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Our original route fled winter and chased spring. There should have been no need for warm clothes, so we all economised. Indeed, I’ve spent much of the trip wishing for cooler weather. However, just as we crossed the border between Germany and Austria, fall has caught us (even though it hasn’t officially begun).

We suddenly found ourselves wearing everything we had. Clouds suffocated the sun. The temperature dropped to about fifty or sixty degrees farenheit. Doesn’t sound too cold, but try spending a week outside in that weather and a good portion of it with a steady 18 km/h or so wind to give the air an added bite.

We paused at supermarkets and gas stations, clustering in the heated foyers to warm up. I once came into a bathroom to find Pete hopping about on one foot while trying to warm the other beneath the hand dryer.

Cold isn’t so bad, but cold with rain is a different story. Water provides evaporation: the same principle by which your freezer cools itself to ten degrees farenheit.

Nakia tries to dry out and stay smoke free.

In Straubing we escaped the rain by camping under a bridge with piles of guana and road noise to lull us to sleep. We luxuriated in our dry fortunes and the fire Drew ingeniously provoked despite the dampness of the wood.

I finally broke down and bought pants. Cheap articles of other clothing also presented themselves after surprisingly little searching. As we stay in Regensburg we are slowly massing our resources to do battle with old man winter or his early scouts. We missed the last winter, so I am personally excited for the one on it’s way. Perhaps, though, it will be courteous to hold off just until we can pull safely into Minneapolis.

Vegetable soup for the not getting hypothermia.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.