So that's where you went? Tell us about your travels!

[RaymondG]

On 28/05/2016 at 8:03 AM, Andrejrulz said:

If you are going further to the south, in Macedonia, I'd love to meet you. I'm just bellow the Serbian border.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Andrej, I headed north to Senta and spent the weekend with the brothers there, it was a great experience. Sorry I didn't get into your territory, but I'm now in Hungary and headed north and west.

[Sylv]

I posted this link on the previous page, but neglected to say what it was. I recorded this on a glass bottom boat tour in the Bahamas.

 

 

[And_Ray]

1 hour ago, RaymondG said:

Andrej, I headed north to Senta and spent the weekend with the brothers there, it was a great experience. Sorry I didn't get into your territory, but I'm now in Hungary and headed north and west.

Oh well, maybe next time. The door is always open.  If you ever come, you could then say that you "stepped into Macedonia"  

[Tortuga]

We recently visited Hearst Castle in northern California and met two sisters using two carts just out side the Visitor Center.

They told us a funny story, 

The Hearst Castle tour includes a short movie about the history of Hearst Castle and several years ago when the movie was being made the film makers saw several brothers in the area and asked them to be 'extras' in the movie.  

Edited May 30, 2016 by Tortuga

[RaymondG]

This trip is such a big thing for me, Andrej, because I don't believe I'll ever get the opportunity to go to Europe again in this system. Possibly America and maybe even England, but not Europe in general.

 

I am doing what I can...

 

Just a note about the congregations in Senta and the great people I met there, I went out on the cart with one brother on Saturday morning and then in the afternoon there was a get-together hosted by one of the sisters and I joined about 17 others there. Kids playing soccer, adults enjoying conversation and dodging the sun, it was great to meet them all.

 

I learned that just one brother in the Serbian congregation (there's also a Hungarian language congregation) has a regular job, while one has his own fledgling business. Most rely on day-labour jobs coming up or getting other odd-jobs.

 

So it will be a relief to them to know that while I was there a load of clothing donated by German brothers and sisters arrived. Jehovah's great organisation at work, an 'equalising' going on!

[RaymondG]

How easy it is to neglect things...

 

I shall go back to the beginning here, the first meeting we went to on our trip. This was at Bonner's Ferry in Idaho, where I was worried also about vibrations which had become evident in my van. I concluded it might be universal joints and I wanted to look at them. When we went to the meeting...

 

 

...Jesse suggested that I make use of his garage. He and his wife also put us up for the night as the spare parts shops didn't have the right universals in stock, we had to wait until Monday morning.

 

The next Sunday we were in Spearfish, South Dakota. We had been around the Glacier National Park, into Alberta briefly, crossing down through Montana to the Yellowstone National Park where the scenes on the previous page were seen. At Spearfish, the Kingdom Hall is in a bit of an upmarket area and fits in well...

 

 

Instead of going to the Crazy Horse carving we were convinced by the brothers here that our afternoon might be better spent looking over Spearfish Canyon. It did have some nice waterfalls and spectacular scenery:

 

 

The next day we were crossing Minnesota and spied this hall in (or around) Austin:

 

 

The next hall we would visit, however, would be in France. After crossing Illinois and Michigan we went to Toronto and availed ourselves of the hospitality of Antonella, a good friend of Sylvie's, and parked the van in her driveway. She then ran us to the airport and we flew to Paris...

 

 

...where we picked up a lease vehicle. But while we were going through documents and sorting out how to fit our stuff into the little Peugeot hatch, this madman was giving the people a hard time and as we left he was standing on top of one of their brand new vehicles! Nevertheless, we did have a quick look at a couple of worldly attractions, though I wasn't taking pics of much at all.

 

 

The next dayt we were in the south of France at Bergerac and found an English congregation down this lane:

 

 

Our next meeting was at Genova, covered on the previous page. I'll take up the story again at Senta in a later post.

