Vacation, Day 3

What happened to Day 2?, the observant and regular reader of this blog may well ask.  Well, that day did not go well, to say the very least.

At the end of day 1, we went to bed early, snug in our tents.  It began to rain in  the night.  Not a big deal, I thought.  The sound of rain on the tent is pleasant, when you are inside.  I actually slept reasonable well.

Innsbruck. I’m strangling Sam because he thought he was being funny blocking Isabel from the photo

But the rain really started in earnest in the morning.  The boys complained that there was water in their tent, so they came into ours.  Not really a big deal, we could have slept 5, although it wouldn’t have been comfortable.  Helena and I walked up to the  grocery  store and  got breakfast.

Sam didn’t want to eat and we were worried he might be sick.  (He wasn’t sick)  We started thinking maybe this camping trip wasn’t meant to be and started discussing alternatives.  Went for a drive to the beach, because at least inside the car we were warm and dry.  Went to the town where the beach was supposed to be and got out to walk, all signs seemed to indicate it was just over the dunes.  Got a couple of blocks (with no sign of the beach) and the sky opened up and it poured.  Went back to the car.  Found the beach, which was not exactly the wind swept stretch of pristine sand I’d imagined.  There was the biggest, ugliest factory I’d ever seen in my life, a harbor with some very  large ships, which was interesting, and a long walk to actually get a look at the open ocean.

By the time we got back to the campground, we were committed to  leaving.  The problem was, we’d paid for 4 nights and they had no intention of refunding the money.  They said they will  send us a voucher for 3 nights, to be used by the end of season, but I don’t see us getting  back to Amsterdam in that time, so I hope we can sell it.

We decided to move straight to the second part of the trip, and drive Sam’s friend home to Innsbruck.  It was still raining buckets for the first two of 3 hours of the drive, but we pressed on and made it here just about midnight.  I told Helena she should be a truck driver.  She falls asleep in front of the TV after 10 minutes, but she can drive for days.

So we’re staying at his mother’s flat, and it’s quite lovely, indoors with all the mod cons, a lovely view of the Alps from the balcony, we took a walk down to a brook in the woods this morning and toured the city this afternoon, which was absolutely fine.  All’s well that ends well.