Just about every weekend, Nyssa and I go for a Saturday morning Starbucks run. This started as our little thing because we’d let Maggie go zoom-zoom afterwards. Cool.

There is a parking garage just around the corner from the Starbucks in Aachen.

[googleMap directions_to="false"]Aachen, Germany[/googleMap]

As that costs about €1.50 per hour and we typically don’t spend more than 20 minutes getting our coffee, it is easier to park on the street. Now, directly in front of the parkplatz are two places which are available anytime EXCEPT between 09 – 20 uhr auf wochentage, or between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays. Again, cool.

So, this morning, after getting our white chocolate moccas with whipped cream, I find that Maggie has a found a fan club. There’re a couple of Aachen’s finest writing up invitations to their Ball. Now, I’m not the confrontational type, especially with those who have a lot of friends with lots of guns, so I try the bumbling tourist routine.

“Howdy! Is there a problem?”

“Ja, das ist nicht in ordnung!”

“Uh, OK. What’s the problem?”

“Chew have parked in an illegal park.” He points to the sign. “Today ist Samstag. Dis ist illegal.”

“Uh, OK. But today is Saturday. Isn’t this the weekend?”

“No, it is der wochentag! Dis ist ein work day.”

“Uh, OK. So, in Germany, Saturdays are not the weekend??”

“Nein. Dis ist der wochentag!”

No use trying to argue the point. Maybe a simple bribe?

“So, can I pay you now, here?”

“Ja! You can pay the ticket here.”

So, from there, I wander over to the local geldautomat (ATM), get the €15 fine and pay for my subscription to the Aachen Police Benevolence Fund.

Somehow, I’m still trying to figure out how, just how, did Saturday become a WEEKDAY!?!?!?

Cheers!!

With Maggie back in the shop for another dodgy clutch, I see that there are three significant issues involved:

1. That this “new” clutch would go bad after less than 25k miles;
2. The difference between US and European warranties; and
3. The difference in warranty work between Germany and Netherlands.

First, some background details. Read the rest of this entry »

At about 11:30 am on 22 June 2008, while on the A76 between Nuth and Schinnen, Maggie clocked her 50,000th mile. All that in eight days short of being two years old!! Only had two new sets of tires and brakes for all of that. Lotsa fun and even more to come!

Cheers!!

We took Nyssa to her Girl Scout Summer Camp at Camp Freedom near Dautphe, Germany today.

[googleMap name="Dautphe, Germany" directions_to="false"]Dautphe, Germany[/googleMap]

Nice, pleasant drive into central Germany. Once we got Nyssa registered and stuff into her tent, she was quite ready for us to leave. I’m glad that my children aren’t wilting violets or have any separation anxiety!

Now that we were ready to leave, I decided to have TomTom get us to the nearest Esso to top off fuel. No problem, says Tom, just drive up over the next hill and you’ll be there. Riiggghhttt. Sounds like MITA08 all over again. Now, Tom didn’t quite take us over any K roads but it sure did remind me of the Poppa Bear Run we’d done last year!!

And, though we saw a couple of MINIs along the way, it sure wasn’t the same as following Art and Tess through the Swartzwald. They’re having a wonderful drive through the Heartland of America now but its still not the same as Europe.

Motor on, Art, and good luck!

Cheers!!

After almost two years of looking, Kelly was able to find a cupboard, or cubard, that she liked. Since the gallery is still broken, the snaps of her new toy are in my comments below.

Cheers!!

I’ve spent my free time today fighting through the crash of my hosting server that was so bad my databases were corrupted. Now, what does that mean for ya’ll? Basically, everything on the site (posts, comments, pictures) are entries into a database (DB). The pages themselves are merely templates which are filled in from the DBs. Once those DBs are gone, so goes the site. So, I’ve reinstalled the site program and the photo gallery, too. The good news is that ya’ll can comment on the posts now. The bad news is that all of the accounts are gone; ya’ll will have to re-register to comment. We’ll see how that goes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, but there was a server crash with my hosting service which took out my site completely. Seems that I’ve lost the Gallery database but not the pictures, as far as I can tell now at ten minutes to midnight! So, tomorrow, I’ll gunge around with the guts of this thing and see if I have any voodoo.

Cheers!!

I found this interesting video about Facebook, though I’m sure this is applicable, to some degree or another, to the other sites as well. All I can do is point you to this wiki about open source intelligence and ask that you just think what the bigger picture might be.

Cheers!!

