How not to travel to Vienna (2.)

When we felt calm enough and completely packed, we started our journey to Mikulov, where we had a night stop before the border. We booked a night in a small and cozy guesthouse so that we could all rest and recharge our batteries for the early departure to Austria after the hard day.

Navigation set, we buckled up and were ready to head to our next destination.

 

Since it was already dark and the unmaintained roads were a bit slippery, we had to drive really carefully and slowly. The dog fidgeted around a bit in the back seat, watching the road with us or occasionally laying down on the blanket and resting. It took us a while to get out of Friday's city traffic, but once we hit the highway, the tension eased off a bit and we even started talking for a while. When traveling in the car with my husband, I always act as the silent passenger in the next seat, serving water behind the wheel, watching the navigation, and pointing out the next turn when I'm just hitting it and not getting confused by the blue arrow scrolling across the display. Sometimes car journeys with it are a bit stressful, but unfortunately, I don't drive myself so I can't judge.

 

After a couple of hours on the road, we got a bit hungry and needed energy in the form of a quick snack as we needed to wrap our nerves and make fat stores for the cold as well. We made it to McDrive and ordered some goodies for the road from the voice attendant, and of course, our backseat pet got a treat as a reward. We pulled over to the side of the parking lot where there was a much-needed gas station. We inhaled the food and drove down to the station where my husband had to buy washer fluid. Meanwhile, I washed the windshield of the car and waited for him to return. He immediately poured it into a container and tried spraying the windshield...and that's when we found out the unpleasant surprise.

 

Since we were putting the car in car service before going away expecting an inspection and a deeper alignment of the car since it hadn't been used in a while, we assumed everything was fine and set up as it should be to make the car safe and completely drivable... But when I saw my husband's expression, I knew something was wrong - and we had another setback in our world.

 

We pulled the car over to the side of the rest area. While my husband was walking back to the gas station store, I let the dog out on the grass for a quick pee. It was snowing, and freezing, and I was coatless around waiting for the dog to sniff every trash can and tree. He shook the snowflakes off his fur, hopped into the back seat, and I sat in the front. I prayed and waited to see what my husband would return with.

He came in with an angry expression, holding a special duct tape in his hand and barely speaking. "What the hell happened?", I asked, afraid that he would throw it at me and that our adventure would end there.

 

"Our windshield washer tube burst, it's moldy at the end and they don't have a spare at the station so I can temporarily replace it!", he replied with the expression of a furious bull who was just about to attack anything. The joke was that it was the driver's side tube, the other one in the passenger seat was fully functional. I almost stopped breathing and started thinking the worst - we would turn around and head back home and that would be the end of our vacation! But at times I wanted to laugh, I'm not going to lie to you, because the expressions that fell from his mouth were for the Chronicle of Pissed Off.

"This little thing is mandatory equipment and must be functional, otherwise we can't go on!", he added. "What kind of idiot replaces just one side or fails to check the condition of such essential items?", he threw his arms around and moved from side to side.

 

Not a decent word came out of his next angry monologue, that's how serious it was, but I couldn't forgive myself a few "under the beard" grins. "Shouldn't we have checked ourselves before we left?", I thought aloud without mentioning it, so I wouldn't lose my head.

 

In the end, we tried to discuss it further with a cool head and finally took a chance on the way in. The window was washed, but a few drops of rain fell, the wipers came down occasionally, and it was possible to wipe the drops off with the help of the cars next to us, who pelted the windshield with a little splashed water from the road, and it was possible to see the road again better. We managed to come up with a temporary solution by the next day.

We had the radio, or rather the Highway frequency, to keep us company, which eased the thick atmosphere in the car a bit with some amazing music. So we headed to Mikulov, where we were looking forward to washing off the tension in the shower relaxing in a warm bed, and sleeping in peace until the next morning.

 

As soon as we had the last few kilometers to the guesthouse and started joking with each other, I knew that the worst was over and we would survive everything... 

But was that really the end of our suffering?