Travels with Kate the Luddite Wife -- The Italian Iteration

Okay, after several mind-numbingly boring days of thumb-twiddling in Kuwait, I finally snuck onto caught a ride on a C-17 as the adult supervision tour guide to [an OPSEC'ed number of troops] from [an OPSEC'ed unit] up to Kirkuk. And I figure I’d better get this AAR out of the way before somebody starts the rumor that, after two weeks of eating Italian food, I’m now John’s size. And, considering all meals in Italy consist of at least five courses, I actually did put on some weight -- since my hair grew about a quarter-inch, I figger I gained at *least* an ounce...

*ahem*

I’ll begin with a few caveats for any of you who happen to have the utter misfortune singular opportunity to travel with KtLW on a road trip. It’ll forestall some questions about the AAR and provide you with enough advance warning to think of a plausible excuse to duck the trip. Should the occasion arise before Hades ices up.

1. KtLW will insist on navigating. This consists of

a. sticking a street map of Florence in front of your eyes while you’re doing 140kph on the autostrade from Venice to Milan and asking you to point out the AmEx office in Piazza del Alighieri

alternating with

b. refusing to give you an approximate location of where you are in the back alleys of some medieval walled city because “You’re the one doing the driving -- you’re supposed to *know* where we are."

2. However, despite her lack of map-reading skills, she is quite willing to provide estimates of distance to the next town on the itinerary. These consist either of

a. “I think you passed our exit five minutes ago”

or

b. “About an inch.”

3. Under no circumstances must you allow her to open a map of Umbria while you’re navigating the Chianti Trail in Tuscany.

Which allows me to segue to the arcane art of driving on Italian goat trails back roads.

First, disregard the cheery estimates of time and distance they publish in Italy for Idiots the various wildly-overpriced tourist guides at your favorite bookstore. They measure all distances between inhabited areas point-to-point with a straight-edge, whereas the roads themselves are a series of switchbacks and hairpin turns designed to require you to drive 30 kilometers in order to traverse a 2,500-foot ridgeline 2 klicks in width. The guides also base time estimation on screaming along that straight line at 120kph, while your actual speed along the dirt trail -- one oxcart wide, with a vertical rise on the upslope of about 60 degrees and a sheer, 500-foot drop to the trail section below -- is about 10kph. And don't even think of trying it after dark without NVGs.

*No* guardrails. *No* reflectors. *No* "Quadruple-Ess Turn Ahead" signs.

The advantage of keeping the dropoff on the passenger’s side while traversing the back roads is that KtLW will immediately cease navigating and confine her remarks to “Oh, [insert the Name of your favorite deity], we’re going to die” and “Where the hell are you going to go if we meet something coming from the opposite direction?” We actually *did* encounter oncoming traffic (a WWII battlefield-pickup Kubelwagen and -- half-an-hour later -- an oxcart), which happened near convenient rockslides, which created slippery-but-negotiable wide spots in the trail and had the salutary effect of keeping KtLW’s mind focused on spiritual matters for as long as she kept her eyes squeezed shut.

About five minutes, each time.

At this point, it might be proper to inject the observation that KtLW possesses a quirky prescience: whenever she says, “This can’t be right -- you picked the wrong road again, and we have to turn around *right now* and go back,” you will be greeted by the sight of your destination when you ‘round the next bend.

I won’t expand on the number of times I almost went around the bend *solo*…

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Next installment: “The Art of Haggling KtLW-Style,” or, “Why purchasing a bracelet in a shop on the Ponte Vecchio for 700 euros is a better bargain than purchasing the exact same bracelet from a mail order catalog for $450.”  -- Bill