From lush and mountainous green to flat parched and dry - Monday, July 12, 2010

From lush and mountainous green to flat parched and dry - Monday, July 12, 2010

The last 2 days we have seen major changes both in terrain as well as land color. Today we drove into northern Germany - just hit the autobahn and tried to keep up with the traffic. The trucks are governed to go maximum 80 km per hour - translated is 48 mph. That seems great and it is except you feel like you are always passing a truck or 3 or 4 in a row. They are allowed to pass only if the truck in front is going less than 80. Cars here pass with great speed and immediately move over to the far right to let other speeders go by - in that way they are quite courteous. Just make sure you get over ASAP if passing a truck or another car.
It was a nerve wracking day today. It started off with me dropping the GPS on the brick road beside out Zimmer. Two-thirds of the screen at the top was scrambled when I plugged it in and no matter what I did would correct the screen - so it was off to find another one. Fortunately there was an Electronic store in the same town - much like our Radio Shack stores. I had to wait until 9 am for it to open but they had a Tom-Tom (the only brand they carried) so I had the salesman set it to English and we were on the road again. I cannot understand how we ever survived without a GPS on the previous trips - guess we just bought more detailed maps. Especially today we were routed right through the centre of Berlin on our way north - fortunately she took us safely through and out the other side to flat dry farmland.
We are now in a Best Western hotel along the Baltic Sea near a little town of Wismar. What a switch though - when we arrived it was 98 F but as we were in a local mall for groceries a major storm went through. The winds were so fierce that the TV news showed trees down and roads closed all around. The police and fire sirens were going in all different directions. For about an hour it just teemed down with strong winds and now would you believe it is actually quite pleasant - probably in the low 70’s F. We just may stay here a couple days - cooler - free internet - air conditioned room and some attractions nearby. We are not scheduled to be at our new Zimmer in Klixbull near Denmark border until Thursday noon.

Talk about HOT - Sunday July 11, 2010

Talk about HOT - Sunday July 11, 2010

We left the FICHTELGEBIRGSHOF Hotel shortly after 7 am - not sure why so early except they starrted serving breakfast at 6 am and we were there shortly after that. The autobahn was not busy at all since it was Sunday morning so we made good time stopping only a couple times to stretch the legs. We had decided to head to the town of Lubbenau just south of Berlin. This is supposedly an area of car free water canals for transportation. By 10 am it was already 30 degrees C (=90 F). In the air conditioned car it was OK but once outside for any length of time it was stiffling.
We passed many large cash crop farms much like back home. They are desperately in need of rain here though. The corn is looking very sick .
After arriving in town we parked close to Zentrum and walked to Information to see about boat tours. A couple of blocks away was the tour headquarters so we walked over there and enquired about tours in the morning. Yes there were tours as soon as he made up a boat load of 10 people. They were not running any more today - supposedly because most people were in the shade somewhere. We then drove around to find a Zimmer for the night and found one south of town several km. It was cooler in there so we stayed put a while. Tried Internet and found none so we decided to check out the McDonald”s in the next town. It was cooler in there but no internet without signing up for one of their plans. After a milkshake we headed out to hijack an internet somewhere but these people are too smart - none found. Back at the Zimmer it was getting hotter inside but we stayed as long as we could stand it and then decided to go back to McD’s where we knew it was cooler. On the way there the car said the outside temperature reading was 39 degrees C which converted is 108 F - we could not believe it. Stayed at McD’s until after 7 pm - a SLOW meal - seems lots of other folks had the same idea - it was full and lined up ½ way back to the door. Fortunately they had a large covered outdoor area - must have been hot here before. Saw the first farmer today who had combined his wheat - hope he survived.
It cooled off to only 37 degrees C after supper and when there was more shade we decided to ride bikes around town. Actually it was good - we got to see a lot of the canals and boats and a lot of the villages around. It was good for another reason - the sewer smell of the water in the canals was very strong in places. We decided we had seen enough - boat tour or no boat tour. We will stay the night and leave after breakfast.

Good-bye to Appenzell - Saturday July 10, 2010

Good-bye to Appenzell - Saturday July 10, 2010

The first picture shows the farm where we stayed and the 5 level zig-zag to get up out of there. The other 2 pics are of Appenzell area. No pics of the Spreewald area since we have not arrived yet.
We left the Susanne and Benjamin Rempfler farm in Appenzell just after 8:30 am and set the GPS for Zwickau, Germany and started the 5 + hour drive north. It was to be a stopover point on our way to the Spreewald area just south of Berlin. At about 2:30 pm we stopped for coffee at a McDonalds along the autobahn. We were about an hour short of our destination but it was soooooooooooo hot - 34 degrees C outside as we were driving and the hot pavement made it seem worse. Along the way we had seen numerous cars pulled over with motor problems - their hoods up and poor people standing along the autobahn must have been horrendous. Several accidents and 3 or 4 tow trucks loaded so we decided to get a motel right here behind McD’s rather than pushing our luck further. Turning off also we saw a couple stores much like our Dollar Stores so we went in there to cool off a bit. In a drug store they were selling Blau World phone cards which I figured I needed since I had been getting a message that time was running out. Bought the 15 Euro card and asked the clerk for help with the German to load the card. Come to find out there are 2 Blau World companies - one is Blau.De and one is just Blau so the 15 Euro card of coarse was the wrong one and it would not work. After 30 min. messing with the silly thing the clerk called the manager and they agreed to give me my money back. The nice guy that I am - I gave the girl 5 E and said thank you - Merry Christmas and walked out to the car.
The room in the FICHTELGEBIRGSHOF Hotel ( try to say that 10 times fast) was small, fairly warm with no air conditioning but we managed. After supper in our room we walked over to a Burger King and had milk shakes to cool off a bit. It did cool off later in the evening - windows wide open - no screens - no flies or bugs here - how do they manage that?