Day 34- Seeshaupt,Germany to Mannheim, Germany

Strange, after all these weeks of not having to use the sleeping bags last night was freezing. It rained heavy most of the night and was still raining when I woke to the sound of the church bell ringing at 6.00. We lay in listening for the rain to stop and trying to keep warm. Eventually around 9.00 it eased off and the sun started to try and peep through. We packed as quickly as we could thinking that it would start to rain again but it stayed dry. We decided rather than riding to Liege in Belgium in one day we would split it over two days as we had time to spare. We booked a hotel room in Mannheim using my iPhone and as this was only 250 ish miles away decided to have a walk around the lake , it was beautiful as the autumn colours have started to appear (see photos but they don't do it justice )
We soon had to get moving and got on our way just after mid day. Stopping for lunch and shopping meant that we didn't get past Munich until 2.00 but no worries I thought we have loads of time.
We didn't know it at the time but somewhere on the A8 there had been a pile up involving 3 lorries so after only an hour or so we ground to a halt with all three lanes stopped. I then spent at least an hour slowly filtering through the jam until, just outside Stuttgart the motorway had been closed. We found a service station and stopped for fuel and a coffee just then the heavens opened with a storm. While we sat in the coffee house waiting for it to blow over we learned about the pile up. A guy advised us to hang on till the news an see if it had cleared before trying to get back on. By 6.30 it had cleared so we made a move only to get lost in Stuttgart ! It took a good half hour in all the traffic chaos to get back onto the A8. With heavy traffic and dark falling plus rain on and off it took a good couple of hours to get to the hotel. We arrived totally exhausted at around 9.00
Miles today - 257
Hours in saddle - 6