Working at East Fork ACE Park

Since we are staying in the Dallas area for about six weeks, we decided to volunteer at Lake Lavon again. We have been trimming trees in the campground along with the main road into the lake headquarters. It has been a cool August so far, for Texas. We are getting used to the temperatures in the upper 90's and accordingly finish our work by lunchtime each day.

Making it Ours

Like any home there are things you want to add and change to conform to your personal taste. We anticipated the more involved modifications and incorporated them as customizations to our factory order. Since we moved in we have been busy finding a place to put all our stuff. This process includes things like hanging hooks, closet light, backsplash on bathroom sink, and so the list goes. We have also made many trips to the store for things such as bathmat, towels, shelving paper, dish drainer, and so on.

One area that needed some carpentry work was the steel generator box that we had the factory install in the front of the trailer basement. We don't use a generator, but this looked like a great way to section off the basement and provide some really usable storage.





 



We attached the shelf to the back wall of the generator box with a piano hinge and folding legs so that the hardware
for the landing jacks and disc brakes could be easily
 accessed for any service. 

It felt good to have everything in it's place.

Moving From The Hitchhiker Into Our New Excel

After owning our Hitchhiker for almost seven years it was time to make a change. After a year of researching fifth wheels, in April, we placed an order with Bennett's Camping Center in Granbury, Texas, for a D37IKE Excel Winslow. The factory, Peterson Industries, in Smith Center, Kansas, is a high quality, low volume manufacturer of full time units. As such, there is a three month turn around time from order date to delivery. We took possession on July 19th. We are very pleased with the trailer and all of the many customizations we had requested.

Bennett's runs a full hookup campground behind their facility, called Bennett's RV Ranch. They provided two sites for four nights. We parked our Hitchhiker backward so the door faced our new Excel. This way we had AC in both units, since the temperature was in the upper 90's everyday. We worked from early morning to after dark for three days moving, organizing and disposing of all of our "stuff". As our first move as "full-timers", this turned out to be very much like moving from one stick house to another. It was a lot of work and we fell into bed each night, exhausted.  

A Final Farewell to a Faithful Old Friend
The Final Disconnect

After leaving Bennett's we traveled to East Fork Army Corp of Engineer Park on Lake Lavon near Dallas, Texas. We have signed up to volunteer here for the next six weeks or so in exchange for a beautiful lake front campsite. We plan to work half days to avoid the afternoon heat. Steve, our supervisor, has a long list of jobs to choose from. Our time here will also allow us to get settled in our new rig.

Amsterdam our Last Port

 Our cruise ended when we arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday, May 31. We arranged to stay at a hotel for three nights so we could do some sight seeing before we flew back across the pond. 

The cruise port is near the Central Train Station and about a half mile from our hotel. It was a beautiful morning, so we decided to walk to Central Station to purchase our transportation tickets and then on to our hotel. We were amazed at the number of bicycles in Amsterdam. We read there are over 600,000 bicycles in the inner canal zone.

The Singel Hotel, a 17th century canal house, with only 32 guest rooms,
was in a good proximity to the Central Station and sites around the city.

The hotel was simple and clean and included a European Continental
breakfast (meat, cheese, yogurt, pastry and coffee or tea) each morning.

Amsterdam has 165 canals and 1,300 bridges earning it
the name "Venice of the North"

Singel Floating Flower Market

Pictured on the left are the permanent floating flower stalls

Dam Square with 14th century Nieuwe Kerk (New Church)
and Town Hall

The always busy 1889 Central Station was the starting and
ending point of all trams and buses. 
This is also where we caught the train to the airport.

Westerkerk (West Church) is the final resting
 place of Rembrandt although no one knows exactly where.

Singel Canal

Rijksmuseum, a top Amsterdam museum, and one of the best
we have ever visited, is home to works of art by Rembrandt and
the Dutch masters as well as many other historical objects.
We spent an entire day exploring this vast museum containing 80 galleries.

Milkmaid, 1657
Johannes Vermeer

The Night Watch, 1642
Rembrandt

David Leeuw with his Family, 1671
Abraham van den Tempel

Portrait of Haesje Jacobsdr van Cleyburg, 1634
Brewer's Wife
Rembrandt

Elaborate Finely Detailed Doll House

 

We toured the Anne Frank House.
This was the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family
during Germany's occupation of Holland in WWII.

Rembrandt House
Where he worked, taught and lived 1639 to 1656.

 

Rembrandt was an art dealer as well as a painter.
This is the studio where clients could view and purchase
 paintings of Rembrandt's and his students.

