JD,

May sound silly but the tulips in Holland are worth it, they are really overwhelming. While you are there check out the coast, there are some really nice places to eat and hang out.

Thanks Kirk. I like road trips, so I won't be disappointed. But my fear is that with the colder weather, the tulips aren't blooming. Thanks for the tips! We will be very close to the coastline.

Next time you make it to Luxembourg, don't forget to hit the WWII cemetery there where Patton is buried.

Another location close to there is Bastogne, Belgium. The museum there is absolutely astounding and the nearby memorial provides for some great views too. They even have an old Sherman tank parked downtown at the major crossroads.

One of the places I've always wanted to visit when I am there is Normandy. Never made it out that far though.

We looked for signs for Patton's grave, but I guess we came into town a little different than our friends, or were oblivious to the signs!

Belgium is on the list, so thanks for the tip on Bastogne. I've heard of it.

We are planning to visit Normandy. Maybe this summer.

We had a good trip to Holland. The blooms were a little late this year, so I believe we missed the peak by a couple weeks, but we still saw more flowers that I ever knew existed!

We previewed the flower parade the night before it was to make it's 25 mile journey.

My son's fav:


My fav:


The next day we toured Keukenhof:








Now that we've seen the parade, we can go later next year for more blooms, better weather, and smaller crowds!

Oh and I enjoyed a very nice Belgium beer:

I had to do some research on the Volvo 6x6. It's a TGB 13 that they use for rallys. I am hoping to find a rally they participate in and go watch. In any case, here's a cool video featuring this truck as well as many others:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR2Vy5Y0I_U Check out the channel for many more. This is an impressive rig for sure. That diesel must put out some HP to spin all 6 on gravel!

That is BA, those trucks remind me of the support trucks that run baja

What's badass is that there's a class for them in the Dakar rally. The support crews used to informally race, so the created the class to incorporate them into it.

Time for an update. Last weekend we headed to London for a few days. This place is amazing! #1, they speak English! The signs and menus, English!, #2 so much to see in a small area. We walked our butts off, but we saw so much. #3, they speak English!

Birds Eye of Parliment from the London Eye


A closer picture of Parliment:


The London Eye from the ground. Worlds largest Ferris Wheel. Built in 2000 and worth the $$ (Or GBP as it were) . Amazing 360* view from 445ft in the air. Takes a 1/2hr for one revolution.


Parliment from the Duckboat tour:


Horse of Selene, Parthenon, Greek mythology


Tower Bridge from the Tower of London


Big Ben. (Actually Elizabeth tower, Big Ben is the bell inside) (also made famous by the Movie Cars 2 LOL!)


Next up, tropical Spain, then Brugge! Makin' hay while the sun shines!

I have a little update. I was digging more and more into Belgium beers to find that there is a Belgian support unit on base here and they have a bar around back serving their fine beers. Thursday night is 1.50E night, so we stopped in. Research indicated they had the Grimbergen Dubbel and Blonde there. That was accurate! My friend and I tried both and the dubbel is not a fluke. It is my favorite beer currently. The blonde is ok.

I also found a small bistro in a neighboring village owned by a Belgian and he makes two trips a week there to pickup beer. We sat down and enjoyed a couple more beers and a very nice hamburger with bacon, huge patty, cheese, a spicy sauce, a fried egg, etc. Excellent on all accounts. This allowed me to try a couple more brews.

First was this Kasteel Donker:

First taste is really good, but it ends very sweet. It was good, but too sweet for me. I felt like I needed some black coffee to go along with it.

Then I tried the Westmalle Dubbel:


Also good. Similar to the Grim, but not as much flavor.

After my friend had his first Grim, he couldn't get away from it at the Bistro either:


At the end of the evening, we talked to the owner who told us a little about what he's doing and his plans for the future. He is also bringing me back a case of the Grim and it may even be here this afternoon! He also gave me a short list of what to try next. I think I need to start making a list. St. Bernardus 12 (supposed to be identical to the Westvleteren 12), Rochefort 10, Delerium Nochturnum, & St. Idesbald Bleu.

I hope not to make you all too jealous, but this guy has over 130 different beers and I hope to make it there weekly to try many of them! Now to figure out how to get some of these delicious beer back to the states when we return. hmmm.

Well sorry but you have succeeded in making me jealous lol, but I'm glad to see you guys are having a good time! I would definitely agree that one of England's finer points (other than the amazing history and architecture) is speaking English haha it's always nice being able to understand the people around you :)

You're killing me, I'd be a wreck if we didn't have great beers being brewed in Colorado.

