Weekend Trip Recap

Once in a while one encounters a place that is such a perfect embodiment of an idea that it almost seems unreal, like the place is trying to mock itself by shamelessly overdoing it.

This weekend we visited such a place – and I am not just speaking of Ludwig’s castle Neuschwanstein but the whole area around it called Allgaeu.  It is rolling hills and happy cows, churches, fountains made from hollowed out tree trunks and free-ranging chickens, farm houses where each son of the family learned a different trade and so they all band together, bring their friends and build their own houses (to code, not just some artsy-fartsy shacks).  It is a place where villages are old and build around the churches, the home of amazing bakery products and meat-and-potato/dumpling dishes like you wouldn’t believe it.  This is where the streets are full of cow shit and nobody minds and of profuse flower pots on each and every balcony.  This is where – if one were to believe in such things – one would want to be reincarnated as a cat on such a farm.

Behind the rolling hills far enough away not to cast too much of a shadow rise the raggedy Alps providing a dramatic backdrop to all that absurd idyll.  This were geek-boy decided that he liked rural and could live in such a place (I let that one go) and geek-husband declared that this was ridiculously idyllic (no mention of moving there, I think he realizes that high-speed Internet access is not up to expectations).

We hiked for hours and finally ended up at the famous castle. It is amazing – and a bit of a let down at the same time.  Here we were on a grey mid-October day and the place was crawling with tourists.  I can’t even imagine what this looks like on a sunny July day.  They might have to close the road to walk up because there are so many people. Of course, I understand and of course I can’t judge because we were tourists, too, and of course the place is otherworldly somehow but in the end I enjoyed the villages cum cow shit and the rolling hills with raggedy mountains towering over them more.  Maybe we have to go back in like late November, maybe then one gets the castle without the crowds and a bit more of an idea of how it must have all felt when Ludwig was frolicking around there (I assume he was frolicking, I mean, why wouldn’t he).

So, today a few pictures which because of the grey skies – being the worst for a photographer – don’t do reality justice.

 

More Neuschwanstein on a grey October day
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Neushwanstein on a grey October day
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Can’t even call it a village – no street names, just house numbers
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Across he border in Austria – just as idyllic
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Happy Allgaeu cow in evening light.
(c) Tina Baumgartner

historic and idyllic
(c) Tina Baumgartner

pretty art deco details on the local pharmacy
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Tourist on the Marienbruecke, on a grey October day, more kept storming on until there was hardly any moving anymore
(c) Tina Baumgartner

this is how I want to be reincarnated
(c) Tina Baumgartner

 

Weather

Germans are obsessed with the weather and talking about the weather and worrying about the weather – for a good reason.  Often it simply sucks. Like mostly right now.

Call me spoiled Californian brat but cold pouring rain should not be part of summer.  Don’t get me wrong, I can happily (more or less) live with a warm tropical rain storm, one of those that soaks you like a shower in three minutes flat after which time the rain stops just as suddenly and you go your merry way, dripping but warm.

This here is different.  It rains, it is cold, it is grey – and it will be so for some time to come.  It always rains at the most inconvenient times, too.  Imagine geek-boy and I all ready to go to run this or that errand (by bike), standing in the door ready to step out: it starts raining!  Imagine geek-husband and I picking up some second hand furniture by car, once we hauled it down 4 flights of stairs (these things are always up four flights of stairs, no elevator) and open the car to put the furniture in: it starts raining.

It rains from the car to the hardware store, then stops and starts again when we leave the hardware store.  It rains in the evening just long enough so that my parents nag me to put the car into the garage (don’t ask!). I sigh, walk to the car, get wet, put it in the garage, walk back – it stops raining.

I should be happy about the rain, having experienced the California drought first hand, I should rejoice in the idea of rain.  And I do, sort of theoretically.  I’d love to send the rain over to California, I am good at sharing the wealth, really.  California, you can have it, take it, all of the rain between now and say end of October.  You’re welcome!

 

Just over a week to go

It is Friday, we’ll leave next Saturday so I have one full day of each day of the week left.  And I am right now focusing on not freaking out.

