Stage 9: Heidelberg to Alsfeld

Bad, bad day. Run into heavy downpour 2 hours outside of Heidelberg, stop briefly under a bus shelter. move on in the rain through beautiful rolling hills until another heavy downpour hits us along with lightning. Cold, wet and distraught it is time to find a train station. Along the way I loose my glasses, which makes incredibly difficult to keep my eyes open with the pounding rain. We stop in Michelstadt to enquire about train routes/schedules. And, at which point I end up loosing my helmut under a train! We decide to continue our journey by train until I can find a bike store and get a new helmut. We end up covering somewhere in the vicinity of 260km unfortunately not all by bike.
Still no sign of Petra, send yet another email and try to contact a few mutual friends to see if anyone has heard from her ... nothing hope she has found a warm and dry place to hang out.

Oh, now proud owner of a German-made helmet.