Wild Hogs Tour 2022 - The Italian Job: Day 23

I woke up in a bad mood. The bald chimp had set the aircon so low, my bed was like some cryogenic chamber. He forgets he's got a covering of fur to keep him warm. It's often a problem. He gets to a room, whacks the aircon on low temp/high output, then puts the tv on. A little changing ritual. I usually increase the temperature when he's not around but either I forgot or he turned it down again.

Today has been a tough day, especially for the old fella. More twisties than a slinky! God's judgement for nearly freezing me to death... again!

Mountains = twisty roads. It also means spectacular views, both coastal and inland. It's almost impossible to stop on a twisty hill climb to take a photo of a magnificent coastline but I did manage one later in the day of the hills and valleys.

We had another road closure, or was it? We stopped at what appeared to be a blocked road and when a car behind did a u-turn, we followed suit. Tomtom hates these and it took a while to pick a route around. Grizzly later thought it may only have been partially closed. Doesn't matter now.

We stopped for some water, as the temperature was 27 or so by then. Grizzly was moaning, no more twisties. How he thought we were getting out of the mountains I don't know. Not so many straight roads in the mountains. He doesn't like twisty, he doesn't like bumpy. I don't know what he expects, if we are avoiding motorways. Typical cruiser boy. He'll be happy if we go to the US, nice straight roads! I'll be honest, I'm not that keen on the really tight uphill hairpins myself, and we did have a lot early on.

Another town and another road closure. Tomtom or maybe it was me, lost the plot and we ended up in a bloody car park! Eventually we got on the right road, then bugger if it didn't happen again. Down some little paved street into a dead end. Very, very frustrating.

Back in the groove, we made it to our fuel stop. There was a cafe, so Grizzly had some sandwiches and his americano coffee. A fed and watered Grizzly is a happy one, at lesst till the next set of hairpin bends!

Back on the road we were halted by a red light at a level crossing. We waited and waited. I didn't time it exactly but it was over 5 minutes we sat there in the blazing sun. Bloody trains!

We were on the move again and now on some fairly decent, wide and sweeping roads, the earlier tight twisties, obviously used for the Giro d'italia, judging by all the writing on the road surface, behind us.

The temperature had risen to 33 degrees and desite being in some slow traffic, Ginny behaved herself. Grizzly's mechanical guru friend, Pat Fox, thinks there could be air in Ginny's cooling system, hence why she's not constantly overheating, just intermittently.

You may remember that yesterday Grizzly Fish predicted we would hit rain about 3pm. As with most of his weather predictions, he was wrong, all we hit was 33.5 degrees! He's usually got an excuse though. His mates would probably call him a gobshite! 🤣

We're staying in a town called Alba, slap bang in the middle of millions of vines. I don't know what wine region this is but the town of Asti is just up the road. Made no difference to us, we stuck with birra at dinner, Austrian no less.

Before dinner we took a quick walk down to the main piazza, took a few snaps of the cathedral and civic building, then Grizzly wanted his dinner. Add to the list, he doesn't like sightseeing when he's hungry!