We're in Tucson

The flight from PA left at 7:30. The pilot flogged the airplane and made up much lost time in the air. We arrived Phx at 9:00 and make the connection to Tucson with 10 minutes to spare. It was a bumpy flight, no sleeping occurred. I'm just punchy today. Now we are off to pick up the RV and return to normal life.

We're in Philly

I picked the wrong line to stand in for customs. Our guy was chatty and slow, and then he left to escort someone for further interrogation. THEN it took an HOUR to get through security. Never mind the fact that we were screened in Germany. We missed our 3:30 flight to Phx. This will end up being 24 hours of traveling. I'm never picking another line as long as I live.
Update: Well, the 6 pm flight to Phx they booked us on is delayed until 7. I can't stand it.

Trier to the Frankfurt Bates Hotel

The drive to Frankfurt was uneventful, except for putting the wrong street name in the GPS, a lot of it was on red roads over the Hunsruck, which was pretty darn scenic. Fortunately the error was not significant, and it took us to a Biergarten. It was not all bad.
I saw this magazine cover at one of the rest stops. Germany has had an outbreak of a very nasty E. coli strain, 10 people have died over the last 3 weeks. They think it's coming from Spanish cucumbers, the Spaniards are denying it.

Food at the autohofs is amazing. They actually cook. This stop had a guy doing pasta if you ordered it. The already cooked food was fried potatoes with bacon, schnitzel (which is a breaded fried pork), wurst and meatloaf. It's not meatloaf like in the US, it's more of a pressed and formed meat slurry. The lady in front of us had a slice of that, with an egg over easy on it, and the fried potatoes. I would like to know what Germany's cholesterol numbers are. If they aren't high, then I'm done with broccoli.

We checked in to the Comfort Inn Airport hotel. It's just gruesome. We left to figure out how to get to the airport. Not wanting to return to said hotel, we went back to the beer garden and had fries and a beer. It was just delightful. Those of you who know me in real time know that I am not a beer drinker, except for here. It's really good.


Calling this an airport hotel is just ridiculous. It's out in the toolies, the "shuttle" they advertise is them calling you a cab, and there is no air conditioning. Our bathroom faces west and I've McGyvered a curtain for the window to cut down on the heat. Today's key learning is to book the last hotel at home, where the force of the internet is strong and one is able to read the hotel reviews. Had we done that, we would be elsewhere.
My ear continues to be very painful. Hopefully my head will not explode on the plane.

Jim and I have been singing the chorus to the London Homesick Blues the last couple of days.

I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever
seen.

We're ready.

Bitburg and two cities in Luxembourg

Well, what would a vacation be without a trip to the hospital? I've already done 10 days of antibiotics for my right ear in Germany, but after 4 days off drugs it's thumping and hurting again. The original plan was for me to walk up to the ER that's a block from here while Jim returned to Bitburg. He wanted to look at a couple of things again, and I was not that excited about going. But, no. The convenient ER does not have anyone on staff who can look at an ear. One must go to the other hospital for an ear guy. It was really weird, the ENT was in his office. One by one they would drag the patients out of their rooms (these are surgical patients) and in to his office. One old gentleman had to be rescued mid-walk with a wheelchair. Sitting out in the hall waiting, we could plainly hear him moaning and retching. It had a bad movie feel to it. After two hours it was my turn in the office. There's no sink. I don't know how the doctor was washing his hands between patients; and no, he was not wearing gloves. There was blood on his pants and the floor. Some of doctor blogs I read are very high on the German system of medicine, for example, this one, but I am not convinced with my sample of one. I do have yet another ear infection, and was able to obtain augmentin and cipro ear drops. Drugs were 54 euro which is less than they would be in the US.

So, then it was on to Bitburg. This is the Zulu Alert shelter, during the Cold War there were 4 fighters that were always ready to take off within 5 minutes of being notified. Their mission was air defense, if there had been an incursion into Western airspace by Warsaw Pact aircraft the airplanes in here would have been launched to intercept the intruders. Like all buildings on abandoned military bases, it is very forlorn now, peeling paint and letters missing from the front.

It was still early so we headed into Luxembourg. We had to stop and buy a map. Something was going on downtown and they were closing streets for it. We walked around a bit and decided to get out of Dodge. This is the exterior of their Notre Dame.

Here is the inside.


We headed out to Echternach, Luxembourg. It was a very pretty drive along a river. During WWII, Jim's Dad came through here with Patton. It looks much better now than it did. Here is a really big building.

They were having some sort of festival. We could not detect a theme, other than mass eating, drinking and music. It was very crowded, lot's of people standing around chatting and enjoying the day. We should do things like this in the US. It was fun to watch.



Ecternach is right across a tiny river from Germany. It's pretty cool that it's possible to zip from country to country without stopping.
Well, this may be the last post from Germany. Tomorrow we drive to an airport hotel in Frankfurt. I don't know if we'll do anything scenic, or just crash and burn in the hotel. We're tired. Twenty four days of foraging for food, navigating, and sight seeing have pretty much worn us slick. It's been fun, but I need a nap.

Trier to Bernkastel-Kues

I've always been aware of the Moselle Valley and knew that it's a grower of grapes for wine. I had envisioned a wide valley with its sides gently sloping towards the river. Nah, they're farming 45 degree angled hill sides. It's unbelievable how steep the land there is. We drove about 20k up the river from B-K and it's all under cultivation for grapes.

This is B-K. It's just cuter than a bug. They have maxed out the cute-o-meter.


Old half timbered buildings.


We hiked up to the ruins of a 13th century castle.

The view from up there is phenomenal. See all that green stuff on the sides of the valley? Grape vines.

The geraniums add to the cute factor.

We first saw these little trains in Cinque Terra and now here. This is how they get up and down those steep hills.

The drive up the Moselle Valley and B-K and the other small towns just absolutely exceeded expectations. Yesterday's ROI on time spent in the car vs what was seen tilted towards the negative, but today was just spectacular. It you're in this part of the country, the valley and the towns are very much worth seeing. It should also be noted that there are bicycle paths everywhere.
Tomorrow we'll probably head out for Luxembourg. It's Sunday, so hopefully the traffic will be down. The autobahns are great for rapid transit, but once you're off into the cities, it's bad.

Trier on a Saturday Morning

OK, who says German TV is not way ahead of American TV in terms of sophistication and educational content? I took this picture of a German show last night, apparently the goal is to correctly guess the woman's bra size. They were really into it. The man in the segment we watched got 7 in a row.

11:45 am in Trier, the wine and beer tent is open for business.

Is this cute or what, it's about 10 inches in diameter. The lid has two latches so it stays attached. It's a charcoal grill.

I have not seen a Hari Krishna in years. But here they are in Trier.

It's been a slow morning, I think we're heading out to the Moselle river valley to look at a town known for its half timber architecture. Or not.