[RaymondG]

I must not neglect, however, that on the way to Italy we went via Spain...

 

And when in Spain we visited this lovely young couple:

 

 

We couldn't stay long as it was their meeting night, but they made us more than welcome to their home in a tiny village outside of Madrid. It was a delight to meet up with Carlos and his wife!

[RaymondG]

As we travelled through Italy, we checked out a few famous locations...

 

 

...and we had to visit Rome Bethel...

 

 

In well-manicured gardens it contrasted with a lot of the Italian world we saw outside. Someone had put a lot of effort into building a tiny Jerusalem, too, quite a bit larger than the one at Patterson and outside exposed to the elements:

 

 

Time had also been put into reshaping the trees...

 

 

Yes, it's true, a lot of Italy is not very clean at all. Later in the day this scene was not the worst we saw when we were caught in a terrible traffic jam in Naples:

 

 

 

[RaymondG]

Here's one I missed...

 

I shouldn't have. After we went down into Iowa and then drove back across Illinois, into Indiana (only just...) and up into Michigan, as darkness drew near we went into the Benton Harbor area to look for somewhere to stay. I was hoping to get some professional help with the van's engine problems - carburettor etc - the next day from people around Muskegan so we hunted down a hotel not too far away.

 

As we looked around, we found...

 

 

...the hall where the St Josephs congregation meet at Stevensville. I should have remembered it, too, as I nearly got bogged in the wet ground as I did a U-turn to go back to our pursuit of a hotel.

[RaymondG]

Quote

 

Originally posted by myself

I joined the brothers and sisters at Pordenone, near Venice, last night...

 

A double hall, they have about eight congregations meet there, just three of them Italian. English, Russian, Romanian, French and a couple of others make up the mix.

 

A lovely and lively little English congregation with a broad mix, they do a lot of witnessing to American servicemen in the area. Pics of the hall to come, I might even thrown in one or two of Venice...

 

But on the way to Pordenone, before Bologna, I spied this sign:

 

 

Down the driveway somewhere there's a hall, the front building has a restaurant on the ground floor...

 

 

So many different types of halls in Italy! The old supermarket, the ancient building renovated inside, the hall with four units above it and the need to go down narrow lanes to find many of them!

 

Then from the bus returning from Venice to Mestre I spotted this couple:

 

 

I was only one stop from where I was due to get off, so I alighted early and had a chat with them. They are in the local Russian congregation and were doing return visits, there are many Ukranian workers living in this part of Italy. On to Pordenone, about 70kms away.

 

The Pordenone hall is a duplex, purpose-built and a little out of town... it looks more like we're used to seeing...

 

 

I'd love to have someone sort out just what languages they have there. It looks to me like Spanish, Russian, English, Romanian, three Italian congregations and a French group. But what else is there?

 

 

Inside is familiar too, warm and inviting...

 

 

It was the first midweek meeting I'd attended since leaving Australia and it was good to be there. Afterwards there was the usual gathering around of people determined to know where my accent came from, then one of the brothers invited me to go home with him and stay with he and his family for the night. His wife and children had missed the meeting but between then and when I left after breakfast I tried to help them make up for that loss by telling them of the things I'd seen during my trip, the congregations I'd been to and also about the International Convention in Detroit two years earlier.

 

It's instructive to join families in their homes like this. They live above a busy and noisy restaurant near a busy intersection, I don't know how big Pordenone is but I seem to remember getting some KFC before the meeting, so it's big enough for franchised take-aways to be encroaching on their way of life.

 

This was good, but there was better to come...

Edited August 25, 2016 by RaymondG
To add another picture

[Ahuvah]

On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 1:50 AM, RaymondG said:

I must not neglect, however, that on the way to Italy we went via Spain...

 

And when in Spain we visited this lovely young couple:

 

 

We couldn't stay long as it was their meeting night, but they made us more than welcome to their home in a tiny village outside of Madrid. It was a delight to meet up with Carlos and his wife!

What a gorgeous couple!!  

