Family Part 2

Family Part 1

A Trip to Puerto Vallarta in 2003

A Visit to Strasbourg, France (Nov, 2010)

Erica is 31!

An August, 2010 Cruise With Good Friends

We had a great cruise:  we all plan to do it again.  Hope we do!

An August, 2010 Alaskan Cruise With Friends

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcE458-fc_0

A Visit to Paris by ICE Train

Stacy, Erica, Carol, Michael and Rob took the ICE train to Paris for the day.  They let me put their pictures in a short video.  This is a great City - no shortage of picture-taking-sites.

A Trip to Luxembourg (Nov of 2010)

We went to Luxembourg City in the little country of Luxembourg.  What a beautiful city with some historical military forts that you will see in the photos.  Enjoy...  Eric is singing background.

A Visit to Baden-Baden (Nov of 2010)

Carol and I took a two-day trip to Baden-Baden, located at the northern end of the Black Forest.  They are blessed with many hot springs which have provided the community with a very nice source of income.  The shopping area that they call the "Centrum" is marvelous.  They have wonderful bus service all around the city and we found a very reasonable hotel that we took bus 201 to get to.  We definitely want to go back to enjoy this city again. 

A Trip to Berlin (October, 2010)

Stacy, Erica, Michael and Rob went to Berlin.  I offered to put their pictures into a short video.

A Trip to Berlin

A Pretty Sunrise This Morning in Hutschenhausen, Germany

A Trip to Paris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yjBBfmBfAQ


Carol, Erica, Rob and Stacy went to Paris for the day on the high speed rail train.
I put their pictures together along with some music from DC Malone.

Cool stuff...

Erica and Doug went to Munich to See Stacy and Rob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTYwVma5WXAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTYwVma5WXA


The youtube summary will give you some flavor of our trip.
We had a great time!  I even hit 90 on the autobahn.
The bad news is that it was only for a few seconds.
Erica could not help but notice Smart cars were passing me.

No worries...
Doug

Burg Eltz and Cochem City & Castle, Germany

We went to two great places to visit today.  The first place we visited was the Eltz Castle - Rick Steve's favorite German castle.  We then went to the city of Cochem and we also went to their castle.  Two contrasting castles, the Eltz, owned by the Eltz Family that have preserved the look for 500 years.  The Cochem Castle, rebuilt in the 19th century.  Both very beautiful but the Eltz truly gives you the feeling that you have really experienced the past.

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Amaya showing off her new kitty mittens - the kind with the long string running through both arms.  It was cold today and we needed to get her hands warmed up.

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One of the Cochem shops that has taken time to denote the flood levels of various Mosel River overflows over the centuries.  Only in Europe do you have a sense of history as you enter a building and determine that it has existed for 300 years or more.  (View the enlarged version of the picture and denote the flood levels.  Several floods in the 1700's were well above the light that is shown at the top of the picture.)

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I do not know German but I sort of know the outcome of this T-Shirt.

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Cochem is on the beautiful Mosel River - their downtown, or river front is definitely a bit touristy feeling but they have truly preserved portions of their past.

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A picture of Carol on a bridge over the Mosel river with the Cochem Castle in the upper right.

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Another picture of a architechural feature in Cochem. 

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The family in front of the Eltz Castle.  It was a half mile or so hilly walk from the parking lot.

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This little church was tucked into the side of the walkway on the way to the Eltz Castle.

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Most of the time, Amaya loves being on Michael's back in her carrier.  She was really cute when she decided to take a nap.  Her head was hunched over and I could not even get a picture of her.

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Some of the mold growing on top of the slate at the Eltz Castle.  I was trying out the near feature of my camera.  It appears to have about a 6-8" focal length at this apperature and shutter speed.

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The Eltz Castle has over 500 "priceless" (their word) examples of Gold, Silver, Ivory, Weapons, Glass, Porcelain and Jewely throughout the castle.  The most special objects are protected in their three floor museum, interesting plus warm!  Some of these pieces appear to be remarkable, although I claim to know nothing about these sort of artifacts.  The piece above was made in the mid 1700's.  I used my close up lense to get the detail as the perspective of the piece is that the men are sitting only 3-inches from each other.

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This beautiful painting was done on the side of a gold glass.  The child, in perspective is probably 1-inch tall.  Again taken with a close-up lense.

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Three fine, very old stain glass pieces found in the Eltz Castle Chapel.  

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This gold colored sculpture found in the Eltz Castle Museum.  Quite beautiful.

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Some of the attention to detail that I found interesting in the City of Cochem.

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More attention to detail at the Cochem Castle.  This was how they finished the railing ends.

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Picture of the family taken high above Cochem in the new Castle area.

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A view of Cochem and the Mosel River from the Castle.

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The Cochem Castle as you approached it.

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The Cochem Castle, surrounded by active vineyards.

Frosty Morning in Hutschenhausen, Germany

It was the first frosty morning of the season, thought I should try to capture it with the camera.  We went to the Base Swimming Pool - it is heated, sort of like a 2-million gallon hot tub.  Nice!

Kaiserslauten or K-Town (Army Nickname)

We had a nice walk late in the day - Erica is trying to train her new schnauzer.  The dog did pretty good with the exception of walking once between her legs and tripping her.  Ouch!!  Amaya was dressed in her Moscow boots and Pampolina French coat.  Quite stylish I must say.  It was sunny but quite cool today.

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 Erica went to K-Town today so I hitched a ride and rode the train home to Haupstuhl.  (It is a short 3 km walk home to Hutschenhausen from the train station.)  I walked around a bit in K-Town but because it was so cool, I spent most of my time in a nice, warm train station restaurant reading a book.  (Carol read it first: Change of Heart by Ms. Jodi Picoult)  On the walk home to our village from Haupstuhl, we walk by this nature area - apparently at the end of this road.  Carol and I have not explored it yet but we will.

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 I found this path down the hill from a nice, middle class neighborhood across-and-above the train station.  The path ended at a nice comfortable "Chicken Only" restaurant.  It opened just as I was walking by and quite a few people were waiting to go in so it may be a good place to eat.

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 I did not see any history for this church but it appears to be fairly modern as opposed to most of them in Germany.  Unknown denomination at this point but I will probably go by it again sometime.

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My friend Joe bought a car once that was officially painted "double yellow."  This is an apartment building being constructed across the street and up the hill from the south entrance of the train station.  It can only be described as having a yellow yellow paint job.

Notre Dame High School 40th Class Reunion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB11LkoW5iw

I finally got around to putting some music to the Class Reunion pictures.

Enjoy them, sorry they are sort of blurry for some reason.

Best regards,

Doug

A Trip to the Country: A Morning in the Village of Gerhardsbrunn

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ4K_noBU

MQ

We went to the Village to see a farm that also has a Pumpkin Patch.  I have attached a couple of pictures, a YouTube link is also attached to see a slide show of this wonderful outing.