June 4th - Still Not Sure Where We Are

Friday, June 4th

I love daylight!! I love it here at this time of year, because it is
daylight from around 4AM to 11PM. Of course, I would not like it so
well when it was the other way around. We are traveling down the
highway across
Germany. Next stop, Toy and Tin Soldier Museum.

We couldn't find the Toy and Tin Soldier Museum that was supposed to be
in Goslar. We found a toy museum in another town. It started out
looking like a bunch of old toys that were just put together and called
a museum. Then in some of the cases, I saw some very expensive dolls!
I enjoyed looking around at the dolls, doll house rooms and other toys.
I even saw a little birdhouse there that was exactly like one that I
have at home! It was fun - for me, at least. But, don't worry, Lonnie
got to check some things out, also, today. Oh, and while we there, we
made a purchase at the gift shop. It turned out that the item that we
purchased was made by the man on duty in the gift shop! He was so proud
that we chose what he had made! I took his picture with it and he
offered to give me his autograph. I declined, but maybe I should have
gotten it?

Since we are so far behind our schedule, we decided to just basically
throw it out the window. There were only two places that we had
planned to go in Northern Europe - Berlin and Sopot - so we decided to
skip those. It would have been several days driving time, and we are
tired of seeing Europe through a car window. That being said, we just
started driving on the back roads of Germany. We found a Border
Museum. It was closed, but there was a man who was at least able to
tell us in German that we were on the West side. The border crossing
and guard tower were torn down in 1993. There were pictures and some
pieces from the guard tower there. It was interesting. We think about
the Berlin wall, but tend to forget that all of East Germany was walled
in, with border crossings and guard towers.

After that, we were driving down the road, and Lonnie wanted to check
out some Limestone bluffs. As we did so, we saw a Mastodon on the top
of one of the bluffs. Didn't expect to see that. Then we saw where
someone had set up a section that showed some of what people used in the
olden days. It was pretty funny to come across that.

We drove on to another section of the country, where my husband was
fascinated with big hills of dirt. Ya gotta wonder. Of course, I'm
looking at dolls and toys, so maybe we ARE in our second childhood!!
Anyway we were able to drive close to one of them, but could not get up
close to the other one that he wanted to see. He took pictures and
filmed the big piles of dirt.

I am starting to appreciate McDonald's Flugelsturmer. (those are
McDonald's Hot Wings). I either have Nuggets with Curry Sauce, or Hot
Wings and Salad when we stop there (which is too often!) We had a snack
of Ritz crackers and Gouda cheese on the road. Now we are at a hotel
that has Internet, so I am sending this out. Not sure where we will
end up tomorrow, but it should be interesting!