As I was saying ....

All is never as it seems.

Breakfast at Schloss Hornberg was a splendid event. We are finding that Germans .... They love their Früstück. I love that they love their Früstück because I too love Früstück.

After .... Well .... Früstück .... we decided to wander the grounds of the "castle" we were staying at. It didn't take long for us to realize how incredibly wrong our first impression was. We were indeed staying in an honest to goodness castle. The one thing us Americans don't keep in the forefront of our thoughts when traveling Germany is that 1. Alot of the architecture here was built hundreds and hundreds of years before we were even a twinkling in Thomas Jefferson's eye. 2. From the vantage point of **** getting blown to hell and back, the 20th century wasn't particularly kind to the German landscape.

So after spending more time that we planned to on the grounds of the Hornberg Schloss, we decided that walking to the train station might not be the best idea. The walk was basically down a big ass hill. Through town ... and up a big ass hill. Three cheers to Laurie for putting the kibosh's on that idea. After a day in Triburg and almost 7 miles of walking, that decision became brilliant.

We drove to the train station, parked, and wandered to the platform. Our train was about 45 minutes from arriving so we stopped by the small bakery in the train station. The cute little old lady in there was so very nice. so cute. I wanted to adopt her as my Grandma. I wanted to record her voice and play it every night so I could go to sleep knowing there was still good in the world. She knew we were not German, and I don't think she knew English but it did not matter .... you know those people who are a fleeting player in your story but you will never forget? Her.

The schwartzwaldbahn, a big red, double decker train arrived exactly at 1129 as promised. We were a little away form where it stopped so we had to double time to catch it. Once on we sat back and enjoyed a really cool 30km .... ish .... train ride through the Black Forest to Triberg. We hopped off the train and began our hike into town. It was mostly uphill, but once we hit the main street, all vestiges of this walk kind of sucks just disappeared. Once again we were greeted with an insanely picturesque, small Black Forrest German town ... on a hill. We stopped at the schwarzwald wasserfalle bahn stop and contemplated exchanging euro for leg power. By the time we thought we wanted to hop that train, we discovered we were on the wrong side of the road from where we wanted to so ... so we trekked onward. About 3 blocks later I saw a corner Gasthaus with lots of seats available. My vote for beer and not walking anymore was out voted so we took a side street up the hill .....

Wandering Tim wins the day today. We got to the top and discovered 2 things immediately ... with more to follow. The first was a plaque commemorating the very first electric chair lift ever .... as in the entire world ever. The second was the Haus Der 1000 Uhren (House of 1000 clocks). Since we were on the back side of the place we wandered around to the front and what a freaking spectacle this place is. It screams Black Forest Cuckoo Clock. Period. After the 10 minute shock wore off we started to really look at some unreal craftsmanship. These people have clocks ranging from $50 to $15,000. Strike that. There was a $30,000 clock in that shop. I felt like I should stop breathing at that point so as to not have to pay $500 for fogging the 30K clock. It was unreal.

It was break time at this point. Heather and I headed up the street to grab lunch. 15 minutes, and 3 clock purchases later, Tim and Laurie joined us. Heather and I were still not getting the warm and fuzzy Cuckoo Clock vibe so we let it sit in the back of our minds for a bit.

Next stop ....Triberg Falls. The highest waterfall in all of Germany. We hiked up, stopping for photo ops at every turn. These falls are amazing with a capital T (and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for "pool") ..... You have to look up the German word for amazing to get it. Anyway .... We spent a good 90 minutes hiking the falls and coming back down the hill. Near the bottom, Heather found this wooden bench unlike anything I have ever sat on. We chilled there for about 10 minutes and then decided to saunter back to the train.

Before we headed to the waterfall, we saw the front of a smaller clock shop called Speck-Keller Kuckucknest. So we decided to stop in. The older gentleman in the shop greeted us promptly and enthusiastically ..... and proceeded to give us an insanely in depth schooling af all thing Cuckoo. To make a ling story short .... We walked out with a Cuckoo Clock order in hand.

Here's the cool part. Buy the clock. Shipped directly to your house in the US.

So ... many many Euros lighter .... we made the decently long treck back to the train station and grabbed the Schwartzbahn back to Hornberg. deciding earlier on we wanted to check out the town we were staying in, we stopped in Hornberg for some photos. Directly after we stopped at the Gasthaus Adler for some essen und trinken. For the first time in 20 years ... I got my schnitzel mit pommes und salat. It was glorious!! After dinner we wound our way back to the Hornberg Schloss Hotel extremely satisfied that this trip is kicking ass on level we couldn't have imagined.

In the past 4 days, we have been to 3 different regions with very different feels. Oh the feels.

kein problem und alles klar. Leben ist gut und wunderbar ...... Schlaf gut.