ALRIGHT!

cont.



THE SWISS ALPS!



Remember all those pictures I posted, how I was mad I couldn't show you how huge they are? It's those guys. Now imagine a guardrail-less road winding up those bad boys. Switchbacks every hundred feet, with us sweating around every corner as we see the tiny pine trees a hundred thousand feet below us (and the fact the heat is on to keep the engine alive). BGW's (The Bloody Gutless Wonder, for those of you just joining us, is our beloved fiat van that we rented in Switzerland) top speed is not that impressive going uphill and Schyler often pulled over to the side of the road to let tiny Nissans hauling huge campers drive past us. We reached the top and started down the other side.



Same roads only now going down hill, with a much better top speed.



This is when we descovered something about BGW. The proper velocity, combined with the proper pressure to the breaks, combined with Schylers driving style, combined with the steepness of the road, combined with a turn (this might all seem like a perfect storm of events, but in the Swiss Alps this happened about once ever hundred feet)...



Cause BGW's engine to turn off...



And there is no power steering with a turned off engine.



Actually, the first switchback I thought Schyler was just being weird, throwing his body all the way over to the passenger side and hauling on the wheel. It was not so funny when I realized he was trying to haul the car around the hairpin turn using nothing but muscle and momentum.



Out of the turn and back on the straight BGW started right back up as if nothing had happened.



Next switchback...



Straight, moter. Straight, moter. Straight, moter. Curve, no moter. Frenzied turning, a quick glimpse of a thousand foot drop with no guard rails. Straight moter.



My eventual philosophy was that traveling in Europe involves constantly being close to death. I finally learned to accept, and even enjoy it. By the end of the trip I wasn't fazed by anything. Schyler could have played chicken with a train on the last day and I wouldn't have cared.



I think the closest we got to dying was about an hour after the alps. We were going through another set of switchbacks (we'd gotten them down to a system by this point and I wasn't particulary concerned with this one) only just as the engine died and we began the turn we noticed a bus (which had been blocked from our view until this very moment) coming right toward us from the opposite direction. The only thing I remember from this turn was the look on the bus driver's face. It was a look of complete panic. He gestured with his hand in front of his face as he passed us. He was either praying or flipping us off, I may never know, although I have been keeping an eye out for that particular gesture on the streets of Viterbo. If I ever figure out what it means I will tell you.

So that is the BGW, a van I both hated and loved at intervals, sometimes both at the same time, although I must say, it has given me some of the best stories I have ever had.