Up this morning in Padova, breakfast, and Jan made her fantastic coffee for the road. Then, the car was loaded and we said arrivederci to Padova and we pointed our noses east toward Trieste.
We stuck to the toll roads this time, keeping the travel time down in the interest of getting quickly and safely to our destination. We passed down the road easily in spite of a huge number of freight trucks as we had a three lane highway to drive on. The trucks stuck mostly to the right lane, but several times along the way the trucks were three-abreast. We never had the tractor-trailer units in the left-most lane, but sometime cube vans were there if the tractors took up the two right lanes. Then you could almost hear the screaming and shouting from the 150kmh cars who had to jam on their brakes down to 100 or 110 kmh. Soon enough the cubes would pull in, and the congestion would clear, but the damage from high blood pressure in the left lane would take much longer to clear I'm sure.
Shortly after one of the cube van incidents the engine hood came loose. Just loose and rattling, not flying-up-and-over-loose but any kind of loose at 140kmh is a bit breathtaking. If the thing cuts loose of its safety hook it will fly right up, smash the window, block our vision, and we are dead. No, wait a minute, this time I'm not kidding. I noticed the thing vibrating in the wind flow and wondered 'what do I do now'? Panic? Of course, I'm there already. But what next? Uuhhhh .... Go crazy? I'm already there, mad as a hatter and have been for some time. What next? How about stop and try to fix it? Ok, lets do that. The gods smile upon us (Jupiter and Saturn this time but Uranus only winks at me, planetarily speaking) as just ahead of us there is a fuel stop. We pull off, the hood still shaking and vibrating, and I pull up close to the main entrance since I don't need fuel. I get out, raise the hood, put the support under it, and look at the hood release. It is all gummed up and corroded, as though by salt deposits from the winter. I wiggle it and pull it, no luck. I go get my new pliers set and play with that. The hood catch moves, sluggishly, and the hook doesn't snap back as it should. Aha!!! says I, this is a job for Weasel Piss!!!!! So into the store I go, and ask a fellow behind the cash register if he has any. He says, with a smile, 'No English, Italiano only'. Ok, no help there, I have to go looking. I wander the isles, in among the oils and lubricants, looking. Suddenly, it leaps out at me!!!!! I grab the can and go see the nice Italiano man, pay his price, go out to the car, and spray hell out of the spring and lock mechanism with my aerosol can. After soaking it, I wiggle the catch and find that it moves all I would want it to and more. Encouraged, I slam the hood down yet again. This time it sticks!!!! How lucky are we now. I get back into the car, armed with my can of lubricant which I'm never going to part with now. I start the car, we drive away, Jan confirming as we get up to speed that I am absolutely brilliant and definitely did something right.
P.S. - For the unaware, Weasel Piss is a term coined by our friend Garry Keay, referring to a family of new industrial-strength lubricants that are very corrosive to rust and garbage on springs or nuts and bolts, and fittings of one sort or another. If you want some, go to your local auto supply store and ... if you ask for some exotic name they'll just shake their heads. So ask for WD-40 instead. The kind I use at home is called 'Nuts Off'. No, I really mean it, that's what its called. You've got a bolt with a rusted-on nut, just spray it good and the next day it comes right off. You think I'm kidding but next time the hood on your Mercedes comes loose, you'll thank me.
We went by Trieste on our right, sensed rather than seen in the smog. We are right at the top of the Adriatic Sea here, bridging between the land masses of Italy and Slovenia/Bosnia/Hertzgovenia/Serbia/Montenegro/Macedonia/Greece. Above us, Austria/Germany/Czech Republic. This area of the world is very new to us but as we drive along it does not look foreign. It is much like our prairie provinces, very flat and aggrarian, but the crops are not grains but rather mixed farming and vines. The area of northern Italy is heavily industrialized and we have noticed an ever-present smog here since we arrived. Often the mornings are misty, foggy, but that burned off. The smog never did however. We noticed that Venice had a well defined haze even in the mid-day sunshine. Almost like the areas around Los Angeles. Too bad, but that is progress I guess.
Our longest tunnel today was about 2900 meters, but very well lit and well marked inside and easy to drive. Over the top, past Trieste, then turned south with the sun ahead of us now rather than on our right side, we're getting close to our destination. Passed into Slovenia seamlessly, it is a member of the European Union which has become a borderless entity. Passed a sign saying that getting a pass for the toll roads was mandatory in Slovenia, but we are just going a short distance and hopefully we won't hit a toll road. Turns out I needn't have worried, no toll roads and just an easy drive down the coastline to Portoroz where our friends Anton and Marjanca live. We find a hotel and check in, park the car, and call them when we get to our room. We chat and agree that we'll meet for dinner here at 7:30pm.
Later ...
We met Tony and Marjanca in the lounge of the hotel and became re-acquainted with them as the cruise has been over for about a year now. There was lots to catch up on. We invited them to dinner but they insisted that we join them at their apartment as Marjanca had already prepared dinner for us. A short drive later, about ten minutes, and we were there. It is part of a new gated community that has all the amenities, including massage and spa facilities and its own resident doctor on call. They are consumate hosts, offering us Slovenian Schnapps as an aperitif, local wine with dinner, and a plum brandy, also Slovenian, with desert. The meal was spectacular, and after many glasses of good cheer ('Jivio' is their toast, meaning 'to life') and much reminiscing over their photos and our recollections of the cruise, we finally got back to the hotel after one oclock in the morning, tired, happy, and a little tipsy.
Tomorrow, they are taking us sightseeing in the area around Porteroz.
