Coburg Fortress (July 2014)

I visited Coburg a few years ago with my sister Tracy and her family. I wanted to show the Coburg fortress to my family. It is pretty amazing. Luckily Erick had a day off, so off we went, and we brought along our friend Amy.  

David turned four (July 2014)

David turned four this summer. He absolutely loves Angry Birds, so his sisters created this masterpiece for him. Happy Birthday David!

Regimental change of command

I'm so glad I was able to attend the 2nd Cavalry Regiment's change of command. I really enjoy the ceremonial side of the Army.

The new Regimental Commander is COL Meyer. Erick and I knew him from when he served as the Battalion Commander of the Black Lions. I always felt like he was a good leader with high expectations and good values. He focused a lot on the FRG and families in general. You know that makes me happy! I think he will do good things for the Dragoons.

I loved the last lines from COL Meyer's speech: 

"Take pride in your Regiment. The longest serving Regiment in the United States Army. Always remember your Regiment."

Toujours Pret; Always Ready

Alpspitze - a real adventure

My amazingly talented and thoughtful friend Sarah invited me and Erick and my older kids to join her and some friends on an adventure. She wanted to reach the summit of the Alpspitze (pronounced  all-p-sh-pit-zuh, for any non-German-speakers out there, ha ha!). Boy were we excited. 

We stayed the night before in a cute hotel in Oberammergau. It was roomy, it had beautiful views, and the morning breakfast was delicious!

The Alpspitze affords the opportunity to klettersteig, which means we wear harnesses and clip into metal cables to keep from falling down the steep mountain cliffs. It is a good middle ground between hiking and rock climbing. 

At the base of the mountain, Sarah taught us some basics on climbing, and made sure we had all the equipment we needed. Then we took the Alpspitzbahn up, up, up.

At the end of the gondola ride up, it was very cold. We bundled up a little and began an easy hike up the mountain. Man! It was beautiful!

Then the real fun began. Most of us loved the klettersteig experience. Unfortunately, Joey was not a fan. She has always been afraid of heights, and this experience definitely challenged her. She worked through her fears like a champ and kept moving forward...

We stopped a little ways up to take some photos of the great view. It was good thinking since the summit was clouded over.

We continued climbing slowly to the top. Diena was a natural on the mountain. She wanted to go faster, and tried to jump ahead of the group a time or two. She never flinched even though there were some pretty steep cliffs along the way.

Eventually, we reached the top. It took a lot longer than we had planned, but we made it! We signed our names in a book located in a box at the top to show anyone who cares that we accomplished something pretty cool.

This is the point in our day when our nice hike took a little different turn than expected (and the picture-taking stopped). Sarah knew that going back down the klettersteig side of the mountain would be very difficult for us, so she decided to take us down the easier side of the mountain. She hadn't done the hike before, but she knew to follow the trail marked in red.

She also informed us that we had to hurry in order to catch the last gondola ride down to the base of the mountain, so we found the path and headed down. The fog was so thick that we sometimes struggled to find the red marks on the path.

After hiking down for a while, our path began to climb back up. Then it became very difficult. Knowing this was supposed to be the "easy" way, Sarah felt we were going the wrong way. We turned and hiked back up to the summit in the fog. This is when the rain and hail decided to join our adventure. Luckily, we had rain jackets for everyone, so that kept us pretty dry. At first.

Back at the top, Sarah searched for another way down. Let me remind you that the fog was very thick, so this was quite a difficult task. But Sarah discovered another path. It turns out that more than one hiking trail had been marked with red.

We descended a second time, this time in the rain. The path in itself was not too difficult, but at this point, Joey and Bailey were very tired and hungry. They had already eaten the granola bars that we brought. We had planned to go out to lunch after our hike, but now we'd be lucky to reach the bottom in time for dinner.

Sarah bolted ahead of us in an attempt to catch the last gondola and hold it for us.

There were a few points on the hike where we still needed to use our equipment to klettersteig. With the rain, these points were more dangerous and miserable.  We were walking on slick rocks, and our feet were soaked. Cold water was pouring down on us like a waterfall.

Oh, I wish I had pictures of us at that moment! We must have looked like drowned rats. I told Erick that I had always wanted to hike under a waterfall, but I had imagined that it would be in a more tropical place. Ha ha!