[RaymondG]

You should have seen Carlos ten minutes later! He insisted in walking in the rain to see us off from our parking spot a couple of hundred yards away...

 

Their meeting was quite late, I think at 9pm. That quite surprised me.

 

And getting back to the story, after leaving Pordenone, I spent the next day heading towards the east, Senta in Serbia was my destination, but the dar was spent covering a few kilometres in Italy and a lot more in Slovenia and Croatia before I turned north. And I struck big trouble in Slovenia.

 

Ever heard of 'vignettas'? I hadn't, and with no signage in English at places near the border where they were sold I knew nothing about them nor that I needed one. I had become used to pulling up at toll gates and paying for each stage as I drove on the Autostradas and other motorways, I expected similar in Slovenia. But at the first toll gate there was nowhere there and no machine to take my card!

 

I drove through, then perhaps 30kms on at the next toll gate it was the same. Except that there was a police car waiting another hundred metres on and I was being signalled to drive over to it.

 

An overbearingly officious female police officer explained 'vignettas' to me. She seemed to be delighting in the fact that she had someone to berate as she told me I should have shelled out €16.50 which would have given me a ten-day vignetta. This would go on my windscreen and enable me to go on any Slovenian motorway for that time.

 

Then she told me that not knowing about this would cost me a €300 fine! And that if I refused to pay €166.50 right now I would have all my papers confiscated (she printed off pages explaining this in English) and it might take 30 days to get them back. Passport, driver's licence and all. In short, she did a great job of promoting tourism in Slovenia.

 

What really impressed me, however, was how beautiful was this country she was working so hard to make less attractive. Much cleaner and greener than Italy, just greener than Spain, it was delightful to see the beauty of the hills as I drove through...

 

 

 

The villages and towns were more attractive, too:

 

 

Before too long I was through pretty Slovenia and in Croatia. Not so hilly or mountainous, it was still lovely and clean and green... and I was surprised to see what looked like a bit of Australian green used, along with the English language, to promote a supermarket:

 

 

They look like Granny Smiths to me. And this Croatian village came right up to the edge of the motorway...

 

 

...and this Croatian sunset behind me signalled that the day was coming to an end...

 

 

The day was ending as I turned into Serbia. I refuelled and got something to eat and started looking for somewhere to park the car and sleep...

Edited August 27, 2016 by RaymondG
Tidying up

[Tortuga]

4 minutes ago, RaymondG said:

I had become used to pulling up at toll gates and paying for each stage as I drove on the Autostradas and other motorways, I expected similar in Slovenia. But at the first toll gate there was nowhere there and no machine to take my card!

I had a similar experience in Portugal several years ago, the road I was on became a toll road but there weren't any ticket booths on the road, apparently I was supposed to exit and re-enter the road through a ticket booth, however the road was open so I kept going. After a while it became apparent that I was on a toll road so I decided I would just pay for the toll when I exited, since I had entered at what I thought was the beginning of the toll road I assumed the cost of the toll would be the same whether I had a ticket or not. 

 

I was wrong. The poor girl at the toll booth nearly fainted when she told me I owed 90 euro (about $130 US) for not having a ticket...

[RaymondG]

I keep promising to tell the story of this great weekend at the time has come...

 

I woke early, sleeping in the car has the advantage that you always do, and drove into Senta. I found the address I'd been given by Joanna, a sister who'd visited our congregation in January. Joanna had convinced me to take in this corner of Europe where she and her husband Neville spend six months every year.

 

Initially she was inviting us to visit them and stay a few days, but when she realised that we'd be there when they weren't she wrote an introductory letter to an elder. Joanna and Neville have a house in another village where they spend their time in Serbia, it was quite cheap to buy, and with that they can pioneer there while supporting themselves on savings they put together while working in Brisbane six months each year.

 

So I rang the doorbell which was on the front gate... the sister emerged (I am sorry, I have forgotten their names!) and read it and called her husband...

