Not again a Viking village in the rain!

Odometer: 156483
In the morning, we were awakened by the constant drumming of raindrops on our roof. A gusty wind also joined in, making our journey surely less pleasant. The goal for today was to visit the Viking Museum at Haithabu. Didn't we already spend a visit in the rainy Viking village in Wolin, Poland, last year? Our suspicion was confirmed that we would also visit this Viking museum in the rain or at least in cold wind and overcast skies.
In the end, the weather was only partly to blame for our lack of enthusiasm about Haithabu compared to what we had expected. The ensemble was spread over a very large area; at the entrance outside the semicircular wall stood the modern museum, and from there a walk of about fifteen minutes led to the reconstructed houses. In total, seven buildings were reconstructed in the old style, the great hall at its original location and then other houses from the settlement arranged around the hall with only short paths in between.
The few houses and the landing stage could only hint at the significance of the former trading metropolis, and we simply lacked the imagination to picture how the entire area of over 25 hectares inside the semicircular wall must have been full of buildings and people. Now, sheep and cattle were grazing on the green meadow.
We were lucky with the weather. The whole time during our visit, it hadn’t rained, and now we were on our way back to the car when, shortly after we got in, a light steady shower began. We had celebrated too soon because Gary now had an unpleasant surprise for us.

After we had gotten ready to tackle the next leg towards the North Sea, Gary didn’t want to start. When turning the ignition key, it hummed briefly, then it just beeped, and all the lights went out. Great! Even a second and third attempt were unsuccessful. So what to do? We couldn’t stay. The museum parking lot had made it very clear with signs that camping was prohibited here. We first tried to get a jump start and asked an older couple, who had just finished their museum visit, if they could help us with their car. The two were happy to help us with a jump start; they only wanted to take a look inside Gary. “What a beautiful old car.”
The maneuver succeeded, and we were mobile again. Phew! We were relieved that it was “only” the car battery; it could have been an electrical problem or the starter or something else entirely. Since we didn’t know when the battery had been installed in the car, we decided to replace it right away; maybe it had simply become completely outdated and would cause us problems again and again, even though it had worked perfectly well in the morning. But where could we find a new battery after 6:00 PM?
A hardware store two little towns away in Schleswig had what we needed and was open until 8:00 PM. While Ines waited in the parking lot with the engine running, Sebb searched in the hardware store to see if a compatible battery was in stock. We found one and were able to install the new battery right there in the parking lot and return the old one for disposal.
Now we felt better again, and “Surprise!” the fridge also started working again in 12-volt mode. We had already noticed that it hadn’t been working during the drive, but the cooling performance on 12 V was insufficient anyway, so it hadn’t bothered us much. We hadn’t realized that the failed fridge could be an indication of a defective battery, especially since the starter and lights and all other electricity were functioning.
We then cut our route for the rest of the day a bit shorter and made a stop at the dikes near Glückstadt. In the evening, we walked along the dikes, and although we approached very carefully, none of the dike sheep wanted to be petted by us.
At night, the steady wind gently rocked Gary back and forth.
Tomorrow we would take the ferry across the Elbe.