I think you can ship back a certain amount when you PCS, check into it.

B-Dubbel "E" Dubbel "R" -U-N - sounds like a hit country song. ;)

All of my beer runs to date have never involved hours in a car, so this one, for me, was of epic proportions.
15hrs leave to return; 600 miles; two countries; lots of Belgium Beer!!!

Between the two of us we brought back over 8 cases of beer. Below is most of the loot after our stop at a huge grocery store in Belgium (Cora). Eyes wide shut. :P


And here is my take (except for one case of Grimbergen which I procured last Friday, but still included in the picture.

Left-Right we have two 6er's of TW 12, two cases of TW 12, a case of Rochefort 10, half case of St. Bernadus (only one showing) 8, 1.75 cases of Grimbergen, and a 4'er of Maredsous Triple.

I also brought home four Westvletern, two Grimbergen, one Rochefort beer glasses. Oh and four random Belgium chocolate bars.

Many many happy evenings in my future. Time to step up the work out so my beer gut doesn't get any worse.

A beer gut is a good thing in Europe, it will fall off once you start wrenching on the Bronco.

Towards the end of May, two other couples and their kids joined us on a trip to Palma De Mallorca Spain for some sunshine, which was something we were all looking forward to after months of gloomy German weather.

Here's my son playing on the beach:


A proverbial sunset pic:


And our transportion for a day (keeping it mechanical):


On the return trip from the airport, we saw a sign indicating there was a Monster truck show coming to a village about 50 minutes North of home. We thought that would be fun to do on my son's birthday weekend. Well, my son did enjoy the show, but it was pretty lame from what we have in the US. It was more of a stunt show for cars, quads, & dirt bikes, and pretty lackluster at that. German Rednecks doing what they do. And the entry tickets were way overpriced!









Our most recent trip was to Bruges Belgium. What a cool place! And the beer....mmmmm
Town square:




Canal pic:


While the boys took a nap, my friend and I took the De Halve Maan Brewery tour. Great tour, especially since we have some time to kill before hand and used that time wisely. Straffe Hendrick Quadruple:


Next day we rented bikes and headed for a nearby village of Damme. That was an adventure in and of itself. We arrived, looked for a cafe to have a little snack. Started loading up to head home to find that the tires for one of the bikes was flat. Called the rental co. and 1.5hrs later he finally shows. By then the weather had turned and we were bucking a strong wind to get back home. I'll add that it's been a solid 10 years since my wife has spent any time on a bike, so she struggled, but we all made it!

Along the ride to Damme:


Damme town square:


Saw a unique car. Fisker Karma, 4-door sports car:

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/KARMA.shtml

We also made time to buy some different beers in search of our favorite. This and the quad above were probably mine:


Beer wall - there was probably 40 more feet you can't see just like this:


The collection my friend and I "sampled" one afternoon:


The last day we climbed the 366 narrow spiral stairs of the Belfry Tower. Worth the trip, but carrying my son the whole time was a little rough.


Birdseye from the top:

I have not uploaded any pictures from our Ireland trip, but that was a lot of fun too. Guinness, while better in Ireland, still is far from my favorite Beer. Murphy's Stout was a tad better, but I found a new Irish Lager that's decent. http://dinglebrewingcompany.com/ - the self guided brewery tour was cool and upon asking about some signage they were using for decor, they pulled them off the wall and gave them to me. Paper signs, but cool nonetheless.

But the main reason for my post is we have just past our 1yr mark. It's gone by fast, and while we haven't traveled as much as we'd have liked, we've done pretty well. Things will slow down this fall as we prepare to bring a new little one into our family, but hopefully by next spring, we'll be back at it again!

Southern Ireland.

We flew into Kerry Ireland, a very small airport in southern Ireland. Got our bags, headed across the parking lot for our rental car and got a crash course in driving on the left side of the road from the right hand side of the car. Hang onto your hat boys!

First order of business was to drive to our B&B in Killarney and check-in, then to the Blarney Castle. The drive there got our feet wet for how narrow the roads were, and we were in a relatively large Opel Insignia (Ford Taurus sized) on the wrong side of the road, driving a manual from the wrong side of the car. I kept looking over my right shoulder to back up and kept reaching for the gear shift with my right hand. Onto the Castle.

This is the third structure to have been built on this site, but the one that remains. This being built in 1446.


And of course, the legendary kissing of the Blarney Stone, which is to bestow Eloquence upon you.


Day 2 we were going to tackle the Ring of Kerry. First stop, Muckross House. But actually, we never toured the house. Instead we took a horse drawn carriage ride around the area and tried to understand a very nice, but toothless local guide.

