15 August, 2010

Vacation week 2: Lake Constance, Germany

This week we camped in a small town near Lake Constance. M's younger brother and his family moved on, and M went back to work, so our group was reduced to 10 people.

I really enjoyed our time in France, but arriving in Germany was like coming home. Even just popping into the supermarket, with all of its organic produce and its neatly arranged aisles gave me a happy feeling!

This campground was larger than the last one and featured a petting zoo with an assortment of barnyard animals with varying degrees of friendliness. B racked up an impressive list of animals that bit him over the course that week: 2 miniature ponies, a goat, two swans and an overenthusiastic sheep. (S just stuck with insects and kept getting stung by wasps).

The campground featured a huge sandbox that kept the kids occupied for hours. They'd eat breakfast and then take off to dig tunnels and build dams and castles. There was also a really nice lake nearby, (Constance's little brother) which was well-equipped and perfect for little swimmers. The kids made friends with a lot of other children on the campground and S and B functioned as their own mini-UN by translating and mediating squabbles among various factions.

A and T took all of the kids to the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen and the monkey paradise park in Salem. (B was relieved that he didn't get bitten by any monkeys.)

I took long walks with D around the lake in the morning and enjoyed devouring all of the Dutch magazines that Oma and Opa had brought for me.

M showed up with a Dodge Challenger one evening, much to the delight of S and B and every other manly personage camping near us.

It may have rained less this week, but the weather was still crummy and in the end A and T left a day early to drive back to Stuttgart where they could take advantage of our warm, dry beds and nice, big bathtub.

M drove down after work on Friday and we spent a nice, relaxing evening with Oma and Opa. On Saturday we broke camp and traveled on to the next campsite in south-east Austria.

(Pictures to come)

4 comments:

Goofball said...

After how many weeks on campgrounds are you officially considered a gipsy? ;)

Betsy said...

I think it depends on the campgrounds. ;-)

But it's funny you mention it, because the BAC (Big-Ass Caravan) has a double axle. Which is illegal on many campgrounds because that's what the "Gypsies" drive when they're traveling with the Kermis. So whenever I reserve a campsite I always have to tell them beforehand how long our caravan is and then explain that, *no*, we are definitely not gypsies-- just a normal family with two kids and a dog... ;-)

Jen said...

The sandbox sounds like perfect entertainment. It's a shame you all ran into so much rain!

Kelly said...

I'm laughing about the mini-UN; what good little translators/diplomats you're raising!

In other thoughts: a Challenger?! Nice!