Well, NATO decided that I needed to come to London to do a site survey for an upcoming project. Cool, I’ve always liked London (exchange rate not withstanding!!). This time, I’m staying at the Tudor Lodge Hotel in northwest London and this place is, far and away, the best accomodations I’ve had of the three times I’ve been to this city. When compared to the others I’ve been in, my room has the following:

• It’s quite large
• There’s free WIFI
• It has a mini-fridge, micro, TV and full bathroom
• It’s cheaper than either of the other sites
• And it’s a B&B

Pretty cool digs. On top of that, we found a Papa John’s Pizza here, too!! We were driving to the site this morning and noticed a Dominoes Pizza across the street. Ben said that he’d rather have a Papa John’s Pizza, that he’d kill for a PJ. Then he said that he’d give his first born for a PJ pizza. I interjected that he wouldn’t give his first born but I’d give my 19 year old!! And, as I was trying to describe PJ pizzas to our italian/Belique co-worker, Ben grabs my arm, yells at me “Papa Johns!!” and points just ahead of us on our side of the road!!! Incredible, absolutely incredible!! That whole scene could not have been planned any better and would only happen like that in a movie!! Is there any guess what we had for dinner tonight?!?

So, I’ve got another day or two here in the city and then back to Nederlands. But that pizza made the whole trip for me.

Cheers!!

MINIs In The Alps 2008

How to slay a Dragon

According to it’s website, the Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap, with 318 curves in 11 miles, is America’s number one motorcycle and sports car road. In a few short years, the Dragon has quickly become a sacrosanct driving experience and opportunity for all MINI drivers.

Ha!! That’s only because ya’ll haven’t been to the Alps!!

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with a fellow MINI-ac almost 1500 miles over a four day weekend to drive the mountain roads of the Swiss and Italian Alps and this is our story.

MINIacs

Like most Charter Members of MC2 Magazine, I am a MINI-ac who absolutely loves the whole MINI experience. I was a member of the Northamericanmotoring.com (NAM) forums almost a year before I actually picked up Maggie, my 2006 CR/W MCS. Twenty-three months later and she has over 48,800 miles on her!! Also, as I’m living in the Netherlands at the behest of the US Military, I have the opportunity of driving on some of the best country roads there are. Using the Europe section of the NAM forums, other MINI-acs are constantly coordinating meets and runs throughout the region. It was on Europe NAM where my friend Art (abuzavi on NAM) came up with the idea to explore the Alps. This was to be his Final Grand Tour of Europe. With that, MINIs In The Alps 2008, MITA08, was born!

Planning

The planning for this trip covered two and a half months of research, extensively referring to Wikipedia articles and Google Earth maps, and was focused not on the destinations but truly the journey itself. We would exchange ideas over the NAM forum, modify a base Google Earth file and worked to massage our plans into a route. For example, I had traveled into Switzerland before and knew that there were trains which you drive your car onto and ride through the mountains. Not quite the driving experience I was looking for. Also, I learned a lot about the differences between route planning with Google Earth, TomTom and Garmin routing. I was able to take the route from Google Earth and get that into TomTom but not as well as I’d thought. I would not find this out until later in the journey. During this planning phase, the only good thing going for us was that only two MINIs and two families (Art with his wife, Kristin, and kids: Zavi and Katja; my wife, Kelly, and our kids: Matthew and Nyssa) were making the trip. Therefore, finding accommodations would be easier. The flip side is that, as we were traveling out of the typical tourist seasons, the availability of accommodations was limited. Fortunately, Kristin speaks fluent German and was able to finalize the coordinations for lodging. Another planning consideration was the timing of the trip. Art was moving back to the US after twelve years in Germany and was shipping Tess, his 2006 AB/B MCS, in May 2006. Also, there was a long holiday weekend during 1 – 4 May that would give us time to cover six countries: Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.

Execution

The final plan had us departing from Heidelberg, Germany on Thursday morning to travel down to Switzerland. Friday had us traveling across the southern faces of the Swiss and Italian Alps, ending in Austria. Saturday would take us through western Austria, across Liechtenstein, through Luzern and back into Germany. Finally, on Sunday we would drive north through the Swartzwald (Black Forest) back to Heidelberg. Art would leave us there for home and we would press on to the Netherlands. Truly an epic journey was planned. As my family and I would be traveling from the Netherlands, we left on Wednesday afternoon and met up with Art’s family in Heidelberg for dinner and final coordination. And, with that, we were off and running!!

Day One, Thursday.

