Saturday, May 14

Saturday, May 14, 2011
We got cleaned up and went downstairs for breakfast. It was a pretty nice spread – Steve had cereal, a hard boiled egg, banana, lunch meat, cheese, and some sweet breads. I had a piece of sweet bread, a sandwich made from lunch meat and cheese, and yogurt.
Then check out from the hotel and a two-block walk to the car rental agency. It was about a hundred dollars less to pick up in town rather than the airport so decided to do that instead of having to drive on jet-lag the night before. We arrived to nobody at the office, and a note on the door in German. Jibbigo (my translator program for Ipod) finally told us that it said he would be back shortly. Waited a while longer and finally tried the number on Scott’s cellphone. Recorded message in rapid German didn’t help us one bit. Thankfully the guy showed up shortly thereafter, and we rented the car (2010 VW Golf, dark blue) and headed out. Steve took a bit to get used to the stick shift, and stalled out on the street in front of EuropCar. Then with the help of the nuvi’s Europe map, we headed toward Spangdahlem. Not a single wrong turn, thankfully!
Even got to stop for a cache at a scenic turnout and made my first cache find of the trip! Made it to Spangdahlem and Scott’s about 12:30 p.m. local time. So nice to see Scott for the first time since last August! We got the grand tour of his very nice apartment, then visited for a while before leaving for Bitburg and the commissary. Went through Dudeldorf on the way, drove through two arches. Scott told us General Patton got a tank stuck through one of them during the war, though he couldn’t remember which one. Made it to Bitburg, got passes for us and for the car, then went to the commissary for some weekend food plus snack supplies for our trip down to Switzerland. Also cold medicine for Steve. Then we took Scott to his car which was in Bitburg as he had been at a party the night before and didn’t think he could safely drive. Glad that, if he drinks, it is seemingly responsibly. Back to the apartment to put away perishables, then on to the base for the grand tour. I’d seen it before, of course, but glad that Steve got the chance to as well. Ended up at Johnny Rocket’s at the Eifel Club for dinner – burgers for the guys and a salad for me. Then a bit more base touring, a stop at the shoppette to see the Tshirt selection, and then a stop just outside the base for another cache attempt. Way too many thorns to find this one, might give it another chance or might not. Scott then agreed to drive (we were in the Blazer) to the cache that his troop put out. He actually ended up finding it first so decided to take off running with it. He did bring it back, and I was able to swap out some of our council patches for one of the troop’s neckerchiefs. Left a scouting traveler as well as one that needed to get back to Germany. Had passed another travel bug hotel not too far along the way so got to stop there, too, and left three more travelers and picked one up. Returned to the apartment and visited some more, and watched the movie Zombieland. This was the same movie that I watched part of with Eric on Wednesday night, I had missed the first part as well as the last part so nice to get the whole picture, so to speak. Then Steve and Scott went to bed and I’m still finishing up this diary. Hope to have some wifi (Scott’s is still not back on) soon so that I can post some of this on my blog.