Baumholder Day 1-2ish (Part 1) - Revisiting Memories

Well, folks, if you haven't already heard, this WAS an old home of mine. Granted it was only for 6 months, but home is where the heart lives, so it was home for 6 months. :-)

Dad, being the Master Sergeant that he was, had already been shipped out to the Army base there, or I should say near there. And the family soon followed. That's where Dad had his accident and had an "honorable" medical discharge. Hence, only 6 months. Nothing honorable about it in my opinion, but that's a rant that my family already knows about, agrees with, and something that doesn't need to repeated here.

So, back to the trip, it was one of the main reasons for taking on this internship in a way (not too mention the fun stuff I've been doing...but no need to bore you ^.^), you see the old stomping grounds for tiny Jimmy running around the forest. Or at least...some of it. Word of warning, my opinion of the United States Government and its Armed Forces took a hit on this visit. You'll see why.

Well, Day 1... like most of my trips, I get home after work, pack my bags, and head off to the train station. This time, however, I'm only taking my backpack. You see, the train route that was given to me took me the LOOOOONG way around. Silly me, I should have jumped to Frankfurt, then to Idar-Oberstein, then a Bus to Baumholder. What did Die Bahn suggested and I bought into?

Bremen to Koblenz to Trier to Saarbrucken to Idar-Oberstein AND THEN bus to Baumholder. Ugh. Okay, travel agent I am not. Especially with this many mistakes. :-) Maybe there wasn't a train from Frankfurt to Idar-Oberstein? Psssh, yeah, right. Oh well, well, I get to Trier, and there was a 3 hr wait for the next train. As you can see, when I got to #4 Trier, it was already 1:20am #2. And not a soul in sight, #3. So I wait, and wait... checking out the sign (#5) and the clock/watch for the time to pass. One guy was sleeping on one of the benches (or at least I think he was), I tried doing that, but with it being slightly cold and the wind creating a wind chill factor, I quickly got too cold to even consider sleeping. So I stayed up and waited.

Well, this is where I go from Day 1 to Day 2, because I was on the train when the sun started coming back up again. I tried taking a few shots of the countryside as we went along, but each one was either too blurry or obstructed. Was able to get off #1 from Day 2. If I'm mistaken, the route that I was on took me through the Black forest, I'll have to confirm that, but it wouldn't be a surprise if I was. You see, as we were going along, we passed by quite a "few" trees, and what was really interesting was that there was fog everywhere! I mean, a forest with fog could be a little creepy. :-) Not sure if that's why they called it Black Forest, but it would surely seem that way to me. :-)

Well, I finally get to Idar-Oberstein, and it was EARLY morning. Got in around 6:48am. Okay, so that's not THAT early, but it is for me. ;-) hehehe So with hardly anything open, and the bus coming soon, (was supposed to have arrived at 7:15am) I didn't really want to wander off too much. But I did snap off a couple of photos before leaving. (#2 - 9) So the bus comes, I hop on and we are off, not quite that quickly but whatever. :-) As we were going along, I snapped off some houses in the hills (#10), and tried (TRIED) to get a picture of this long bridge that we went over (#11 - 13), but most of the pictures were blocked. :-/ Oh well, going on, tried to get a few pictures of the countryside (that were tucked into the hills), and they came out... okay. (#14 - 17, 19) Tried to get a snap shot of one of the signs saying how far we were to Baumholder, but the angle wasn't right. (#18)