June 6th - Bad Schandau

Sunday, June 6th
Bad Schandau, Germany
Last night we finally arrived in Bad Schandau, Germany. This is where
our search for rocks began. We found a great apartment to stay in for
two nights! It has a combination living room/kitchen, bathroom and two
bedrooms. It is located in the National Park. There is a lovely stream
flowing behind the house. We are the only ones staying here tonight.
There was a family from the Netherlands in another apartment last
night. The owner speaks minimal English, his wife does not speak
English at all, but she showed us around their property, and gave us a
souvenir when we were departing. They thought we were from Switzerland,
since our car tags are Swiss. I thought that was odd, since we don't
speak German. They were totally surprised to find that we were from the
US.(not sure if that was good or bad).
I love The Sound of Music - and "Climb Every Mountain" is one of my
favorite songs from the movie - but I have to say that after climbing
mountains all day (literally), I am exhausted and not sure I will be
able to walk tomorrow. I don't know if it is my age or my heart, but
those mountains seemed a lot harder than they used to! (I suppose it
could also be all of the food that I am eating and the 100 pounds that I
have put on - at least it feels that way!) The first mountain that we
climbed made me wonder why we were here. I could have been climbing
around Gatlinburg, or anywhere for that matter. The second one showed
us what we wanted to see! Check out our Rock Pictures. We are in the
Saxony-Schwietz National Park ( which in actually in Germany and Czech
Republic - nowhere near Switzerland).