Muckross Lake:


This ride set us back a couple hours behind, but we pressed on. Saw many cool things, among them, these stone ring forts. They believe them to be at least 1,000 years old, but no one seems to know for sure.


There were three (IIRC) of these such forts in the area:


Nearby one was the remnants of an old derelict castle (see upper left of last Ring Fort Pic). Probably not supposed to cross the fence and climb in/around this structure, but we took our chances that today wouldn't be the day to ends it's long history. It was fun climbing up and around this castle, but you really had to watch your step so as not to fall thru what was left of the floor, wall or ceilings.


Back in Killarney we did some walking around and found Mustang Sally's. Well, it was actually a night club and we did not go in, but it's obvious why it caught my eye.


That evening we visited the local Ross Castle and the B&B was kind enough to give us a bunch of bread heels to feed the ducks.


The following day we headed North a few hours to see the Cliffs of Mohrer. The day I purposely wore my CCB shirt. (hopefully you can see past the glare of my balding head)








That left us the afternoon to drive back South-West to Dingle for our next couple nights. The following day we started out on the Ring of Dingle. At the first site, the rain began to come down. The volunteer said it was to be nicer that afternoon, so we retreated to the Dingle Aquarium. This was a good decision as it gave my son something he enjoyed doing and bought us a little time. There was some cool sights, but being about a 1/3 the size of Kerry's Ring, we were hard to impress. We did find the early Christian church built by dry-stacking stones. It was built between the 6th and the 9th century and to this day remains dry inside even in the heaviest of rains:


Irish Beers:
Well, of course Guinness is probably the widest known:


Then there's Murphy's Irish Stout:


I also tried this Smithwicks Ale. It wasn't bad, but nothing to write home about. Cool glass:


And lastly Crean's Lager, which was a descent beer and my favorite of the trip. Brewed in Dingle.


Couldn't pass up getting a shot of this cool poster. Guinness posters in every form where in nearly every store window and on every wall.


It was a fun trip. We had very good weather considering what we could have had and we still have the Northern half to explore!

Love the pictures. That mustang nose looks like a '68 GT, sad, oh wait I have no room to talk since I've cut up two Broncos in less than 3 months.

OK, here we go again. Put another trip under our belts. This time, SE Germany, Northern Austria. What a beautiful place and it was soooo good to be back in the mountains!!

Day one, we visited The Eagle Nest near Berchtesgarden, Germany. This was a gift for Hitler on his 50th Birthday, but he didn't use it much because he was claustrophobic and afraid of heights.


Panoramic just above the Eagles Nest:


This was just a beautiful homestead on a narrow mountain road.


We visited the Salt Mines in Berchtesgarden and that was a lot of fun, and nice to get out of the heat for a while! But no good pictures except the one we bought. Maybe I'll take a picture of a picture to show you that one.

Next day we got going pretty early to minimize wait times at Konigsee, in the same area as Berchtesgarden. On the way up we were following a group of Unimogs. I kept seeing these mogs driving around all day and kept wondering if they were going for a trail ride or something. This picture has Mt. Watzmann in the background:


The view of Upper Konigsee:


A short little hike above this lake was Obersee, where I snapped a neat little photo of my son:


The return trip on Konigsee (by boat):


The last day we took a cable car to the top of Mt. Untersburg in Austria, which overlooks the city of Salzburg. Note the large Fortress in the center of town on top of the hill (just right of dead center).


Then we made our way into the city and toured around there a bit. It was HOT! Notice the same fortress here:


We started out for home the following day, but it had rained hard the night before leaving the air cleaner. We decided to detour a little and go back thru Berchtesgarden to get our best shots of Mt. Watzmann. The truck is made by Iveeco I believe. But I've seen that name on larger OTR trucks, but apparently they make something Unimog-ish too.


We fell in love with the small city of Berchtesgarden and want to go back there again someday. It's such a beautiful area!

those are some awesome pics !

This weekend, we caught up with the WRC Rally Deutschland.  It was a 4-day event, but we could only make one day.  It wasn't the excitement I had hoped it would be, but I think that was due to where we were sitting.  And since three of us had our young boys with us, we kept it safe.  The day started out great.  The cloud cover kept the temps in the low 70's and the boys were getting along well.  Here are a couple pictures and a video of the action we saw from this vantage point.