This day’s adventure had us traveling from Heidelberg down to Meiringen, Switzerland. Once there, we would visit the Reichenbach Falls, where Professor Moriarity, the arch nemesis of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, was killed off. But remember, this adventure is about the journey, not the destinations. With that in mind, we planned for a couple of detours, just for the driving experience. The first was to be an overlook of a Swiss valley that had been recommended to Art by his Swiss neighbor. This route was to take us about nine kilometers up the side of this mountain. About two kilometers short of our destination, we found the road was blocked with SNOW!! As fine an automobile the MINI Cooper is, Maggie and Tess were no match for the depth of snow on that road and we were forced to abandon the effort. We were certainly surprised as the weather up north in Germany and the Netherlands was quite warm but this was only a faint warning of what was to come. The other planned detour was to a peculiar stretch of road west of Meiringen. I’d found this road in a previous trip to Switzerland and had to take Art on it as the road circles over itself as it winds down the mountain and just begged to be driven. Finally, after spending a couple of hours visiting the Reichenbach Falls, we were introduced to the infallible logic of TomTom navigation. Now, I was leading this whole parade because my TomTom 910 will allow you to follow a series of waypoints as opposed to simple Point A to Point B navigation. This seems to be a good thing, however, TomTom showed that he had a better route than what I’d programmed. On the way to our hotel, TomTom decided to take us up this road that, according to TomTom, was a typical, paved road. It actually turned out to be barely more than a hiking path!! As we were climbing this dirt road, the hikers that we were passing were trying to tell us “Hiking: you’re doing it wrong!!” This was another warning of things to come.

Day Two, Friday.

This day was to be the meat of the trip, where we were to travel along the southern faces of the Swiss and Italian Alps and end in Austria. After twenty-two years in the Army, I’ve learned that discovery learning is painful, a lesson that was to be relearned this day. It was planned to be only about six and a half to seven hours of driving but turned into ten and a half hours because of closed mountain passes. That snow we’d seen the day before was still covering several mountain passes which forced a change in routing. Starting from Meiringen, we were to head generally south to the Grimsel Pass and Totensee. It was in Innertkirchen, Switzerland that we were introduced to the Mountain Pass Status Board. This is a road sign which shows whether a mountain pass is open for traffic or not. Not only was Grimsel Pass closed, preventing us from traveling south but also the Susten Pass, which would have allowed us to travel southeast from Innertkirchen and then along our planned route. As we were looking forward to the high mountain passes and Alpine lakes, this was disappointing. We then detoured back up to the north towards Luzern and then along the A2 towards Gorduno, Switzerland where we picked up the A13 towards Benabbia, Switzerland. Again, this trip is about the journey not the destination and was true with our discovery of Castello di Mesocco. This was a gorgeous castle ruins in the process of being renovated that made a wonderful backdrop for our lunch. As we continued along the journey, we never tired of saying “Wow!” repeatedly and our cheeks were sore from all of the insane grinning the drive was giving us. Truly epic. And the weather simply could not have been any better. There were few clouds and the snow was bright. But, in the valleys especially, it was pleasant enough to run with the windows down. Gorgeous. And the mountain roads were their own adventure in driving them. For example, it is very exciting to enter a hairpin left turn and to look down out the side window to the road! Or when entering a right hand hairpin turn and you cannot see the road below you! However, just before Le Mason, Switzerland, we found that the snow had, again, confounded our plans by closing the Passo Forcola, our border crossing into Italy. Though this was, again, frustrating, the journey was still exciting as it seemed that every time we came around a bend in the road, another gorgeous valley or mountainside would display it’s glory. These were scenes that could have been in seen only in paintings but were right there in front of us! Absolutely wonderful. We had to continue detouring further south and then back up north. However, when we got to Molina, Italy, we were again disappointed in finding that the Stelvio Pass was also closed. For me, this was the stop of the trip as I was looking forward to what the BBC television show Top Gear described as the “World’s Best Driving Road”. I could not stay disappointed for long as the detour took us over another windy, hair-pin turn mountain road and through a crazy, one-lane, 2 mile tunnel back into Switzerland. But the kids (and wives) were very ready to get out of these cars and were happy to see our hotel in Nauders, Austria. Again, what was to have been a six to seven hour drive took just over ten hours with all three detours. Everyone slept quite well this night.

Day Three, Saturday.

