More of an adventure than I'd ordered

My first warning that yesterday's drive could turn into an adventure was chatting with a colleague over breakfast who had gone on the three hour walking tour of Venice the night before; she said that the guide had told her that there would be flooding by nine pm the next day (which was today by the time I heard about it). At the time she told me I was simply glad thst I would be on the road well before then and didn't think more of it.

After the General Assembly and participating in the voting I left site without waiting to hear the results, since I was supposed to pick up my rental car at 16:00 ish. So back to the hotel to pick up my suitcase I had left there, then around the corner to the bus stop, and the city bus to the airport left fairly promptly thereafter. Pleasant conversation on the bus with some travellers who had come to Italy for a wedding and would be doing some additional travel thereafter.

My next clue was the strong winds walking from the airport terminal to the car park where the rental car place is located. I am grateful that my Tasmainian leather hat was hooked by the strings to my backpack, or I would have had to chace it twice when it was ripped off my head, despite having the hatstrings fastened under my chin. When I reached the rental car place, on the roof (3rd floor) of the car park the sliding glass doors on the first side had a couple of guys working on it, and a sign, in English) saying that the doors were broken, please walk around the building to the doors on the other side.

Chatting with the lady who did the paperwork for my car rental revealed that the high winds was what had messed up the door.

By the time I was done with the paperwork it was 17:05, and my gps said I could be at J's place by 20:35. By the time I finally figured out how to actually exit the car park it had revised that estimate to 20:47. It hadn't been raining, yet, when I arrived to get the car, but was lightly raining when I left.

Soon after I got on the highway the rain started really coming down heavy, and even though it is a nice, wide highway in excellent shape, and a normal speed limit of 130 kph, the traffic was only doing 100-110 (and there were elecronic signs up now and then advising we keep it under 110).

The car behaved well enough, and despite the really heavy rain, I was faster than the guys in the slow lane, but slower than the ones in the fast lane, and by 19:00 the rain had stopped and the gps was, once again, thinking I could arrive by 20:35.

And then the temperature dropped to +2 C, and it started snowing a very wet slushy snow. If I had had our car, with its brand new high quality winter tires, I wouldn't have been the least bit concerned, and if lord_kjar had been driving our car he would have kept doing the speed limit in those conditions. But it was a rental car, and I suspect it has summer tires, since they gave me chains for the tires in case of need. So I slowed down some, which meant that I still had the joy of changing lanes through the slush that builds up between lanes to pass those who were even slower, but at least as often there were people passing me. By now the highway had narrowed to only two lanes each direction, but the normal limit was still 130 kph.

As I got closer to Bolanzo the traffic got dense and slowed down till none of us could do faster than 60 kph, and it was a relief to take my exit and turn left up the valley to J.'s home. The snow was starting to actually stick by then, and I was a bit more nervous now that I was on a road that swung up and down and around curves, and passed through small villages, and a line of cars started to build up behind me. One guy, clearly a local, was annoyed enough to pass me whilst were were in a tunnel.

I finally reached J.'s apartment at 21:13, and dug my boots out of the bag before going in, as the snow was too deep for my sandals. We sat up chatting over tea till just after 22:00, then I did my yoga and went to sleep.

It was truly delightful to wake up this morning to the sight of a snow-covered mountain looming out of the clouds.

Today we plan to relax and enjoy the day. Tomorrow I will join her at the Archeoparc, which is closed this time of year. She and her assist will be working on the web page and I have promised to help with the English bits.

I will look at the weather report before deciding when to head back with the rental car. If the weather is good I could stay here till 04:00 on Wednesday morning and still make my flight at 09:30, but if it will still be bad perhaps I should drive back Tuesday and sleep in a hotel near the airport that night.