We Wandering Walkers: October 2017

(Just so you know: this is a long post. More of a journal entry for me, of sorts. It was a fun trip, though, and I want to remember the details. Lots of photos to look through too :) )

So, a while back - a whiiiiile back (mid-summer) - we took a trip to visit some dear friends of Berkley's family. Way back in the 70's, Berkley's parents lived neat Stuttgart, Germany for about 2 years. Their neighbors, Frau Frank and her family, became some of their best friends, and they've maintained their relationship over all of these years. Their daughter, Stephi, and her husband Wilfried now have a cool farm, and invited us to come visit.

We naturally wanted to meet them in person and soon discovered that these people are super-duper-amazing:)

On the drive down we took a couple of "detours". The first was a beautiful hiking trail that we discovered as we stopped to get gas. It had a great overlook, and it just felt sooo nice to get our feet on some dirt paths and walk amongst the trees. It seemed to be part of a large trail network, which made me really want to return some day and do a giant backpacking trip across Germany.

On the way down, we also decided to visit the Maginot Line, which lies along the border between France and Germany.

So...what is the Maginot Line?

Walker crew in front of a massive bunker/entrance to one of
the bunkers.

Basically, after WWI France was like "hey, we never wanna do THAT again. Let's build a massive defensive line between us and Germany!" So along their entire shared border with Germany they dug out this massive line with huge artillery cannons, guns, underground living space for everyone it would take to enforce it, etc, etc. HUGE endeavor. Massive.

Then Germany conquered The Neatherlands and invaded France through that border instead.

Whoops...

In one of the tunnels.
One tunnel extended over
a kilometer to the next
big bunker where the
ginormous guns were

But it was cool to visit. Juniper was pretty freaked out the whole time, and kept saying she "didn't want any bad guys to come".

Oops...I guess we need to be better in our description of what we're seeing when we go to old WWII historical sites in the future. Bridger, however, was fascinated.

From there we drove to Stephi's. Their house is a BIG house. Biggest one we've been in by far since we moved here. But what? How? Well, they took a massive old barn and turned it into a house! It's pretty amazing.
Don't start trying to imagine a barn that just happens to be dry-walled and painted on the inside...you'd actually never be able to tell! The barn was split up into different levels with a big, winding staircase that goes up through the middle. Big windows, a big deck, bedrooms, etc. I tried to take a photo of it from the outside, but you can't really see it from the photos because of the big tree in the front. No matter - a photo wouldn't do it justice anyways.

When we arrived (later than expected) they had a nice Abendbrot for us before we hit the hay. The kids were sooo excited to sleep on mattresses next to each other on the floor (and be out of the car in a big, cool house). Actually when they found out that they were sleeping on mattresses next to each other, they spontaneously burst into a wrestling match:

We did eventually get them down to dinner, and despite the wrestling, they did indeed sleep well.

Breakfast with Stephi, Wilfried and family!

The next morning we awoke to an awesome breakfast of amazing Bretzels from the bakery, other bread, homemade jams and jellies, fruit, cheeses, schinkenwurst and more. But what were our kids most excited about?
Chocolate milk.

Of course.

It was pretty much all they consumed actually.

Pshhh...kids.

Awesome wooden toys and tractors

After breakfast the kids broke into these two huge baskets that Stephi had full of wooden figures. They were soooo cool, and she had everything you could possibly imagine, from Zebras to Native Americans and canoes. THEN Jana (her oldest daughter) busted out the toy tractors. Ohhhh man...we could barely peel Bridger away to go see the REAL tractors. But we did!

Out we went, around their property to explore, and explore we did. They had tractors, trampolines, a Gator, a swimming pool, a grilling area complete with a grill shack for the winter and an underground cool room for the summer. They had a dog and cats and goats and geese...the fun just didn't stop. It was like heaven for the kids. And the gardens - ohhhh the gardens. Full of beautiful flowers and good things to eat. IT WAS SO COOOOOOL.

Then Jana took Bridger around in the tractor. Juniper sat in there for a minute, but after the tractor drove forward out of the barn NOPE, she was outta there. Both kids were happily climbing around on the equipment, though.

Bridger and Jana in the tractor

Wilfried, Stephi's husband, explained to us while we were standing their that they actually own a relatively small amount of land, but they own the harvesting equipment, so they harvest for the farmers in the area that DON'T own harvesting equipment. It's a busy 4 weeks of the summer, but they enjoy it. It was fun seeing Jana, the oldest daughter, happily climb into her combine and drive away :) She really loves it!

Also, let me say this: having grown up amongst rolling hills of wheat and barley, being in farm country, and even better wheat and barley country, was a big breath of fresh air for me. Although I've been home to visit the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington where I grew up, I've missed harvest time for the past 6 years or so. So being on Stephi and Wilfried's farm during harvest? It felt familiar. It felt good. It felt like home :)

Now...