Later we decided to move and hopefully get away from the crowds.  It was during this time the forecast rain began to fall and it fell pretty hard.  They delayed the race as long as they could, but it was obvious the rain wasn't going to give-in so they pressed on with the Historical cars.  We found a much better viewing point here, but some in our group were not prepared for the rain.  We all stuck it out to watch a few of the Historical cars and the two unprepared for the weather decided to call it an afternoon and headed home.  While myself, my son and a friend stayed for more action.  I was really proud of my son as the weather was fairly miserable, but he was having a great time and was well behaved! You can hear him laughing and cheering is some of the videos. Anyway, here's some more of the action from the second area.  You can see how hard it was raining!



This appears to be a precursor to what we see now in the top class.








I didn't see any American drivers, but I was certainly looking for the likes of Ken Block.  I'll take what we learned this year and be better prepared for next year.  It was a great experience to share with my son!

That is awesome. I'd love to catch a WRC race. I count those guys as the best drivers in the world, probably better than F1.

I just saw a documentary on the Group B days of rally driving. Basically unregulated power. Pretty awesome racing until it started killing drivers and spectators alike.

Yes, as a spectator, you have to be very careful! Especially with young-uns in your care!

We took the long weekend to visit the Normandy beaches of France and some D-day sites as well as Heritage sites.  This is one of my favorite stops so far.  Maybe it was the history there, the respect for the American soldier, scenery, or all of the above.  We first learned that to get across this country, you are going to have to pony up for the tolls.  We didn't do that and it added 5+ hrs to our trip on just the way out.  Thank God that part of the trip was broken up by an overnight stay halfway.

Instead of arriving at our B&B on Friday just before noon, it was closer to 3p.  That changed our initial plans of seeing one of the heritage sites, so we just made our way to Gold Beach to play in the sun and the sand.  That evening we made our way into the medieval city of Bayeax for dinner at a wonderful little place.  Hostess was super charming and made for an enjoyable meal.  Not to mention I found another good Belgium brew.  We returned to the B&B for some shut-eye. 

Saturday we had two big sites on our agenda.  We were on the road early and headed to St. Malo.  This is an old port city that had a thick wall built around it for defense.  I don't recall how long the loop is around the city, but you can walk 95% all around the city on this wall.

Here's my son running across the top:


There were three or four forts built on rock outcroppings around the city.  Oddly enough, this area of France sees some of the highest tide coefficients in the world, meaning the difference between high and low tide can be some 50ft, which ends up exposing and covering up a lot of land each day.  Some of these forts only accessible by foot during low tide, others only by boat.


We finished our time at St. Malo eating at a Creperie enjoying some new French Quisine.  My son had some sort of hot-dog looking thing with fries while my wife and I enjoyed different varieties of salt-crepes with meats and cheeses in them.  Quite good.

Our next stop was Mont. St. Michel (pronounced Michelle).  This is a very old Abbey that was only accessible by foot during low-tide.  The Monks like to be secluded in order to be closer to God and they felt this was a good way to do so.  The centuries have added many buildings and then a paved access road.  But it was discovered that the new road blocked the washing out of the sand disturbing the ecology of the site.  A low-profile bridge is being built to correct that.

A view of MSM from the parking lot to give you an idea of scale:


The road before the island:


The new bridge:


The miles of mud flats left behind from the receding seas:


Inside the Abbey: (there was much more to it than this, but gives you an idea)


St. Malo was about 1.5hrs from our B&B and MSM was about 40 minutes returning back from there.  The day was done so we made our way to a little town near out B&B for dinner.  It was a late night by the time we got to bed.  But a big day was still ahead.

Sunday was a beautiful day, and we were thankful for that is today was our D-day, day.  But breakfast first and a pose with a large shell casing the owners of the B&B had found:


We had booked a tour guide whom we were meeting at 10:30, so that left us a little time to check out the old Tapestry and Cathedral in Bayeax.  No pictures allowed of the tapestry, but it was quite impressive at 230ft long, to say the least.  Then it was onto the impressive cathedral.


After we picked up our guide, we visited the further west site on our agenda; the German cemetery.  We felt we needed to see it (a) because we live in Germany now and (b) because we wanted to see the stark contrast between it and the American cemetery.
The German cemetery is about 7 acres and many french back in 1944 didn't want to give up any ground for the Nazis, for good reason.  But today this serves of a reminder that we cannot allow history to repeat itself.


