Day 11, 16 May - Baden-Baden

I woke up this morning to a sore throat; lovely. At least the weather looks half-decent, with some patchy blue sky. My plan was to try to play a little golf today at this course called “Baden Hills Golf and Curling Club.” Yes, that says “Curling.” Apparently, the course was part of a Royal Canadian Air Force facility that was turned over to the locals some years ago. Anyway, I had contacted them via email a few weeks ago and confirmed that they offered rental clubs and had room for me.

Breakfast at the Tanneck is certainly less satisfying than previous hotels this trip. The fruit choices are poor; the meats and cheeses are limited; and the cereal choices are very bland. The one positive is that the breads were superb.

I left Angela to her own devices and headed out to the golf course. Angela was going to spend her time at the Friedrichsbad Roman-Irish baths followed by some shopping while I played golf. I got to the course by around 10:15 or so and was able to line up my rental clubs and figure out that on weekdays, it’s just first-come, first served on the first tee. I headed over to the range to try to get acclimated to my rentals: Bridgestone Precept EV’s with “R” flex graphite shafts. Given the whippy nature of the shafts, the strong winds, and the 10.5 degree driver, I knew was going to have a very difficult time keeping the ball flight under control.

I managed to beat it around the front nine, but when I made the turn, I could see the weather was making a decided turn for the worse (as was my health), so I packed it in after 10 holes. See, this course was walking only, and I was headed directly into the teeth of the wind and right at a very dark rain cloud and out to the furthest reaches of the course. It turned out to be a very wise move, since right after I got in the car, it started raining pretty good.

I got back to the hotel around 2:30 and just slumped right into bed and waited for Angela to get back from her day. I left a message on her cell phone, hopeful that she would get it and maybe bring me back some lunch, but when she finally returned to the hotel around 5, she had already eaten and I was left to starve until dinner.

Today is our anniversary, and we had planned to spend it at the Casino, having dinner and possibly doing a little gambling. I decided to try to gut it out, even though I was feeling progressively worse, so we got dressed up and drove down the hill to the casino.

Our dinner was excellent. We ate in a newer restaurant right in the casino where we could watch the gamblers work the Roulette. Unfortunately, I really started to feel terrible over the course of dinner; to the point that I started getting really bad fever chills. This severely curtailed our time in the casino; only allowing us to blow 5 Euros on the slot machines prior to going back to our hotel. Obviously, I’m not so sick that I can’t update the journal, or watch an episode of Heroes, but I do feel like complete crap.

Tomorrow we will drive deeper into the Black Forest; following yet another of “Germany’s Best Loved Driving Tours” and searching for some decent weather.