There is all the stuff that still needs to get done but that list is getting shorter.  It paid – once again – to be an anal German and start going through drawers weeks, if not months ago.  What gets longer virtually by the minute is the things I’d like to do: drive up to San Francisco one more time, see the Pacific one more time, meet tons of people for one last coffee/lunch/dinner, have sushi one more time, get a pedicure one last time – these are the more or less realistic hopes and wishes.  But then there are the unrealistic ones: If I could only see Yosemite one more time, go gold panning in the Sierra, hike Point Reyes, see giant Sequoias … followed by the entirely irrational notion that “if we leave tonight we can hike the 6 mile loop at Point Reyes which runs along the Pacific for a bit tomorrow morning and then hop in the car, drive to the Sierra for one last ….”

Oh to be in the Sierra one more time!
(c) Tina B

I am too much of a realist to engage in such thought for long.  It is, of course, ridiculous and we will be spending the weekend cleaning out corners that haven’t been wiped in ages and washing down shelves that have been liberated from books.  I will even contain myself and not go to a garage sale and I will finally make a run to Goodwill.

I am not going to some scary, unknown place. One can arguable claim that I am going home or at least I am going to what used to be home.  I don’t have the reason or right – so to speak – to freak out over this.  Now, if we were moving to Mongolia or the Chad or some other such place that no person I know has ever set foot in – then, yes, then I could freak out.  But Germany?  Home?

But maybe I am going to a strange, weird place.  I am going somewhere that I think I know – and to a some degree do know – but Germany isn’t the Germany I left 17 years ago.  It has changed, too, and though I have seen some of this during summer vacations there is a difference between summer vacations and the real thing.

How will my expectations and past experiences clash with reality?

Well, I guess I am about to find out!

 

Road Trip, Part II

Darwin Falls, just outside Death Valley National Park at the very end of a Canyon, pic: mine

I love National Parks, Monuments, Forests, whatever – they are grand, wonderful places with unique landscapes – or as in the case of Death Valley it seems more like a moonscape – stunning views, and sights that can simply not be found anywhere else in that abundance and perfection.

National Parks are also wonderful places for people watching – believe it or not.  How people approach National Parks is rather interesting.  Let’s leave aside for a moment those, who do not ever visit National or State or any other Parks and focus on those who go.  There are a few noteworthy types.  One type I always marvel about are the Indian ladies in their saris and sandals.  Now that makes sense in summer in Death Valley but I have seen them in the middle of winter at Lassen National Park, walking on what must have been 8 feet of snow.  So here I am in an undershirt, a t-shirt, a sweat shirt, a light jacket and a down jacket and three pairs of socks in my sturdiest hiking boots on snow shoes and there they are in a sari, a knit cardigan and strappy sandals.   I saw them again in Death Valley – and mind you in an unseasonably cold December temps where close to freezing.  I shiver just thinking about this choice of outerwear.

Another type are the gear heads.  They are predominantly male and seem to hail from all races.  We were puttering around the sand duns in Death Valley – a smallish area in the bigger scheme of the park, where mainly families go so the kids can play in the wonderfully fine sand and roll down the dunes – and there I saw two guys, decked out like on a Himalaya expedition hiking (walking really) into the dunes.  We are talking 2 pm and they have head lamps at the ready, hiking poles in both hands, performance clothing, water for days, backpacks large enough to have food for a three course meal plus wine and digestives in them.  And I wonder whether this is because they actually believe that leaving the car in a places as inhospitable as Death Valley is a virtual death sentence or whether they just like to buy gear.  I think it is the later, judging from the males in my life ….

The type that puzzles me are the rest area only visitors – which I think is by far the largest group.  They basically drive from vista point (as we call it in California) to vista point, preferring those with pick-nick tables and/or views of waterfalls.  They seem to make it a rule to never walk more than 200 feet after they are out of the car, then they have a quick glance around, take a dozen pictures or so and retreat to the car to drive to the next point of interest.  Daring things, like actual walks/hikes are not on the program.

Then there are the like so us, who actually hike, ideally to the end of the canyon, even if it is blocked by boulders, or icy areas.  Our rule of thumb has been for years now that you loose about 80-90% of the people for the first  mile you go.  So of 100 only 10-20 will still be with you at the 1 mile marker. After that, the attrition rate is lower, as these are often pretty determined individuals but I would still put it at about 50%.  So you do the math but one thing is for sure, it does not take terribly long to be almost alone.

Every once in a big while you come across an extreme hiker, one of those “crossing the Sierras with a daypack” guys, who have been on the road – or rather path – for days and look unwashed but exceedingly fit and healthy.  Those I envy a bit, as I can’t put up with that level of discomfort just to be able to say “I crossed the Sierra Nevada in winter on skies.”

But whatever the visitors – National Parks are amazing places!