingly putting it back together.

The ride over the pass was glorious, starting in the fog with low clouds but then with the clouds lifting and dissipating over the mountains granting beautiful views. I was so sorry Bowen felt bad, but I wasn't strong enough to lift Boen by myself over the bike, and Boen was of course still in the mode of "Whatever Bowen has, I have to have," so if Bowen had a bus ride, he had to have one as well!

With that much load it would take well over an hour to get to the top of the pass, though because the bus took a detour to the Kopsee, at one point I caught up to the bus because it had to stop at the toll gate where a bicycle would just happily roll through! At the pass, I saw Boen and Xiaoqin waiting for me, but Bowen was on the toilet again, vindicating his judgement that he shouldn't have been riding over the pass. I proctor'd Bowen on the toilet, and after I was done Boen wanted to show me the telescope he'd found as well as the picture frame, where we got a picture.

After that, we piled everyone on the bike and rolled down the mountain. Well, Silvretta was far steeper than any of the other descents we'd had. I'd originally thought we'd stop every 4 hairpins, but it was so steep that we stopped every 2 hairpins instead!

The climb up Silvretta from the Montafon side looked challenging, and it was already warm enough that after 6 hairpins we were shedding our jackets.

Somehow, on one of those hairpins, Xiaoqin passed us without noticing, and she kept going all the way down the mountain without realizing that we were behind her. We couldn't descend any faster, so we only caught up to her when she had already traversed the scary tunnel past the toll station in Partenen. I'd always crossed the tunnel myself, not noticing the bike path signs on prior trips. We finally saw her past the tunnel, and waved her over onto the bike path, which took us into Gaschurn, where we stopped by the bike path as always for lunch, ice cream, and soft drinks. The forecast still called for rain tomorrow, so I wanted us to get as far down the valley as possible. Unfortunately, it was still hot, so I had to find a hotel with AC. My first choice was booked up while we were debating, but Night Inn Feldkirch was right next to the train station and had AC, so I booked it. I looked for lodging in Sargans as well, and booked it since it had free cancellation.

After this it was time to take the longest descending bike path that I'd ever encountered all the way down to just before Feldkirch. I'd done this descent many times, and it never fails to draw a giggle from me. Bowen and Boen both expressed joy and wonder as we rolled along at 15kph, sometimes hitting 30kph whenever we felt like pedaling. I shot a few pictures going backwards, and you can see from his expression that Bowen was in agony. Not for nothing did he win the approbation, "The toughest 7 year old I'd ever met" from Mike Sojka.

At Vandans I felt a jerk from the back of the bike, and Boen complained that he was sleepy. We pulled over to a shaded bench and he took a nap while I took Bowen to the nearby tennis club to use the bathfroom. After that it was a short ride to Bludenz where we smelled the chocolate smells in the air, since Bludenz had a big chocolate factory.

Past Bludenz, a headwind blew through, making it slow going, but we were still mostly able to maintain 15kph. At the outskirts of Feldkirch we had to climb up and then we were in Feldkirch. It took much more time than expected to find the hotel, as the train station was outside the pedestrian zone, and it had zero signage or pointers to it! But we eventually found it, and the receptionist had me descend into the train station's parking lot to access the bike parking!

Once settled in, Bowen used the toilet once again, and then we walked down to the pharmacy to see if there was anything they could do for him. They sold us some diahrear medication, and I bought some kids Tylenol for good measure. We went to the local Indian restaurant, but Bowen threw up on the way home after eating several somosas. He was not having a good day! Boen managed to get some ice cream, however.

The hotel AC was put to good use, we took showers, and I did laundry anyway just in case, and we went to sleep. I hoped Bowen would do better.