This is what I think I will do this morning (click for google map):

It is essentially double the normal trip, with about 2 hours of driving, and over 80 miles. The scenery is awesome out there, and the roads aren’t bad either. Less traffic is also a nice plus.

Why follow roads that use 2.5 hours of your time when you can use roads that use 7 hours of your time?

Am I crazy?

In the mean time, I’m planning on driving to BC this weekend and making a big loop around the mountains, passing through Whistler.

Here’s the basic route I’ve taken since Thursday morning, and what I plan to do from Wolfsburg on the way back to the Frankfurt area.

Today I left at about 9am and drove north toward Frankfurt before heading east toward Wüzburg then north toward Erfurt and then Leipzig. I then cut back in the direction of Frankfurt, on the north side, and have stopped in Kassel for the night.

Google Maps tells me it’s a 700km drive.. and nearly 7 hours. I paid $88 to fill the ~14 gallon tank today. I really need to drive slower. Those unresticted zones on the Autobahn are amazing though!

I drove from ‘A’ to ‘B’ today:

found this in the neighborhood where I’ve stayed the last two nights

my first venture out on my own on the Autobahn.. construction zone (the yellow marks are temporary and supersede any white marks. The lanes can get very narrow.

I love european wagons… and I love these cars

just about the cheapest fuel costs I’ve seen so far.. this was at an Autohöfe (basically a truck stop) just off the Autobahn.

part of the Autohof

looking toward the truck area… solar panels aren’t extremely common here, but they’re still much more common than what I’ve seen in the US

I don’t think I’d ever buy one, but I do love seeing Alfa’s

is this an S3? had a different bumper, headlights, and a midhatch spoiler. I didn’t look inside. It’s a little more difficult to know what model cars are here since rear badging is often optional at dealership. The lady driving this car was going pretty slowly on the Autobahn..

This is what I saw parked next to me when I came back out of the Autohof where I had my dinner (mmm.. Brätwurst mit Brochen (oh, btw, currywurst is awesome)). There are so many wagons here, and I love it.

wind power also seems to be quite common

some view from a side road I took while looking for a place to stop and look at a map. There are almost no shoulders are places to pull over on roads here, and it’s illegal to stop on the Autobahn (thankfully there are plenty of rest stops and Parkplatz’s). This makes it almost impossible to take photos of the country side that I’m seeing

the side road… with curbs, so I have no idea how they expect a car to pass another. Most skinny roads have soft shoulders so you can at least pull off if you need to.

another view as the sun is setting, from a Parkplatz

the Parkplatz (basically, they’re like the rest stops we have on most of our interstates)

Today was awesome. That said, I won’t be able to drive quite as freely as I had hoped since this 1.4 engine just isn’t getting the mileage I had planned for when I was expecting to have a diesel instead. I ended up averaging about 7.5l/100km today, which is pretty good, but I know my 2L tdi would have done better. It doesn’t help when I’m passed by several 2.0 tdi cars today

Tonight I’m staying in a hostel in Kassel. It cost me about 30 EUR total and it’s a rather nice place. There are (so far) two other people in the room with me, one of which just happens to be from Olympia and arrived in Germany today. He’s starting his Masters program in Kassel after just graduating from Evergreen.

Tomorrow I make my way to the Nüburgring. I can’t describe how excited I am about this. There’s a short Touristenfahrten tomorrow night, and then one all day on Wednesday. I believe I’m meeting three people from finalgear.com on Wednesday. I also just found that out that Tim Schrick (look him up) will be at the ring on Wednesday, and apparently he’s giving free taxi rides!? What timing!

Before the ring I plan on looking around Kassel a bit, which is supposed to have some cool old stuff. Afterward I’ll probably follow the Rhein a bit (basically following the map above) before heading thorugh the hills toward Nürburg and checking into my hotel in town (also excited about this)

Please see my thread on the vwvortex forum for my photos from yesterday. I didn’t feel like posting here last night.

(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).

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dry_Falls_WA.jpg)

(click image for Google Maps page)

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.