 

 

I was ushered in and told to park inside the yard, I was shown my room...

 

 

...which is where the Circuit Overseer stays when visiting. And others. I put my gear in there and then helped finish off a job the brother was doing on a people mover to get it ready for a trip. Then I was told to get ready to go to the hall for the witnessing group.

 

That sounds easy, but you must realise that I don't know a word of Serbian. Well, I do, just one. And the sister knew no English, the brother knew a few words. Where we had common ground was that I knew a few words of German and he knew quite a few. It was fun a times, frustrating at other times, but we got along. We went to the hall...

 

 

When we got there I began meeting others and soon enough there were a few there who did speak some English. We made arrangements for me to go out with the cart with Nevin, a young brother who is a Ministerial Servant. He explained to me that the locals are really very resistant to the Truth, that they are moving the cart around all the time so people will get used to seeing it and eventually might take some interest in the material offered.

 

We set up by the river... in sight of the bridge...

 

 

For an hour and a half we discussed things rotating around witnessing there, the resistance they meet, and simply about the surrounds. I asked Nevin if he struck people who reckoned they wouldn't like to live forever, it would become boring. Nevin's answer was interesting:

 

"When people say that I start to think that it's like eating," he said. "You sit down and have a big meal, nice food, plenty of it, finish off with a dessert, you push back in your chair and feel like you'll never have to eat again."

 

"Then, six hours later you want something more. And in the new system it will be the same. We'll be doing what we want to do and then we'll realise there's something else we never thought of before, there will always be something to keep us interested."

 

When we'd done there I bought a beef roast to take back to my hosts so I wouldn't be a total burden to them, and as I dropped Nevin off at the hall he said, "Come back here at 3 o'clock, you've been invited to a congregation get-together."

[RaymondG]

And so I returned to my temporary abode...

 

As I parked outside another car pulled up and it had a big trailer in tow. It reversed into the driveway, my car remained outside, there were many large plastic bags in the trailer, I helped unload these into a room beside the garage, a room which seems to have been put there for this purpose.

 

In the bags? Clothing, shoes, handbags and more. What was it all? "Gifts from our German brothers," I was told.

 

That event showed me just so much of how Jehovah's organisation works. This is a very poor area of Serbia, the far more well-to-do German brothers sometimes visit and often they send gifts to help out.

 

I handed over the meat and changed into lighter clothing, and I joined my hosts in the lounge room. This brother loves to sing, and as he played Kingdom songs I don't really know whether he was singing in Serbian or German. But I got my songbook and sang in English as he did. Visitors came and went, a few hours ticked by and then it was time to go back to the hall. Nevin was there and he directed me to this house on the edge of the next town...

 

[/url]

 

Houses here can  be very old, and they often look even older. But they are home to these people. On our arrival we engaged in conversation with some sisters already there, then more people arrived and we went out of the house and into the shade of trees across the backyard. As children gave a soccer ball a caning, adults enjoyed some snacks and drinks...

 

[/url]

 

More arrived. A family from 120kms away among them. The soccer playing became more intense and a shuttlecock was being belted around. Through it all this poor chap wasn't allowed to join in...

 

 

Maybe he felt better when the tables and chairs were moved from under the trees to the growing shade beside the house:

 

 

One thing which surprised me was the contents of the red container...

 

 

They called them 'coconut cubes', but at home they are 'lamingtons' and I thought they were an Australian invention!

 

The conversations waxed and waned from my perspective, as I couldn't commandeer those who spoke English for the whole afternoon. But around us the intenside of the children playing and eating and drinking was non-stop. Adults joined in kicking the ball, but it was really the domain of the kids. Lovely kids... look at them, fun-loving, innocent, active and bright...

 

 

...a study in intensive concentration.

 

 

...a determined goal-keeper (the gate is the goal).

 

 

...another who wants to succeed at the game!

 

 

I'll bet this one is daddy's favourite.

 

 

This one would be a delight for both parents... they all would...

