April 19 – At a lake called Titisee outside Freiburg in the Black Forest with our first wireless. Wrong - that was premature - but now we're in Freiburg and do have wireless so can attach the photos. However, the instructions come up in German and that makes a mess - so you get the underlines and the photos in random order.

Thanks for the postings from the kids with castle envy and the Gastons - real and otehrwise. If real Gaston wants to feel better, there was skiing at ZugSpitze, but unless you had a lime green one piece, you would not fit in - and the edge deep snow would not have cut it. You go up a major railway to ski about 1000 ft vertical - go figure.

One week, 700km and we haven’t left Germany except for a little bit of Austria. It has been sunny every day except yesterday until we arrived at our campsite here. Our camper (photo) is working great – 9L/100km carrying all the necessities of home! Try that in your Expedition. This morning is cooool in the mountains, but this baby also has heat.

We have seen many little villages from the middle ages, with Dinkelsbuhl as a great example (see photo). Barb made it down the tram with about 1km between support towers from Zugspitze (photo) – and I have the fingernail dents in my arm to prove it. Left Garmisch for Schwangau and King Ludwig’s fairy tale castle (photo). Our campsite had a view of it from the other side across the fields. Then off to the Black Forest along the Bodensee to another countryside campsite overlooking a little tourist lake. There is real countryside here – huge areas that are left for hiking and biking, and lots of people are doing that. The campgrounds are used as cottages by many. This one at Titisee is open in the winter – plowed rows and all.