Kitchen in the Rembrandt House

Commemorating Rembrandt's 400th birthday in 2006, a bronze-cast
representation of his most famous painting, The Night Watch

No visit to Amsterdam would be complete without
a canal boat tour.

Het Scheepvaartmuseum (Maritime Museum)
One of 60 museums in the city.
 

 

 

 

 

Viking Daily Excursions

 

Our Viking cruise included tours at each of the following ports. Optional excursions are also offered for an added cost at a few ports. The included tours frequently provided a leisurely  group for passengers who preferred a less physically demanding tour. At three ports an extended walking tour was also available.

Saturday May 17 -- Budapest, Hungary

Sunday May 18 -- Budapest, Hungary

Monday May 19 -- Bratislava, Slovakia

Tuesday May 20 -- Vienna, Austria

Wednesday May 21 -- Melk, Austria

Thursday May 22 -- Passau, Germany

Friday May 23 -- Regensburg, Germany

Saturday May 24 -- Nuremberg, Germany

Sunday May 25 -- Bamberg, Germany

Monday May 26 -- Wurzburg, Germany

Tuesday May 27 -- Wertheim, Germany

Wednesday May 28 -- Koblenz, Germany

Thursday May 29 -- Cologne, Germany

Friday May 30 -- Kinderdijk, Netherlands

Saturday May 31 -- Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bratislava, Slovakia 

After a guided walking tour of Slovakia's capital city, we explored St. Martin's Cathedral and returned for further exploration after dinner on the ship. 

The Port of Bratislava is our first stop.

The Bratislava Castle towers over the town

St. Michael's Gate

St. Martin's Cathedral

Crypts below the Cathedral

St. Martin's was the coronation church of Bratislava.
We listened to the organist practice as we toured the sanctuary.

 Vienna, Austria

We opted for the extended up close walking tour of the city. This involved a guided tour utilizing public transportation (subway) rather than tour buses. There were only six of us on the tour, so it was very personal. Our guide was from the U.S. but had lived in Vienna for over 20 years.

Our walking tour featured the remarkable Ringstrasse, lined with imposing palaces and grand residences, encircling the medieval Innere stadt (inner city).

 

The Hofburg Palace was home to the Habsburgs from the first emperor in 1273 to the last in 1918. The porch on the back of the palace is where Hitler addressed the Austrians in March, 1938.

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna, Austria, is a traditional riding school for Lipizzan horses, which perform in the Winter Riding School in the Hofburg Palace.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

St. Peter's Church

Inside of St. Peter's Church
Mass was being celebrated as it has been daily for 1600 years.

 

Optional Schonbrunn Palace Tour

After lunch on Skadi, we boarded buses for the optional Schonbrunn Palace Tour. This 18th century summer palace of the Habsburgs is one of the grandest in Europe.

If this was merely their summer home with 1,441 rooms we wondered what their "rest of the year" home was like.

We had free time to roam the grounds around the Palace which include rose gardens, fountains, statues, Roman architectural features and even a small zoo.

We thought this was a very nice "back yard"

 

Cruising the Wachau Valley

 

Melk, Austria



Our inclusive tour at this port was the Melk Abbey. A highlight of the Danube Valley this 18th Century Monastery was originally a Palace.

Garden house and grounds of Abbey

Passau, Germany

This city lies just inside Germany at the border of Austria, at the confluence of three rivers. We boarded buses at Linz, Austria, and enjoyed an hour and a half bus ride through winding country roads to Passau.

St. Stephen's Cathedral is one of the town's foremost landmarks and is home to the largest cathedral organ in the world. It has 17,974 organ pies, 233 stops and four carillons.

We were lucky enough to hear an organ concert on this magnificent instrument.

 

Regensburg, Germany

We enjoyed a guided walking tour through one of Germany's best preserved medieval cities. We saw the remains of Marcus Aurelius headquarters, this being once the northern boundary of the Roman Empire.

This Old Stone Bridge, built in 1135, is a miracle of engineering for its time.

 
 
 
 

St. Peter's Cathedral is one of the most striking in Germany. Building operations went on there for over 250 years in the middle ages. The Cathedral contains an interesting sculpture from 1280 of the joyful angel Gabriel as he delivers the good news to Mary that she will become the mother of Jesus. This statue has become know as the smiling angel.

This cathedral in Regensburg is famous for its
medieval stain glass windows. The stain glass figure of St. Peter dates from 1320 and represents the
patron saint of the cathedral.

 

Following the model of the Parthenon on the Acropolis the Walhalla of Germany is a hall of fame, opened in 1842, that honors laudable and distinguished people, famous personalities in German history. Our tour bus stopped here on the way to Regensburg. Later in the evening we passed by again on Skadi.