 

 

...and get an eyeful of this smile!

 

As the day drew on we left and I dropped Nevin back to the hall, then I rejoined my hosts. What she did with that beef surprised me, but it was beautiful, especially so because it was so hard for me to explain my allergies. We had a great meal, we sang some more, we went to bed happy and looking forward to the meeting the next morning.

[RaymondG]

There used to be a larger congregation in Senta...

 

But it split because it was better to have native-language congregations, even if most do speak both Hungarian and Serbian. Both the Hungarian and the Serbian congregations have about 22-24 publishers. Of the 22 in the Serbian congregation, Nevin told me just one has a full-time job. This is how poor the area is, most eke out a living chasing farm work and the like, while my host enjoys a good pension from Austria (where he worked for 25 years) and Nevin has his own business.

 

It was a challenge to go to a meeting in Serbian when I didn't understand the language. The Public Talk came and went, then I concentrated hard to be sure I knew where we were up to with the Watchtower study. I managed to make two comments, in English of course.

 

The Senta hall has a few features that distinguish it from others. Like the flower bed and the small carpark...

 

 

And while the carpark might be small, the bicycle rack has plenty of capacity:

 

 

There are coat hooks in the vestibule, these no doubt see plenty of service in the winter (these are unknown in Australia, but in the US and Europe quite common), the layout of the hall was conventional...

 

 

There was so much love shown to me I was almost overwhelmed. Genuine affection from people I had never met before, whom I'm unlikely to see again before the new system is in full swing. Those with some knowledge of English conversed with me, others shook hands. Yes, that's something that stood out. Everyone shook hands with everybody when they arrived. They went around the congregation shaking hands.

 

And there was a group went witnessing after the meeting...

 

 

Now you know why the bike racks are there, right?

 

As for me, I retired to my temporary home and did some washing. I had hoped we would go for a drive to look at Joanna and Neville's home, but that wasn't going to happen. People kept arriving to pick up clothing and shoes which had been sorted into piles to give to those who needed them and whom they suited. The Lada which had been at the gathering turned up...

 

 

...and went away well-laden. This car in itself shows how different things are there compared to at home, if I turned up at a meeting in something like that I'd be told to take it away! Worse, if I tried to drive it from home to our hall I'd be pulled up to have the defects noted and be told to park it and walk.

 

How I loved living these two days with our brothers and sisters in Senta, a little town in northern Serbia. Jehovah's people recognised me as one of themselves and showed me the hospitality that will make the new system so wonderful. It was better than any convention experience, or any Bethel visit, it was ground-roots love at work.

 

Thank you, Joanna... you would understand if I said that we sang some more that night and went to bed happy and content again. In the morning I had the sadness of saying goodbye to all this joy...

[ang]

On 1/21/2015 at 4:22 AM, RaymondG said:

I'm guessing that my van...

...will cost about $4000 to ship to Australia when I bring it out in a year or two. A full size coach wouldn't fit into a container (the van does with another car and some other freight), so take a stab at about maybe $8000.

But if it's right you might be able to sell it here and recoup it, there are lots of good Class A motorhomes shipped out here for sale.

You forgot to include the plaque that's on this, well traveled van. 

 

Unfortunately, my pics are too large to attach. 

[RaymondG]

Trust a daughter to put you under pressure!

 

The van, of course, was my transport in America and Canada. For the six, almost seven, weeks I was in Europe it sat in the driveways of Sylvie's friend Antonella. I cannot sufficiently express my thanks for Antonella's help with that. More later.

 

Meanwhile, here's the badge to which Ang refers:

 

 

And here's the logo again, on the step of the side door:

 

 

But all of that was half a world away as I drove up through Hungary, though things automotive stood out to me. In particular I noticed a lot of empty car trailers and tilt-trays travelling up the motorways...

 

 

This in addition to car transporters with new cars packed on them, of course. I wondered if a lot of people had struck mechanical problems with their old cars out over the weekend, but I never got any answers. I just saw a lot of these things, many more than are pictured.