We started from Nauders a bit later this day but we did learn to ask about the status of the mountain passes from the locals. Only, they, too, had no idea if the mountain passes were open or not. Regardless, we had an enjoyable drive through western Austria. From the start, we launched into the winding country roads with a series of switchbacks. Taking the opportunity to yell the war cry “Supercharger!!” we passed a few of the locals and enjoyed the beautiful weather and drive. Right up until we found that the Silvretta Pass was closed. This time, we learned our lesson from Friday and took a smarter detour to get to Vaduz, Leichtenstein. Not a lot of Americans, even those living in Europe, know about this country but we were going there because no one else does! As Art said, Liechtenstein is about as big as the Dragon. Yup, that small! Liechtenstein has no standing military, has more registered companies than citizens and only one hospital in the entire country! We were able to enjoy the beautiful country sides and scenic vistas but saw them from the highway as western Austria has limited east-west roads. Once we got to the capital city, Vaduz, we enjoyed a nice lunch, took a short walk about the centrum and Art made his Alps orientation video for another NAM-ster, Blimey Cabrio! After a short tour through Luzern, Switzerland, we ended the day just across the border in Germany. As most European countries are part of the European Union, they have open borders, meaning no passport controls or inspections, for the most part. As we were crossing back into Germany, the guards saw our Netherlands license plate and were happy to inspect our American passports, then let us go. However, Art was keeping his passports in the boot and, this time, had to pull over to get them out for inspection. And he’s from Germany!! After all the driving of the previous two days, we were happy to walk around exploring the local community of Bad Säckingen as it was having a type of Renaissance festival, complete with swords and armor, meat on a stick and beer in a pottery stein! Art’s daughter, Katja was happy to get a nice (wooden) sword. With her bright red hair, she became Rod Katja von Leimen. Quite a relaxing evening to just enjoy the company and activities.

Day Four, Sunday.

The idea for Sunday was to drive the length of the Swartzwald from south to north. Using the Google Earth file as a guide, I plotted the towns into an itinerary in TomTom. Only problem with that was that TomTom, again, had a better idea as to how to calculate the routing between these points. Something about Shortest Route versus Fastest Route comes into play here. Again, the weather was excellent: windows down, top back, sunglasses. Even the hikers were wearing shorts. In any case, TomTom had us going up this valley to a dirt road to cross over the mountains. OK, I wasn’t real keen about the dirt road thing but it didn’t look too bad. Wrong. After passing more hikers, we stopped on top of this mountain where Art and I discussed TomTom’s demonstrated inability to navigate. After firing TomTom, Art was to lead us off the mountain, right up to the point where we found the SNOW! Yup, there was still snow on the road in the shadows of the trees. Art and Tess tried to get through it but the snow was too deep, even after we had the kids try to stomp it down, and he still managed to get stuck!! Fortunately, we were able to get Tess out of the snow with me and both wives pushing her along. All the way up to when Art started to get a little sideways and managed to splash Kristin with some mud. Kelly, managed to loose her footing and slipped in the slush but came out luckier than Kristin. So, in reverent respect, we named this stretch of road the “None Shall Pass” Pass and turned around. From here on, Art led the parade with his OEM Nav along his favorite MINI driving route through the Swartzwald. We stopped in the German town of Titisee for lunch: wonderful weather, wonderful friends. What else do you need? Again, as this whole trip was about the journey, not the destinations. With that in mind, we left Titisee to drive another couple of hours up the road to ride a rodelbahn, which is like a roller coaster ride using the side of a hill where the car only holds one person. Really cool break in the drive. From there, it was more beautiful countryside back up to Heidelberg where we topped off with fuel and split off for Art to go home and us to drive three more hours back to the Netherlands.

Retrospect.

Art said it best: “Wow. (Repeat that about 83,000 times)”

I was so glad to make this trip with friends and family, not only because it was Art’s farewell trip but also because “epic” just doesn’t do it enough justice. This was also one of those “once in a lifetime” opportunities that couldn’t be missed. I’ve learned from living in Europe that Europeans and Americans alike cannot appreciate just how vast the United States is. From the 1^st of May to the 4^th, I drove 1458 miles over 26 hours and traveled across 6 different countries. To put this into perspective, that is the same as driving from Wilmington Beach, North Carolina to San Antonio, Texas (1411 miles, 24 hours). However, in both countries, it only takes between six to nine hours to drive from the ocean’s beach to the mountain’s snow.

MITA 08 has taught me a few lessons for MITA 09. First, and foremost, I would not start the trip before the beginning of July in order to catch the mountain passes when they’re open. With that, I would also identify the alternate routes for closed passes and have those plotted in the GPS. Next, I would make this a five or six day trip. Though the trip was always about the journey, there were many places we saw but didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses. Of course, the trade off to this is making the hotel reservations on time, too. Finally, I would bring more folks along. This truly was a lifetime trip that only gets better by sharing it with others. So, if you’ve got nothing better to do in July, keep an eye on the NAM Europe section and stay tuned!!