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I left you all last in Lamego, Portugal, where I sat watching the sun come out, then go away.... with neither the rain nor the incredible winds stopping. I was going to stay one more night at least, probably not even leaving the house except to get groceries, but the house was not available. I missed it by 5 minutes.
I looked at the weather in all directions for the next few days. There was rain of varying degrees pretty much everywhere except the south coast of Portugal, where it was going to dry up by the following afternoon. That was only a 400 mile drive away. It was supposed to be dry and warmish. OK, away I went.
I suppose a smarter thing to do would have been to head to the south of Spain, taking two days to get there. It was dry there too, and warmer than here, but I just wanted to get someplace dry quickly.
As usual I took a non-standard route and found some nice twisty roads in the mountains, but every time I got into the higher elevations in the mountains it got foggy and more rainy.
When I got to the coast, it was mostly dry, but the twisty roads on the edge of the cliffs were still a bit wet. No guardrails of course. One nice tight left hand turn gave me a bit of excitement as the front wheel broke loose, followed quickly by the rear wheel. I think the rear wheel slip may have helped the front get some traction. Just in case it was diesel I let myself drift to the dirt on the side of the road to scrub off any oil. This seemed to concern the two women walking on the side of the road 25 feet in front of me.
Back on pavement I tested my brakes. Even fairly light application would make the ABS kick in. The roads seemed to have green stuff growing in places, and I think it was just wet moss or whatever causing the slipperiness, along with a type of pavement that I hate. The pavement is a little bit of tar holding round pebbles together. This can get exciting in the best of conditions. This went on for a number of miles before it cleared up.
My first sampling of the scenery was worth the excitement. Although it concerns me a little that I did not get a decent adrenaline rush from the Slip-n-Slide. Maybe I need to start jumping out of planes or something.
