My summer was a total wash, but I'm very blessed to be alive and very thankful that I'm not paralyzed, or have any other crippling ailment. Since purchasing my motorcycle a summer trip has been on my mind, but each time weather has moved in and I decided to put them off till next time. But to be honest I was scared of riding, and scared of having another accident. As some of you may know, on April 30, 2007 I was in a serious motorcycle accident that left me wondering if I would ever through my leg across another motorcycle.

After two weeks in the hospital and two months of physical therapy, I finally got the courage to purchase a 2007 ZX-14 to replace my ZX-12R that was totaled in the accident.
Before
After
My New ZX-14
Well this past weekend 5 – 7 October 2007 I through caution to the wind and went for a little trip to battle my demons, concur my fears, and anything else you can think of to make this story sound good

My initial plan was to ride to Italy to see the Dolimitte mountains, but the closer I got to Garmish where I had planned on crossing the border I had another great idea! What better way to challenge myself than to go to the top of the Zugspitze, one of the highest points in Germany, a place so high not even even weather ballons can get up here

.

Saturday morning I packed my tank bag with all the needed items and away I went. As for the quality of pictures, I'm a buy a camera point and shoot type of guy so I hope you enjoy what I snapped


Good morning ST-N, just an early morning camera check, and I figured the flash would wake me up


This is not the Zugspitze, but it's one of the mountains I have to pass to get there, and now that you see this "little" mountain you might begin to understand my fear


On second thought maybe this is the Big Z, all I know is it's a wonderful sight.


Shadow of the clouds

Oh I'm sorry, did you think I was riding the motorcycle to the top?


See you at the top



All the way to the top and my trust is in these cables

Oh man now I know what superman feels like

And we're still going up


We're going by the old platform that was first built in 1924, it closed in 1961 after a big fire.

Finally made it to the top of the new platform, and I still have to go up steps. Don't mind the people looking at me. They had a good time laughing at me as the tram starting moving. Let's just say when the tram was moving I wasn't


Top of the world ma!






This really is for the birds




O.K. I've met my demons head on, time to head back down and give them there space



The ground is somewhere down there.

Side of the space platform

Even the birds want to fly the coop


There's one now flying the coop

(me and my dry humor)


On the decent

This is the view before the tram starts it's decent




Hiking is one of the many things to do in Germany, but hiking up this mountain.



Almost back to ground level.





The summit of the Zugspitze is approx. 2600 meters up and it's not the highest point in Germany. As we looked over the horizion, they noted that one of the peaks were 3400 meters up.

But this is high enough for me thank you very much.

As I headed home, I double back to Fussen because I saw some nice castles there, but I'll save that adventure
for next year.


I'm just glad to be riding, and right now it's time to head home.



Later days for now, time to get home and post on ST-N
