Schwarzwald Traverse - Stage 6 to Untermettigen

I awoke at 6 to the sun in huge double bed, made coffee and washed clothes in the sink. And more coffee. Fruit and sat outside reading. Today I leave the forest, heading to Lake Konstanz. I wanted an 80 km day because it is coming down from the mountains, but the cost of a hotel in Switzerland was so expensive I searched for a tiny town on the German border that looked outside of any tourism.

Cool bike shop in town, I replaced my lost gloves there, super friendly people. This has been my favorite town in south Germany. Since my day was short I lingered, bought some food for the road at Edeka (best store in the world), and left late in the morning.

No morning climb! Riding through the forest. I went west to see a mountain lake before turning southeast… the ride was great, the town, Schluchsee, was horrible, just grumpy tourists walking heads down and slumped over slow beers in bad restaurants, sad place beside a deepwster lake. I picnicked there anyway and dove back into the woods. I had picked a random town in the east to lengthen my ride simply because it had a Japanese garden. Came out of the forest into flatland and fields, the air felt oppressive, and into an even sadder town, Bonndorf, this one felt almost mean, and the Japanese garden wasn’t a Japanese garden at all. It was like a person with no sense of design thought would be Japanese-like by throwing a pond or two around a field of somewhat trimmed bushes and lonely trees and mowing the grass in a haphazard pattern. I felt like I was having an upside-down dream of how we can get the world so wrong…. aiiiiiiiiii! Then I stopped to collect myself and saw a man in a wheelchair was stuck on the median of a busy road… motorcyclists and cars wouldn’t stop for him, people watching from the bakery just sat there, and I had to drop the bike and jump out to stop traffic and get him safely out of the road. Nice guy too. What a fucked up town!

I went back in the woods, south. It was getting hot. I was pissed about the place hind me but then I realize sometimes I’m an asshole too, stuck in my little passive days and a bit estranged from what is in front of me, and traveling outside our zone is what breaks us out of this.

I saw some ruins in the woods and found a path to an old crumbled castle. Walked up to take a water break. Nothing there but an old firepit and overgrown nettles, no magic, but maybe the dulling of senses is just this strange change of weather. The air is heavy, dirty, hot.

Headed the last 10k into a tiny town on a. stream where I will sleep tonight. It is strangely hot down here and there was one place to get a cold drink before heading to my room for a 5pm checkin. It’s Cafe Mrija. Kataryna is Ukrainian and came here and made a little cafe, she made me a Ukrainian pocket, rolling out the pastry and filling it with meat and cheese, and we talk a little with phone translator. And I sit here happy, the sound of a stream and some kids playing in the street.

All these little dramas mean I’ve slipped into travel mode. I pick wrong directions and right directions both, like I do every day, but somehow now I can see it. So when I pick wrong I leave, and when I pick right I linger a bit. And I get curious and interested in people again.