ED Memories: August 1, 2023

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

It's another beautiful day we wake up to, not hot (yet). In this idyllic setting we take our breakfast outside; croissants, homemade yoghurt and jams, fruit and of course, coffee. 

Andrew takes Pascale for a quick drive, so while they are gone, I settled down to perform a little surgery.

Unfortunately, one of my forefingers is infected. It was bothering me yesterday and this morning it is super tender and sore to the touch. I keep bumping it, and it freaking hurts! I borrow a needle and some rubbing alcohol and lance it. Hopefully releasing the pressure and applying some ointment will do the trick as it's interfering with comfortably holding the steering wheel - can't have that!

Pascale has done our laundry for us, amazingly, and I sit outside in the sunshine gathering mine together and folding it all up to repack. It has that crunchy, dried-in-the-natural-air feel to it that I love. I shall have to thank her profusely.

After a short while, the Cayman duo arrive back, with Pascale behind the wheel, with a big grin on her face. Good for Andrew! Not so sure I would do that ...

It's time for us to say our farewell, and turn north, heading in the general direction of Switzerland. As we progress, the little digital gauge to the right of my tach illuminates another warning for me. It's the 'Engine Control Fault - Driving Permitted' error again. WTF? I'm not sure what is going on, and it's disconcerting to say the least, but there are no outward signs of any issues. Of course anything and everything is covered under warranty, but still. Not much fun on our trip to have that in the back of my mind particularly when we are in the mountain boonies. Driving along a little more for a few minutes and the error clears itself. Strange.

At some point Andrew is hunting for another piece of gear, and we rummage around in both of the cars trying to find it. It makes me think he really needs his own Angela Cullen (Lewis Hamilton's uber-efficient personal assistant that allows Lewis to focus on driving and nothing more). She would be super handy on a trip like this!

We stop for fuel and groceries to make a nice lunch at some point, but right now we are having too much fun driving and plan for  'lunch' later in the day. It doesn't faze me in the least, not eating for several hours, as I'm just having too much fun. Of course when we do pause then my brain goes 'holy crap I'm hungry' and I have to be careful not to chow down too hard!

Each of us seem to have a few little niggling things that happen to us on and off as the trip progresses, and this time around it's Brian's turn as his glasses have gone missing. We make a u-turn and go back to the last gas stop. Sure enough we find them in the grass where he had slipped and fallen on a particular slope. Phew.

Around 3:00, at the base of an Alp, under a super hot 36°C sky, we managed to find a shady place at the inside of a massive hairpin. I think Andrew had already sussed it out beforehand during his exhaustive road mapping / Google Street View examination of our possible routes. Very handy.

From the lunch stop we continue on up into the high country and boy does it get scenic. Brian does a little Cayman driving while Andrew adventures up the mountainside for some filming of some particular shots that he has in mind. I can't wait to see the outcome of all of this photo / video capturing. There are going to be some majestic shots. For a little bit, some sheep are threatening to get in the way, and we sit calmly on the shoulder of the road, engines off, just drinking it all in , while the border collies soon sort them out. Mum and Dad would love seeing them in action for real. Most impressive.

At one stop I check out some old wartime emplacements and find a creepy tunnel that goes deep, deep, deep into the mountain. As it gets darker and deeper I get a little wigged out and turn around, making a beeline back for the daylight.

Sadly, a marmot sacrifices himself in front of Andrew, jumping out so quickly there is no time to react and nothing he can do. There's no damage to the car but the marmot isn't so lucky. We all feel pretty bad.

There is a bit of discussion as we ponder camping, but it's 13°C and likely will go down to around 5°C overnight. Brrrrr. I think my sleeping bag is only rated for +5 so I would be wearing all of my clothes! Instead we opt to carry on and hope to find somewhere. I have to say the Boxster is lovely even when cool out though. The heating steering wheel, and heated seats, plus vents that blow just right ... very nice, very nice indeed. And no trademark Luke-flushed-ness that is normal for me when driving technical stuff like this.

We take a steeeeep valley descent to yet another small town to check for lodging, and find a place at a ski resort which we take a direct route for as we are starving. We enjoy a pizza dinner at the ironically-named 'The Marmot' restaurant, and we raise a glass in his memory.

From there it's back to the hotel for a reset and bed. Another fine day done!

~ Luke

p.s. You can read the full, no-holds-barred accounting of this day at gtschronicles.com.