 

Previously, in Italy, I had noted this old Porsche on a truck:

 

[/url]

 

And I was totally surprised by this one between Venice and Pordenone...

 

 

Sorry about the blurry photo, auto-focus keeps on focussing on the windscreen! But if you don't recognise this car, it's an NSU Ro80, the ground-breaking rotary-powered car that used the Wankel rotary which was to be perfected by Mazda. I hadn't seen one for years, so this was a surprise. But I had greater surprises in store.

 

I went to the Mercedes=Benz museum in Stuttgart and shortly afterwards saw this on the Autobahn. At the museum there was one of these, an early fifties M-B 300 coupe and the signage said it was one of just 300 built... but here was one being transported somewhere...

 

 

But ultimately, that was nothing. Through Switzerland I found myself closing on a blue and white coupe on a trailer. As I got closer I became suspicious that it might be something special, but I was refusing to believe it. Once again, a blurry photo with auto-focus, but it's plain to see just what this car is... one of just six Shelby Cobra Daytona coupes... one of six! A very rare bird...

 

 

Can't top that, can we? For an incidental spotting on the highway, that really rates. It's not like the Bugatti Royales...

 

 

...of which seven were built. The Schlumpf Museum in Mulhouse, northern France, houses the two in the top of this pic, the lower one is considered by them not to be a 'real' one, but is a replica built to the original design of one of the other five and using all original parts or exact copies (the chassis is original, for instance, I imagine the 12.7 litre engine came from a railcar, which used the same engines as the Royale) and is displayed in the museum merely to show how they were built! So two of seven or three of eight? I don't know, but I saw another one when I went to Detroit in the Henry Ford Museum.

 

But none were in transit, which is the theme here...

 

[/url]

 

This chap had come to grief when he overstepped the boundaries at the famous Nurburgring. Many others did that day, which is why I chose not to do a lap myself. I later learned that virtually all European and British auto insurances exclude driving on the Nurburgring from their cover!

 

And to sign off on this theme... a tow truck being transported...

 

[Tortuga]

2 hours ago, RaymondG said:

Trust a daughter to put you under pressure!

Daughter?

[RaymondG]

Oh yeah... daughter...

 

That part of the travel story is yet to come.

[RaymondG]

Time to look once again at my trip, as far as theocratic activity goes...

 

I couldn't line up with a meeting during the week that week. Early in the week they weren't on anywhere near where I'd be in Austria, later in the week they wouldn't be available around Mulhouse, Strasbourg or on the way to Stuttgart.

 

Jehovah had set in place some beauty for me to enjoy... Satan had put in place the usual traps for me to avoid... after an uneventful crossing of Hungary I turned into Slovakia at the end of the day. In fact, it was dark. I recall that my GPS was set for Brno, the city in the south of the Czech Republic and it was 179kms without going on any motorways or toll roads. Yes, I was also avoiding having to get another vignetta.

 

So I wound my way through villages and along dark byways until I crossed the border into the Czech Republic. Soon after that I was struck by the reflections in this river:

 

 

After a sleep on the side of the road I went exploring around Brno. Do you think these buildings that front an auto wrecking yard look like they were built for another purpose?

 

 

Brno's attraction for me was, in fact, an old motor racing circuit and these are at the start/pit area. Racing was held on public roads here from 1930 through to 1986, progressively being reduced in length from 29kms to 11kms before a permanent artificial 5km circuit was built. Click here to see the maps of the various versions, it was the 19km version which I wanted particularly to see.

 

It found its way through open country and villages...

 

 

...and forested areas...

 

 

...more villages...

 

 

...and even a corner of the busy city, beneath trolley bus wires.

