°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

<06>
06.27.04
<gallery>

We drove to Oberachern to Inge and Elena’s house. We heade up the hill to Mummelsee. Mummelsee is a tiny little lake that is the basis for a very old fairy tale of a merman that lures young girls into the lake and they turn into his maidens. It is a major tourist attraction. When we arrived at Mummelsee it was packed with tourists. There were about 7 tour buses out front and lots of cars and motorcycles. We had something to eat at the snack stand and then the kids rented 2 paddle boats to ride around on the lake. Inge, Rebecca and I walked around the edge of the lake and watched the kids paddle around. During the hike around the lake Rebecca was thrilled to see hundreds of fairy holes along the edge of the forest. Inge says during the summer there are thousands of the red with white spot mushrooms growing around the lake. We then drove further down the Schwarzwaldehochstrasse (The Black Forest Highway) and headed down to Kappelrodeck. Kappelrodeck is also steeped in fairy tale folklore. It is the witches town where all of the witches for the blackforest gathered to make their plans. We drove up to the witches castle and then headed back down the hill to Achern. In Achern we stopped at one I have given the name “Death Playground”. It is an awesome wood structured playground with lots of water features. The structures are lots of fun but in America it would be a breeding ground for law suits because of the fun stuff they have. The one feature they disabled from the last time I visited was the human size hamster wheel. I had been telling the boys about it for the last year and a half so you can see the disappointment in there faces in the picture of them standing next to the picture of the armature that once held it. We drove back to Inges and the kids took a bike ride down to the stream with Inge. We sat outside and visited with Rolf, Uschi and Paul. It was pretty darned hot and kind of humid so it was nice to sit in the shade and relax. For dinner Paul had ordered a massive amount of grilled half chickens. Uschi made potato salad, pomme friets, and a kind of pork meat loaf. Everything was delicious. After dinner the kids rode bikes with Rolf to the ice cream café in Achern. The rest of us drove the car. We sat in the plaza and had ice cream and goofed around for a while. It is so awesome that it stays light out until about 10pm. We headed back to the farm house around 11pm.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°