Volksmarching - Turkey Trot

Okay, this is the smallest car I've seen yet! It was found on a volksmarch we went on a few weeks ago. Only one person can fit in it!
Our Thanksgiving day was spent hosting a volksmarch. The club we belong to puts on a volksmarch (a planned walk of 5 and 10 Kilometer trails) every Thanksgiving. So these are some pictures of the event. Lots of planning to provide the trail and then the beer and brats afterward! No turkey for us! But we had a good time.

These are the beer steins that you could purchase. They depicted the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

This is the place where you signed in and then got a stamp in your book for participating. We had over 900 people participate in the walk!

Halloween in Ohio

My niece Jackie with her daughter, Erika (yes that makes me the Great Aunt, however, I prefer they call me their "favorite" aunt Jeanne!
Miranda and Kate as poodles for halloween

Erika the pink dragon

Oct Visit to Ohio

I was able to take a quick trip back to Ohio to visit family. My niece Jackie and her family were in town too. (They live in Seattle) So I got to visit with the new twins in the family! Kathy (Grandma), Kim (Aunt Kim) and one of the twins!
Okay, I still don't know which is which. As you can see they are identical. So Jackie and Jason, you will have to help me here...

They are cute and adorable though!

Gorge Trail cont.

The wanderers! (My hair is so wet, I felt like I just got out of the shower!)
Finally, no rain.

Gorge Trail

The trail was very rocky at times! And of course slippery. Glad we had our walking sticks
A very narrow spot, the trail is on the left.

A picture to prove I did it!!!

Hollentalklamm Gorge

The last day Don showed me a gorge that he walked to on his first day in Garmisch. It was a 3 hour walk up the mountain! Took about 1 1/2 hours to get to the begining of the gorge. This little restaurant was the entrance to the gorge. It had about 4 tables inside and they had to cable car everything up to to restaurant. A young couple owned it. We were there on the last weekend it would be open.
This was the beginning of the gorge. We walked an additional 45 min and did not get to the hotel that was at the top of the mountain!

Lots of caves and crossovers

This was the view when you looked up at some points

Garmisch hiking

We are up further on the mountain, but still have a way to go... just beautiful!

These pictures (above and below) are the trail we followed to get to a gorge. It rained the whole way up (just a drizzle) but we were pretty wet, even with our raingear!

Garmisch, Germany

I was able to attend a conference in Garmisch which is in the southern part of Germany, deep in the Alps. We've been here before and always enjoy the beauty of the mountains. Don came along for a vacation while I attended the conference. This is the start of one of our walks up the mountains
We came upon a small mountain lake. The water was so clear you could see the fish. I'm thinking they are trout, but since I'm not a fisherman it could've been anything...

A neighborhood with the mountains in the background. And this is in October! The flowers were still in bloom!

Scenes Dinkelsbuhl

Signs

All the different signs outside the places of business. A throw back to the medival days when people couldn't read. So they had pictures of what the business sold... And the beautiful flowers they have..

Dinkelsbuhl, Germany

In the afternoon, we went on to Dinkelsbuhl.

Dinkelsbuhl is an old medival city. It still has it's wall completely around the old town. This town is near Rothenburg which is another walled city and much better known. However, Dinkelsbuhl is beautiful as well. Above is a portion of the wall.

One of the towers along the wall with the river flowing outside the wall.

One funny experience while we were visiting. Everywhere we went in this town we saw people dressed in black. (Mostly young people) They were all over and we began to feel like we missed the memo about the dress code for the day. We still have no idea what kind of "convention" was in town, but some of the outfits were interesting. There was one girl not dressed in black, but white skirt and sexy top made to look like a bunny rabbit! VERY INTERESTING.....

Crailsheim Volksmarch cont.

The walk took us up the mountain a little and so we had a fantastic view of the city.

This was a small building of unknown use at the top of the mountain. I imagine it was used as a lookout. There was a nature preserve next to it.

Lynne enjoying the end of the walk.

We even had a reporter come up to our group and interview Lynne and her husband for the local newspaper. (They were the organizers of the bus trip and Brad is the President of the club) We got a group shot so Don and I may be in the local newspaper! The reporter said he would send us a copy!

Crailsheim Volksmarch

Saturday we took a Volksmarch bus trip to a town called Crailsheim in Germany. It is about a2 1/2 hours ride from us. It was a beautiful sunny day. Below is the outside of the building where you bought food after the walk and could sit inside or out.
This is the flag for the volksmarch group we joined. They put it up on one of the tables to advertise each group.

This is the display of all the group prizes you could get. If a club has at least 25 members that do the walk they get a prize for the club.

Lawnmower races

Saturday the big races were on! Franz and Hela invited us to their village's lawnmower races. It's a pretty big deal.... Franz and his son have 3 mowers they enter in the races. His son has won the last 3 years. (The races began about 7 years ago.) The name of their team is Blumchenkiller or "Flower Killer"

Franz on the track

Franz throwing the water balloon into the yellow bucket while racing.

Saturday was the practice runs and to place in the race. It was pretty fun and it's a regular festival with food and a band playing. At night they had fire eaters as entertainment. Today is the big race and we'll have to let you know how it goes!

Landstuhl Berg Fest

Friday night we went to a Jazz Festival at a local castle ruins. It was in Landstuhl and unfortunately I forgot my camera. So I went online to find some pictures.....This is the program cover Below is a picture from last years fest. The stage is to the right and it was open air. We had a great time even though it rained on and off and was cold! We were under a big Linden tree that kept off the raindrops for the most part. The castle had some blue lighting and it made the rain look blue!

We met friends from Don's work and sat with our previous landlord and his wife. I had to laugh as he was buying rounds of beer and when he found out I was the designated driver for the evening he ordered me "Colabeer". It's cola and beer mixed together, which I'm not too fond of and besides, it still has beer in it!!!!
We saw two bands: Uptown Shufflers, Birminghem Blues Friends
Uptown Shufflers were good soul/blues and Birminghem Blues were from the UK and had a fantastic piano player. They were more boogie.
All in all a wonderful night.

VW show in Mannheim

Don and I went to Mannheim yesterday and happened upon a VW Beetle show. Above is one with a heater attached to the window.

Trailer (very small)

This one was made into a truck and even had red and white dice on the air valve in the tires. (Had an American Flag on the back)

This was the matching trailer - the curtain tie backs were American Flag material

Skies on the back.