Swiss Spaetzle

Drove another 200 kilometers to get another great meal. Beef stew, spaetzle, more excellent homemade brot, a serious salat, and the ubiquitous Fanta. Some of our best memories of this trip and of Europe in general were the meals.

Lauterbrunnen Valley

A good view looking south-ish into the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Although shrouded by clouds, the high peaks of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau are off to the left, and the Schilthorn is off to the right. The road deadends about 10 kilometers up this valley.

Rescue Copter and Falls

The dominant feature in Lauterbrunnen, other than the obvious high mountains, was the Staubbach Falls, and a number of other closeby waterfalls. Got this good shot of a rescue helicopter on it's way to pick up an injured skiier I'd imagine.

Hotel Oberland

Another good thing about this hotel is it's excellent English speaking owners/managers. Although keeping that in mind, it's clientele seemed to be mostly English speaking as well. Which is fine. This is one of about 10-12 hotels in town. Good deal, great food....

Lauterbrunnen Main Street

Lauterbrunnen is not a big town, and mostly caters to those who want to ski or explore the mountain, but still want to have car access. Once you go further up, there's no way to really get a car up....you rely on train or bahn or lift.

New Snow

It snowed 6-7 inches overnight our first night in Lauterbrunnen, and the car was pretty much covered. Which was fine, cause we just left it parked there for the next two days anyhow.

Lauterbrunnen First Morning

Hoping to wake up our first day in the mountains to some sun, but no such luck. This was the view from the front steps of our hotel, the Hotel Oberland. BTW, if you ever travel to this area (the Jungfrau region of Berner Oberland) this hotel in Lauterbrunnen is decent. The beds have footboards on them, so if you're tall, beware. Still ,we slept well anyways. Caters to skiiers, which means rooms are functional and clean. However, the restaurant in the hotel was excellent.....more to follow on that.

Swiss Temple

Left Mulhouse and drove just a few minutes to the Swiss border at Basel. From there about an hour south to Zollikofen, just outside of Bern, where the Swiss Temple of the LDS Church is located. It cleared up nicely for us once we left the Black Forest and stayed clear until we departed Zollikofen. About an hour drive from the Temple over to Interlaken, and then it started getting cloudy as we entered the Berner Oberland, seriously high mountains. By the time we drove up the hill from Interlaken into Lauterbrunnen (only about 15 minutes) it was close to dark.

Patisseries

Like I was just saying....some great sweets in France. We stopped here and got some eclairs and some pain au chocolat. Nice.

Mulhouse, France

After leaving Triberg, we drove through some more snow and eventually left the Black Forest and crossed over into France. This part of France (the Alsace region) was part of my mission, and I lived for 3 months in the town of Mulhouse. This is me standing in front of the central cathedral in Mulhouse....I spent many hours walking the streets downtown here. Great memories. Great patisseries (pastries)!!

Gulaschsuppe

We flew 5,000 miles for this: a gemixtesalat, some brot, a Fanta or Spezi, and the most important, a delicious bowl of gulaschsuppe. And it was worth every minute on that cramped airplane. I could eat this everyday, especially over there.

Triberg

After leaving Stuttgart, we drove south on Autobahn 81 into the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). Even got into some snow on the autobahn, and as we left the highway and climbed up a thousand feet or so in elevation towards Triberg, the snow became heavier, but it was still warm enough for it to not stick on the road. This pic is a view of downtown Triberg, where we stopped for lunch (next pic) and a brief hike around the wasserfalle. Beautiful town known for its' cuckoo clocks.

Romerhof Fruhstuck

Well, I finally got the DVD's copied for Brian, and that inspired me to get back on here and post the rest of the pics. This is Brian enjoying our breakfast at the Romerhof prior to getting ready to hit the autobahn and head south towards Switzerland. Never had a bad breakfast in a German gasthaus. They're never fancy like in the US, but everything is simple, high quality, and filling. Meat and bread usually works.

Vaihingen Bahnhof

Again, not the best nightshot, but many hours spent on these platforms coming and going. We didn't actually go downtown on this trip, but I did back in '97 and 2000, and not much has changed, at least not in the regular hangouts.

Vaihingen Schillerplatz

When we first moved to Vaihingen in 1984, I immediately started figuring out how to get downtown. I had to catch the #84 or #7945 bus from the underpass near the BMW building. It would take you to the Schillerplatz, where you could either stay on the bus downtown, or get off and take the #1 or #14 U-bahn to downtown. The bus was faster, but the U-bahn was fun. Tom and I used to ride our bikes all the way downtown (in that traffic, were we nuts?), which was almost all downhill into the valley, and then put them on the U-bahn for the ride back uphill to Vaihingen. Sometimes they'd let us, sometimes we'd get something like "Bitte umsteigen mit deine fahrrad!" But then the S-bahn started working in '85 and the bus ended at the Vaihingen bahnhof and you transferred to the S-bahn, which was way fast. I think the U-bahn will still take you, though. Don't ask me why I remember all those numbers. Too many hours riding.

Vaihingen Rathaus

So I tried a few nightshots with my new camera. Some of them came out, but I didn't have a tripod. I always loved hanging out in Vaihingen at many different places. Didn't hangout here at the Rathaus, but I went past it thousands of times. There was lots of cool little shops and places to eat close by. FYI, this area has pretty much remained unchanged, although there is an updated version of the indoor shopping mall there now. And I think the Schwaben Brau brewery is no more. Don't know what happened there.

My Dream Car

There were a few seniors who turned 18 and got their driver's licenses. Most of us had no hope, though. I do remember a few......Tom Reed, again, did quite well with his Dad's Saab. I remember going 230 kph with NHS president Charlie Stone during an official function in his Dad's BMW. I think I should stop there. At any rate, none of us that I remember came close to this. Except, maybe, Mr. Heffernan.

O Club

My first exposure to schnitzel was at the Officer's Club. We had just moved there and I wasn't too keen on trying new foods. Dad figured we'd like schnitzel, and he was right, but it took some coaxing. Since we lived in the Sonnenhof in Vaihingen those first few weeks, we weren't doing our own cooking, so we ate here quite a bit. I eventually got around to trying other foods, but schniztel was a staple. Also, remember the LaRomantica pizza joint downstairs? At first that seemed promising.......a place for the teens to hang. But I only remember going there once. Hmmmm. I also remember feeding nickels and quarters into the slot machines upstairs and the occasional bazaars where you could buy all things Deutsch.

Former Commissary

Geesh, how many hundreds of hours was spent here? Some of you might know that before endless hours bagging groceries, I spent endless hours at night (well, 3-4 a week) stocking shelves at the hallowed four aisles of the PC. Tom Reed can tell you some stories of the fun that was to be had with huge pieces of cardboard, forklifts, and packages of damaged goods. Don't worry, everything you bought there was safe. Anyone remember Sgt. Atkins? I don't know what this building is now.

Senior Lockers

My locker is just at the edge of the screen to the left. FYI.