 

Having accomplished that task I headed for the Austrian border north-west of Vienna. As I neared the border I became aware of lots of signage advertising 'adult shops' and other activities of Satan's enticing world. I guess the laws of the Czechs is looser in this regard than those of Austria, so they have the opportunity to make money from the Austrians by luring them to this lurid world. Right near the border there was also a theme park and an innovative kind of restaurant:

 

 

That's an Ilyushin jet airliner, built in Russia in the sixties. Over the wing is an outdoor eating area, there's more of the restaurant inside. It was now time for me to obtain my vignetta for the drive across Austria.

 

 

 

[MizPeg]

On ‎5‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 6:05 PM, RaymondG said:

We had to bypass Crazy Horse because we were losing time with car troubles...

 

And Yellowstone, we more or less just got in the gate and it snowed, so we were so far behind that we couldn't risk getting caught. But this traffic jam was but a minor inconvenience:

 

 

Hmmm, raining, closed car windows? Be thankful, as wet buffalo has to be one of the most disgusting smells! Dry buffalo isn't much better. Been there, done that.  lol

[RaymondG]

It was something like 500kms across Austria, which made the €11 vignetta pretty good value. I was on a mission to get within striking distance of Switzerland by the end of the day and I'd had my lunch on the side of the road before crossing the border.

 

Still the scenery was visible as I cruised on...

 

 

 

...and as the day wore on the hills gave way to mountains, lakes and the odd castle:

 

 

 

I was nearing the Alps and snow was still present despite the nearness of Summer. This was the last day of May, by the way. Ultimately I found somewhere to sleep before I paid a further toll to go through the long tunnel which enables traffic to keep flowing despite Winter's heavy snowfalls...

 

 

Even so, I was to see some of the remnants of the cold in high places. Morning mists clung to mountains and hid much of the snow and ice, but the cold it didn't hide. I was now heading into Liechtenstein...

 

 

...driving on roads which were quite fantastic for their smoothness. In the US the winters tend to destroy the roads, but the Austrians (and the Germans, I was to learn) seem to have mastered the art of putting down roads which will survive the ravages. It might also have something to do with allowable wheel loadings on trucks, but there was still plenty of trucks.

 

Liechtenstein continued to present picturesque outlooks which I enjoyed as I drove on...

 

 

...and I was taken by the way this building in one of the towns has been protected by having the highway go through a tunnel under it rather than destroying it for the purpose of putting the road through:

 

 

Liechtenstein is not big, so I was soon at the Swiss border...

 

 

Time to buy another vignetta, but the Swiss only allow you to purchase one for a full year! €37 if you don't mind! But I can't complain about the scenery, this is the view from the motorway as you travel along the southern shore of the Walensee...

 

 

...and here's evidence of melting snows in the mountains on the other side:

 

 

I was heading for a little village further to the west...

 

 

...which was once the home of one of the elders in our congregation. There I took a few minutes out to visit his sister and nephew:

 

 

Literally just over the hill from there I found yet another lake...

 

 

Once again I was on the trail of another old motor racing circuit, the Bremgarten circuit at Bern. There was very little of it left, however, as it's now over sixty years since it saw racing and the needs of a busy city and the encroachment of a forest have eradicated all but a few hundred yards. So I pressed on towards Mulhouse in France to visit the Schlumpf museum, with that scheduled for the following day. I slept contentedly despite the rain just after I crossed the border, this being some of the same rain which was wreaking havoc in other parts like Paris that week.

 

As I searched Mulhouse the next morning, looking for the Tourist Information office led me straight to this couple...

 

 

...who were just about to head for the group, but had been out looking to place literature with Chinese who might have been passing by.

 

Isn't it amazing how many different language groups are scattered about Europe?

[ang]

At the end of January, beginning of February my friend Gail & I went to Brandon, Missouri. We had some beautiful sunrises & sunsets. 

 

This is one of our sunsets.

[ang]

50 minutes ago, ang said:

At the end of January, beginning of February my friend Gail & I went to BRANSON, Missouri. We had some beautiful sunrises & sunsets. 

 

This is one of our sunsets.

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