I left the campground late on that drizzly Sunday morning. The break in the rain let me pack up the tent at least not soaking wet. With only 28 km to Salzburg, I decided to take my time. While the local castle only openedsl on the weekends, I explored the grounds before I headed out.
I wandered towards Salzburg in the rain, taking every opportunity to explore castle icons on my map.
Unsuccessfully, the best I found were baroque Manor houses. All still in use, one was clearly a retirement home. Wandering back and forth, occasionally lost in twisty little neighborhood streets, about 10 km out of Salzburg I stopped under bridge to check on Linda.
I’d lost track of time, having forgotten that I left late, and normally measuring my time by distance. When I pulled my phone out of airplane mode at 1:30 p.m. I had a number of messages from Linda asking what had happened to me! I was supposed to touch base about the success for her getting cash. And nothing had worked.
So I sat under that bridge, on that drizzly Sunday afternoon, working with Linda to find a way to get her cash. Between us we had four phone numbers, and a number of credit cards, and at least three different options for online services to send cash: Western Union, MoneyGram, and Ria. We never managed to get any of them working. We kept being close but then triggering fraud alerts on the credit cards.
Linda had mentioned earlier that her power on her phone was low, and then I suddenly lost contact with her. I decided any solution could only improve with me being in nearby Salzburg, so I picked myself up and headed there.
In the interim, Linda searched for power, and managed to get a partial charge on her phone. We made another attempt or two in Salzburg for online money transfers, but were running out of time. I was also concerned we would deactivate otherwise working credit cards for fraud. I was running out of runway, potentially leaving Linda unable to pay for her accommodation. Linda was stressed out. So I bought a train ticket, and took myself to Linda.
In that simple solution, we’d miscommunicated. While I had thought I knew at which station to meet Linda, along the way she’d given me the name of the end of the line (and a picture to match). When I arrived at the station where I would have gotten off had Linda not sent me that photo, I stayed on the train. I texted Linda to let her know I was close. She let me know that the train from Salzburg had just pulled out of the station. Oops. With me on it.
Fortunately, the next stop was only 7 km away. I disembarked and rode back to Linda. Except construction had closed the road between me and Linda! Fortunately I found the pedestrian crossing moments before deciding to bike 10 km around the construction. From there I had only a short ride to Linda.
When I arrive, we were running out of daylight. We rode to a bank to get cash, only to stumble over the fact that I made a cash withdrawal earlier that day, and couldn’t pull any more! At that point Linda’s and my combined cash would at least pay for her guest house. I also carry another credit card. I rummaged through my bags and pulled cash from that card as well. From there we went to McDonald’s to pick up a late dinner. Then we rode back to her guest house, up a 7% incline.
I was confident that with just a little more time, I could solve the cash problem remotely. But if I ran out of time? So I solved it the one way I knew would work.
While my original plan (okay, so we’re several levels past the original plan) was to take a train back to Salzburg on Tuesday, when I looked at the map on Tuesday morning a different route presented itself back to Salzburg! With no rain in the forecast, and a gloriously sunny day, I biked back to Salzburg… again.
In sunshine.
Linda would arrive in Salzburg by train late Wednesday morning. We’d explore the Salzburg castles together Wednesday afternoon. Thursday, we would head towards Munich, her by train, me by bicycle.