It had rained the day before, so we were lucky that Wilfried got a break from harvesting and he and Stephi took all of us in their van to a nearby town called Bad Wildbad where they had a "funicular" that took us up the mountain side into the famous Black Forest, and along a raised platform path. It was called the Baumwipfelpfad Schwartzwald. It was so beautiful, and good to be in the woods again (WITH PINE TREES!).

Us on the forest platform in the Black Forest, just outside of Bad Wildbad

The platform was cool, complete with learning stations and obstacle courses for the kids. At the end they had a MAASSSSIVE slide you could go down! Bridger kept running ahead of us on the path, and didn't seem as interested in all of the stuff that I thought he'd be interested in. He doesn't normally run ahead of us, but after I lost sight of him a couple of times and had to chase him down, I squatted down for a little chat.

"Bridger - you need to make sure you can see us, okay?"

"Okaaaay..."

"Why do you keep running ahead??"

Blank look, forward...

"Are you just excited about the slide at the end??"

"YEAH".

Suddenly it all made sense.

And who wouldn't be excited about this slide?

When we got there we walked around and around AND AROUND to get up to the viewing station at the top. But Bridger? Nope. BORRRRING. He didn't want to go see some stinkin' view at the top. He wanted to stop just a couple of rings short of the top and go straight down the slide...of course!

Approaching the SLIDE! (and overlook)

It took some coaxing, but we finally did get the little boy (fueled all morning by almost only chocolate milk) to go all the way to the top with us, enjoy the view and EAT SOME LUNCH (more Bretzel) before heading to the slide, which he, of course, loved.

Also, since it took him about 30 seconds to get down, and the rest of us about 5 minutes to walk around and AROUND down, he managed to find a little cool little log/stick structure someone had built in the woods and play there for a bit. Fun!

After getting back, our original plan was to go into Jettingen, where everyone was celebrating a brand new Marktplatz (town square). When we got back, however, the kids wanted nothing to do with the carousel, the face painting, the food and the fun...nooooo no...they wanted to play on the farm!! So we let them, of course. Swimming and fresh raspberries were the afternoon theme.

We did eventually make it to the Marktplatz celebration, where we ate some good food, drank some fresh milk from Stephi's friend's farm, and listened to some music while the kids dannnnnced and danced and danced.

Whew.

Whatta day.

That night we were ready to sleep, but guess who wasn't?

Juniper.

It was just tooo much for her little mind to comprehend...her entire family in the same room...in a big cool house...on a farm...

All night....whispers...

"Daddy....daaaDDDY. DAADDDY!"

Berkley was a champ, and despite the little whisperer, we all felt pretty well rested the next day.

Sunday morning we went back to the Marktplatz, where all of the towns church congregations were gathering to celebrate the completion of the new Martkplatz together at an outdoor Sunday church meeting.
Cool, huh?
After church we headed back for more fun at the farm.

Waiting to ride the ponies

We spent the afternoon riding around on this two-person car-bike thing, trampoline, climbing in the now empty barn (harvest was on, with the fields now being dry enough!) and even pony rides at the riding barn down the street. Did I mention that Stephi is connected with everyone and anyone??

Lana, Frau Frank, Stella and Juniper

In the evening we grilled in their awesome little grill corner. It was delicious, of course, and man was Juniper exhausted. She could barely stay awake! It was so weird. She's not normally like that. But, off to bed she went.

We all slept well in the big, amazing house filled with amazing people, and in the morning had one more incredible breakfast of Bretzeln, cheeses, homemade jams and jellies, meats and more. It was hard to say goodbye to these friends, and clear how easy it would be for the Walkers to stay connected with this family over the years. Stephi is full of kindness. Her house is beautiful, and full of love. Wilfried makes you feel like you're important. They smile often and genuinely care. They fed us the BEST food. They made us feel at home. Lana looked after little Stella so carefully. David swam with Bridger in the pool. Jana patiently listened to Bridger talk on and on and on as she drove him around in the combine...I could go on. In the end, they're truly are such generous, amazing people.

Wilfriend, Stephi, and the Walker Crew. Bridger insisted that Stella
"sit on his shoulders"

History lesson from Dad at Schloss Heidelberg

On the drive home, we decided to make a stop in Heidelberg. We'd been there once before, but wanted to see the castle again! After huffing it up the hill (and up a TON of unexpected stairs WITH the stroller) we took an awesome tour of the castle there.

It was a great stop for Berkley and I, but not exactly kid-friendly (lots of listening to boring explanations and not being allowed to touch stuff). We thought we could make it the last 2 1/2 hours home without stopping, but no, no. How foolish we were. Stella was crying, Juniper was complaining her mouth hurt when we gave her some chocolate, and Bridger started having a panic attack that, LITERALLY, he would forget the giant Combine that he got to ride on ("Agh! I can't see the combine when I close my eyes! I am going to forget all about it!"). This led to a much needed pit-stop at McDonalds on our final leg home.

Overall, fantastic trip. It's hard to travel more than 2 hours at a time with a 4-month old. It does, however, make for many opportunities to stop for little adventures.

Below are a few more photos from this trip.