The girls' hands were too cold to maneuver the clips when attaching and detaching from the cables. Thankfully our friends Amy and Sam had loaned us winter gloves (our household goods had not yet arrived). The girls wore the gloves, and Erick and I did the clipping for them.

We started singing Primary songs in order to keep our spirits up. And we told stories about our pioneer ancestors that trekked across the nation on foot. It was actually a really neat experience.

When we reached some long, dark caves, we knew we were close to the end. I had taken a picture of this path as we passed it at the beginning of the day. Can you see the two men on the trail walking toward the cave? When we popped out of that cave, we knew that we had finally reached our destination!

...or so we thought.

It turns out, Sarah had not made it in time to hold the gondola. So the building, restaurants, and everything were locked up and abandoned for the night. She had tried every door and every window to find someone who may still be in the vicinity. No luck.

Our car was parked miles away. If we attempted to hike down to it, we would be hiking for hours in the dark. We had no lights. With cliffs, rocks, wild animals, and no food, hiking down was not an option.

Sarah told us there was a backpackers' hut nearby, a place where avid hikers/mountain climbers could stay for the night. Apparently they exist all over the Alps. It would be a bit of a hike, but much shorter than going all the way down. Plus we could warm up, eat dinner, and possibly have a place to sleep. (All the hikers sleep in a giant room together. I'm told this is an experience worth trying. Anyone want to join me?)

We decided this was the best option. But first we stripped the girls of their wet clothes and gave them dry hoodies and jackets to warm them up a bit. Unfortunately, we couldn't help with the wet pants and feet.

And off we went to continue our adventure. Thankfully, the rain had stopped.

I took this picture of the hut in the distance. Can you see it? It's the yellow building right in the center of the photo.

The girls were really struggling at this point. (Don't forget they are only 10 and 11 years old.) But they trudged along like champions. Although, Erick did help out now and then...

We reached the hut at sundown. As we neared it, we could hear bells ringing. The sound came from cowbells around the necks of the cutest cows I have ever seen. I really wanted a picture of the cows, but my phone was nearly dead, and I was too tired to pull out the big camera. We had hiked for 11 1/2 hours. 

Thankfully Sarah was not too tired to appreciate the view and take a picture of peak we had conquered earlier in the day.

We entered the hut and scarfed down the most delicious goulash soup I have ever tasted. And then miracle beyond miracles, we discovered that there is a taxi cab (only one crazy enough) who will drive on the terrifying dirt roads up to the hut. The cab was already on it's way (an hour drive) to pick up a woman and her friends, but she graciously gave us her cab and was willing to wait a few hours for the driver to return.

As we were waiting for the cab and eating our soup, Joey decided that the day had been pretty fun after all. When I asked if she wanted to do it again another time, she did not hesitate to say, "no."  

The cab ride down the mountain was terrifying, but he we made it to the bottom alive, and he took us directly to our cars. Unable to find a hotel still open this late at night, we decided to attempt the four-hour drive home. We arrived around 2:30 am. And I still made it to church the next morning. Whew! What an adventure!

Epilogue (of sorts)

Looking back on this day, I feel so grateful to be surrounded by such amazing people. 

Joey, my brave daughter, was terrified most of the day. Her knuckles were white because they were gripping the cables so tightly. Yet she moved forward bravely, without making a scene. And even when tears finally came at the end of the day, she did not stop putting one foot in front of the other.

Diena was so excited to have this adventure. She attacked that mountain and loved every minute of it. Even when she was hungry and suffering from headaches, she remained positive and kept on moving.

Erick wins a gold star for this day. He was so patient with Joey. He supported her and motivated her every step of the way. He never got frustrated with her or anyone. Man! I love him. He's a great example to me.

Lissy, my babysitter - I haven't even mentioned her yet, so let me back up... My boys didn't come with us. I left them overnight with a babysitter. I told the Lissy we'd be home Saturday evening around dinner time. Instead she ended up watching the boys until Sunday morning. She was so thoughtful and helpful and understanding. I am so grateful to her and her mom for taking away any stress I should have felt for not coming home as planned. Plus, the boys had a blast!

Last, but certainly not least, I am so, so, so grateful for Sarah. She was fun and so patient with me and my slow little family. With everything that went wrong, she remained positive and said all the right things to keep the girls from being nervous. They knew (as did we all) that if we followed Sarah's lead, we would be just fine. Thank you Sarah for this amazing adventure! Now come back to Germany, and lets have a new adventure. What do you say?