Elvis on the Move - Motorcycle Adventure Travel

So I leave Austria in my side view mirrors and after maneuvering my way through the city center and getting a little lost trying to go the right direction on the Autobahn I find myself heading due east to Slovakia and Bratislava. The trip should take about an hour but I was there in 20 minutes. Doing 190km/h on the Autobahn makes time slow down considerably. Truth be known, there is nothing worth seeing on the Autobahn with the exception of your destination coming up on you swiftly. It is truly an ugly network of roads situated on the least memorable landscapes any country has to offer. View Larger Map I follow the blue signs marked “Centar” into Bratislava. What a nice city! I cross the bridge into the old (read: tourist) part of the city and I putter around. It has to be about 40 degrees (Celsius) out and I find driving up and down by the river to be very refreshing. I take a couple of turns and end up in the business sector, then a few more turns and I’m at the top of the highest h...

View Larger Map After gassing up (no pun intended) I left the town of Mikulov and headed for Austria. I pull out of town and the first thing I see are the casinos and whorehouses. Not requiring either I continue on. I figure it will be awhile before I make it to the border... oops! I just crossed the border. That was quick. It's funny. The EU has made all the border crossings into funny looking rest areas filled with currency exchange kiosks and cafes. The EU has been around for awhile now but the border crossing building are being maintained for when the next all out war comes to reestablish the need for border guards again. The quality of the roads improve on the Austrian side of the border. There is something peculiar about the way the lines are painted though. To the untrained eye you would think that you were on a two lane road. As it turns out there is an invisible lane in the middle of the road that everyone knows about. If you pull up fast on someone they immediately get ov...

Full of pork and beer I make my escape from the clutches of Prague. A very beautiful city full of lunatics, drunks, and drunk lunatics (I include myself in that category). It's about 8:30 in the evening and the sun has set long before I leave the city limits. I'm doing the one thing I said I wasn't going to do on this trip. No, not drinking and driving. I got over that moral hurdle many years ago when I realized my hand-eye coordination actually improved with the consumption of alcohol. You should see me at the go cart track with a couple dozen Red Bull and vodkas in me. You would think I was Mario Andretti on crack. Or maybe Tom Cruise from Days of Thunder without crack! No the thing I promised myself I wouldn't do is driving at night. A dozen beers is one thing but lack of visibility and sleep can make riding dangerous. Not to mention the fact that I came here to see the country and it's hard to do that from the highway at night. But like most things I promise mys...