Our next stop was Pointe Du Hoc, where our Army Rangers first engages the Nazi soldiers in an attempt to take out the 155mm canons perched high atop these cliffs.  These canons have a 15 mile range, but due to the horrible weather on D-day the troops were able to get close before being detected.  This point is between Utah and Omaha beaches.  It was a huge struggle to scale these cliffs.  the London fire dept. gave these rangers their fire ladders to help, then they had grappling hook guns, but the ropes were wet and they wouldn't shoot high enough to get on top.  All the while the German soldiers were firing down upon them with machine guns.  Finally, one ranger threw a rope over his shoulder and using his daggers as "ice picks" he scaled his way up the cliff to the top and managed to secure the rope so the others could follow.  The operation was to take two hours before the main part of the assault began.  With all this trouble they were well behind schedule.  The operation included some Thermite grenades, which do not explode, but start a chemical reaction to melt these canons.  But once they reached these canons, they discovered that were nothing but logs.  The actual guns had been moved inland about a mile while they built better and stronger bunkers for them.  Can you imagine how the must have felt?  Of the 225 rangers, only 90 could still fight.

Here's one of the "improved" gun fortifications.  Prior to this it was just a huge concrete foundation that exposed the guns to an air attack.


This land was privately owned and while most of the rest of the landscape scars were "erased" this site was left alone and you can see the results of the bombs.


Here's a monument to those Rangers on the cliff edge representing the daggers used to climb the cliff.


Our next stop was Omaha beach itself.  This beach was the most deadly on our behalf due to failed attempts to clear mines, blockades, razor wire, and missed bombing targets.  First troops arrived expecting to run up the beach to cover, but since the wire and blockades were not cleared, they had no where to go.  And every 7 minutes a new wave of troops were dropped off.  It took three hours to reposition ships to start firing upon the Nazis and finally start to make progress.  Here's the beach at low tide to give you an idea where the troops landed while the Germans fired upon them from high up on the hill.


There are still large scars on the hillside where our ships canons hit.

Overlooking Omaha beach is the American cemetery, which sits on a prestigious site given to the USA.  In fact, it is considered US soil.  And note the difference to the German site. The American Cemetery is 70 acres.




Overlooking the beach from the cemetery wall:


What a powerful and humbling experience this day was.  We dropped off our guide and with my son sleeping in the car, made our way to Arromanches, which has a powerful 360 degree 19 minute film that sums up the war.  We were told it may not be suitable for younger children and while it was bloody and violent, I think my 3yr old would have been fine.  But with my son still sleeping in the car, we took turns watching the film and I am certainly glad we made the effort to do so.  Just outside the theater a few steps towards the cliffs, the remains of the Mulberry Harbors can be seen.  These were temporary harbors to offload supplies for the militaries during the war.  The quick creation of these harbors is something you should look into as it's very impressive.  Here's what's left of these structures:


And what they looked like in operation:


This trip was a real eye-opener for me.  WWII was before my time and I don't know near enough about it.  And I am ashamed to say that the history classes I took in High School were just to get the grade.  I retained very little of it.  But I feel proud to be American and be a part of what many other countries did almost 70 years ago to free oppressed people and stop the killing of millions of innocents.  This is among my favorite trips so far.  Truly amazing and if you are ever thinking about a European vacation, this area would be great to consider.  You can see some amazing sites, spend time on beautiful beaches and soak in the recent and/or ancient history.  We are already planning a return trip. Next time we'll pay what amounts to around $100 in tolls round-trip to save ourselves the hours of travel time.

au revoir!

35 Belgium Brewers, over 250 beers, in the heart of Brussels. Do I have your attention? LOL!

Last weekend was the Belgium Beer Weekend and a friend of mine and I made the trip out. It's only 3.5hrs from here. Left out Friday afternoon and stopped in Belgium at a Super Dooper market and loaded my car down with 5 cases of beer of varying types and flavors. Then made our way to Brussels and spent all day Saturday pacing ourselves as we sampled many beers. Of course, I kinda lost track, be we roughly had enough "tokens" to sample 12-15 beers each, but we devised a system to each get a different beer and swap halfway. We have similar tastes in beer so it really worked well. I do not know of any other place on this planet where you can sample the world's best beers on this scale. If you're a devoted beer lover and are ever planning a trip to Europe, see my last two trip reports and I don't think you can go wrong combining them.

Empty:


Packed:


A store we ran across. There were around 6 racks of beer like the three below, plus a isle down the middle. And each bottle you see at the front represents a different beer. By far the most variety of Belgium beer I have ever seen. Just too bad the prices weren't more reasonable.

I have beer envy.

I really enjoyed your Normandy pics, I was there October 2011. Walking on Omaha Beach and through the American Cemetery was surreal. I loved Pont Du Hoc and the story behind it. It was amazing to see that some of the German fortifications still had the guns in them (just south of Gold beach).

I want to go back again!