The Race To The Glockner Is On And Topfengolatschen Will Lead Me to Victory!

Here we were: One fighting with sat-nav in Stuttgart, the other waiting in the line of the bakery to acquire a couple of Topfengolatschen. Now - it may seem very likely that you do not know what that is - but let me explain: basically it is heaven in pastry form. Not only was this a gift to Barb, it is the perfect motivation as well:

The sooner I'd arrive in Zell am See and consequently on the Glockner, the sooner I'd be able to eat one. Furthermore, in the highly unlikely case that I'd lose I could always blame it on them as well. After all that's additional weight I had not factored on.

And so around 6:50 AM the flag dropped!

And off we go @FumbiMcStupid 🚙🏁 pic.twitter.com/IA0BR4Ih3W

— Susanne Kainer (@floralcars1) 17 de agosto de 2017

Engine on, and hand-brake off I started to trundle along. The moment I'd join the Autobahn I would start to eat mile after mile, only cementing my victory! It all began to look strange when sat-nav sent me left on the intersection instead of right. "That's weird, that's not the usual way to send me onto the A3."

I was right. It had not sent me onto the Autobahn ... since it let me drive past it. "Uhm, okay." Maybe I was to join in a bit later, and avoid a few junctions along the way. Clever ... Then I drove past the A2 ...

This did raise a few eyebrows. Here I ran out of knowledge of the Autobahnen near my home town. I thought I was meant to join one of them, and then use the motorway junction near Vienna to turn onto the A1 to head west and to my eventual victory!

I pulled over a few meters later and checked the sat-nav. Suddenly, what had always been 4h on the computer had turned into a whooping six hour journey!

"What are you doing?!" I exclaimed, as I tapped the screen. This would not only cost me my victory but probably also my sanity.

This could NOT be google adding traffic into the mix. No. And as I zoomed in I realized the error. It appeared that for some reason or another it was set to avoid Autobahnen. "Fucking great," I muttered, as I angrily stabbed at the buttons to make the thing go.

Before I knew it, I had been on the path that I had always seen on the laptop. Familiar grounds.! Relief washed over me. Now I could set off. It would probably send me back to the A2 ... it did not.

"Hmpf." It was only half as bad, because I got a little bit of alpine training as it sent me through the Helental.

At least this time I knew I was heading onto the Autobahn because I could see the correct signs. Later it turned out that Google maps helped me avoid the horror of a regular and daily traffic jam on the A2.

And a few moments later I turned onto the blissful two lane road. Or as it is commonly known the Autobahn. While I started to give it some gas I calculated that I had not lost too much time thanks to this, er, "malfunction."

On the Autobahn, I was making good progress. Brilliantly actually, and so I concluded that I had lost 10 to 15 minutes. I still had my Rookie Bonus, and now we had evidence that it really was needed. More importantly the game was still on and the cards were in my favour!

As I drove along, two lanes becoming three, sometimes four and then two again, I realized two things. One: The new Red Bull Green Edition is actually quite good and a vital power source. Two: Lower Austria is idiotically big.

Personally, I enjoy driving on the Autobahn when it isn't too busy. There is always a strange rhyme to it. On the far right are the ones that are chilling along. The middle lane is hogged by the ones going the actual speed limit and the outside lane is for the really quick ones. When you see someone coming up behind you going way faster, you are friendly and tuck back into your respective lane. It feels are more harmonic than your casual B-road. It binds you together, and quiet quickly I began to realize why that is so.

Nothing brings motorists closer together than being stuck behind an Elefantenrennen:

Elefantenrennen - Noun, German. Translation: Race of the elephants. When one truck overtakes the other and blocks all lanes in doing so. Usually done when one truck is only 2 kph faster ... Syn.: Oh For F*#k's Sake, Really?!