Nuremberg, Germany

Arriving mid-day and after lunch, we took a walking tour

of the old town medieval city surrounded by 13th century walls.

The tour bus also stopped at what was once the Nazi Rally

Grounds and the Documentation Center.

Imperial Castle

During our free time we visited Hauptmarkt which was bustling on
a Saturday afternoon.

After trying some lebkuchen from a market vendor,
we sat down and enjoyed a rhubarb and a cherry Blechkuchen at a bakery.

 

Bamberg, Germany

We spent the morning cruising through the Main-Danube Canal. Completed in 1992 with 16 locks this canal allows continuous river travel from the Black Sea to the North Sea. One of the few cities in Germany not destroyed by World War II bombing, Bamberg is the largest old town to retain its medieval structures; because of this, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

City Hall built on a tiny island in the middle of the Regnitz River.

Bamberg Monastery

The town's distinctive smoke-flavored beer reminded us of good ham.

 

Wurzburg, Germany

Our half day tour included the Bishop's Residenz, one of Germany's largest and ornate palaces and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Former residence of the Wurzburg Prince-Bishop, built over a
70 year period beginning in 1720. The palace features a massive reception
staircase and overhead fresco ceiling of the stunning
"Four Continents". Unfortunately pictures were not allowed inside.

Residenz Gardens

 

Skadi offered hourly shuttle buses all afternoon. After our guided morning tour we spent the afternoon exploring the town and hiking up to and around the fortress. 

Festung Marienberg Fortress built in 1201

Fortress gate and site of draw bridge

Massive walls and moat

The Princes' Garden in the Marienberg Fortress
was based on plans from the early 18th century.

View of the Old Stone Bridge from the Fortress

 

Wertheim, Germany

After breakfast we decided to disembark and tour the town on our own, since the ship docked at the foot of the square of this small town. The historic market place includes a Glass Museum a bakery and numerous other shops. The town is dominated by the imposing ruins of the Wertheim castle set on a hill overlooking the town.

 

Frankonian half-timbered houses in the
historical Market Square

 

Once the home of the Courts of Wertheim, the Wertheim
Castle is one of the most picturesque ruins in Germany with a
deep moat and impressive structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wertheim is famous for glass blowing. A beautiful half-timbered
house is now used as a glass museum exhibiting
glass history and antique luxury glass. 

 

Cruising Middle Rhine 

The Middle Rhine Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You sail past Rhine castles in various states of repair viewing idyllic small towns, churches and vineyards.

 

Koblenz, Germany

We disembarked at Koblenz for a tour of the Marksburg Castle. Most of the Rhine castles have been heavily damaged or largely destroyed by everything from battles to lightning, but the 800 year old Marksburg Castle is intact. It has a commanding view of the town of Braubach and the Rhine River below.

Skadi docked in front of the sky tram station that takes
passengers to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on the
hill across the Rhine River.

Massive statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I

Marksburg Castle

The furnished interior rooms provided a vivid picture of
what life was like in a medieval German castle.

Ancient armor display

Highest tower complete with a wood bridge to be burned in
case of a siege. That's where the saying comes from
"Burning your bridge behind you."

After dinner, we took a nice walk through Koblenz.

Cologne, Germany

After breakfast we disembarked for a guided tour of the magnificent gothic cathedral Kolner Dom and old city. Construction of the cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, began in 1248 and continued over seven centuries when it was finally completed in 1880. Since we chose to take the extended tour we also explored the Roman Settlement called Colonia Agrippina. After the guided tour we visited the Roman Praetorium.

Our tour guide, a teacher, is standing with 
the statues of Tünnes and Schäl.

Large Roman mosaic floor displayed in the
Roman Germanic Museum

Cathedral Kolner Dom



Since it was Ascension Day, we heard the bells chiming for more than 15 minutes including the largest bell, St. Peter, which is only rung on six special days of the year.
We had the privilege of attending a German Mass in the Cathedral. Much of the liturgy sounded familiar. The organ could be felt as well as heard as it resonated throughout the entire cathedral.

Although the cathedral was not bombed in WWII, the stained glass was removed to prevent breakage.

The Catholics claim this box contains the bones of the Three Wise Men.

Roman Underground Praetorium.

 

Kinderdijk, Netherlands

We spent a leisurely morning cruising the Rhine arriving at Kinderdijk after lunch. We took a walking tour of the Kinderdijk community of working windmills and other flood management technology. 

The windmill keeper lives inside the windmill with his family.