Comments Off In about a week and 12 hours my plane should be taking off for a 10 hour flight to Frankfurt am Main in Germany. It’s schedule to be an A330 on Lufthansa.
I leave on Friday afternoon and arrive on Saturday morning in UTC +2. I’ll be there for 10 days, mostly just driving around the country and taking photos.
Can’t… wait…
Comments Off I was just sitting and thinking about the highways I need to drive on before Winter arrives this year. I haven’t been on the North Cascades Highway in about six years, and I have skipped past most of SR-12 east of Mt. Rainier for about eight years.
(click image for Google Maps)
It’s nearly a 14 hour drive in total.. over 600 miles. I would stop and spend the night at Sun Lakes State Park in Dry Falls (one of my favorite areas in the state).
I spoke too soon apparently. I received an email back from Martin at Burgstube shortly after my last post saying they could reserve a room for me. A few minutes later I called the hotel and made reservations for the nights of September 8th and 9th. The hotel is quite small (only ten bedrooms), quite close to the Nordschleife and Nürburg. I ended up paying 90€ for the two nights, which includes a breakfast. That’s still less than what I paid for one night in Vancouver, BC.
It should be noted that I also received a nice email from Sliders Guest House, which is a little further from the ring. They offered 32€ for each night, which would have saved me quiet a nice amount of money. I opted for something a little closer to town that will provide a better experience though. The Sliders Guest House site also fails to mention anything about wireless Internet, which will definitely be required for me.
My preference for a room would have been Hotel an der Nordschleife. I received a response very quickly from Eddy via email, however they are already completely booked (as is expected.. just look at their location!).
I think I got a pretty good deal in the end and I can’t wait to show up in Nürburg in a couple of weeks!
Comments Off I don’t know why I did this, but I waited until I had ten days before leaving to try and reserve a hotel room for my stay around the Nürburgring in Germany. Obviously, only two weeks before a full open track day at the ring, most hotels are rather full now. It also seems that most hotels and guesthouses have just one or two single bed rooms, with the rest being two bed rooms. Their single bed rooms tend to range from about 35 – 50 euros, but the double bed rooms jump up to over 80 euros very quickly.
So at this point I’m not really sure where I’m going to stay while at the ring. I had wanted to stay nearby so I could experience some of the atmosphere from the people and the cars that had traveled to the Eifel Mountains to experience motoring bliss. Now I may just settle for experiencing the Green Hell. I doubt I’ll complain too much 
In the mean time, I’m just finishing up a few last pre-trip issues, working on a packing list, and counting down the days until the plane takes off. Ten days to go!
Comments Off I’ve been looking at maps of Germany for months now. I think I have finally grown closer to determining a general route that I may take while exploring the country. Note that I plan on making lots of side trips and finding plenty of roads off of Autobahns, but this map covers the basic path I may take.
(click image for Google Maps page)
Comments Off I had driven by this location back in 2007 with a friend, wishing the light was right to take a photo of the area. It’s not easy to make what is essentially a hill and a couple fences look good in a photo. I stored the desired shot in my memory and moved on.
I came back in January of this year and took this shot a little closer to sunset.
I know, it’s far from perfect. The sky is blown out and the only thing that makes it a little interesting is the fog, but I’m still proud that I was able to get the shot at all. A few moments later the mist had mostly gone and all that was left was a hill and a couple fences again. Sadly, there were a few horses in the distance that I just wasn’t able to work into the photo.
I’ve made it out to this location once since. It was sunny that day and the look of the area was completely different, so the photos I took were of very different things. I’m sure I’ll make it back to the area later on this year or early next year and will try again. Maybe I can get some mist, horses, and a nice blue sky with clouds next time. Here’s to dreaming of that perfect shot…
Comments Off It’s a real shame hotrod-a-rama isn’t happening this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed the past events I’ve been able to attend. My dad attended for the first time last year and was excited to go again this year.. and was quite disappointed when he found out it was canceled.
click the image for more photos.
Comments Off I’ve been across the border into BC four times now. The first time was when I was much younger; with my grandparents to see Pt. Roberts. The last three times have been only for the annual Great Canadian VW Show. The most recent show was last weekend. I had intended to try and take a ‘quick’ side trip up to Whistler after seeing a little of Vancouver (which I still have yet to see), but ran out of time.
On our way back I caught a glimpse of the mountains. Now I know that I must get back up to BC this year. I may end up making a loop, but this would obviously require an over night stay around Vancouver. That may not be a bad thing though since it would be an excellent excuse to see the city a little more. I honestly can’t wait to take some photos around the area.
I hope to be able to do this in late September or early October. We’ll see how I feel once I get back from Germany next month.
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
