-May 24th-
We knew it was going to be a good day when it wasn't raining when we woke up. On the way out of the gravel lot where we parked J noticed my front tire was low. A mile later and we had to change the tube. We used camp soap as a lube to break the beed and Gold Bond to prevent the tube from binding. Rocks were our jack stands...
Everything went smoothly, but we didn't have any axle grease. Luckily I pulled over about 150 yards from an auto garage. I met a very nice Swiss mechanic who called his wife (since she spoke english) when he couldn't understand me. He gave me some axle grease for free.
Then, we rolled through quaint Swiss Mountain Ghost Town #384 and kept rolling. The Alpes are absolutely beautiful and absolutely cold and rainy. We were all set to head into Austria when we lost J.
J pulled over when one of his trash bags flew off his bike. He waved for Rodger and I to go on. That was the last we saw of J for the day. We waited at the exit to the road to Innsbrook, Austria on A12. J never showed. We tried the walkie talkies but after a brief "J?", "Is that you Rodger?" exchange we couldn't get those things to work anymore. We decided he had gotten by us somehow and rolled on. We passed through many tunnels and stopped at every rest area searching for J. Through Lichtenstein, into Austria and across the German border by 20 feet at 2am we decided to call it quits and set up at the first non-packed rest-station we could. We barricaded the tent with our two bikes in the parking lot of a gas station.
-Update-
The next morning as Rodger and I were packing our stuff I heard Rodger go "J?". I looked up as J rode over to us and whipped out his video camera saying "Wait, wait. Lemme get this thing on first." He had in fact slipped by us last night and slept for the night at the other end of the same parking lot. He had hidden himself and his bike behind an 18 wheeler and down in a ditch for the night. He didn't even see us. Actually, he was coming over to use the phone next to us. After being separated for 16 hours and riding over 250 miles, he slept barely 200 yards from us and we had no idea.
-Andrew