Spring Break!

Plansee and Linderhof Palace

I really wanted to head to the States for a couple weeks this spring, but my new job took care of any extended vacation time I was planning to take off. So I had to make new plans...I really, really wanted to head to the beach for Spring Break. I found insanely cheap airline tickets and discounts on amazing hotels in Mallorca, an island off Spain. Then I realized the weather was warm enough to sunbathe and hang out on the beach, but it wasn't warm enough to really go in the water just yet. Which was fine with me, however you just don't take a two year old to the beach for the first time ever and tell him to stay out of the water. So I had to toss that idea and come up with a new one. I contemplated Amsterdam, because ever since I found I out we were moving to Germany I have wanted to go to Keukenhof and see the tulips. But, Amsterdam just didn't sound all that exciting without Shelby around, and I know the photo opportunities will be endless at that place and I cannot watch Colin and focus on photography at the same time. Scrapped that one too. Finally I decided to go with old faithful, Garmisch. It never disappoints and is one of my favorite places in the world.

The drive over should only take 4 - 4.5 hours. Throw a Colin into the mix and it should take about 5-6 hours. An hour into the trip I'd heard "There's a snake in my boot!" at least 250 times and I had to pull over and remove Colin's very stuck finger from his Woody pull string ring (thank God for lotion in my purse!). I was thinking this could be a looong day. Turns out I had NO idea! The Autobahn was shut down in a section for tunnel repairs (welcome to spring and road construction season in Germany) and it created a HUGE stau (German traffic jam) while traffic had to exit the Autobahn and detour through villages. It was some detour and traffic was stopped like a parking lot for 9 kilometers before you even got to the point where we had to exit! We sat on the highway for almost 5 hours. Colin was a trooper, he didn't nap AT ALL, and only mildly complained and cried. Hey, I wanted to cry too so I can't blame the kid! We walked around and counted cars, blew bubbles, waved and said hello to every person willing to look his direction, talked to some truck drivers about their big trucks and who knows what else to pass the time. Every hour or so we'd get to hop in the car and creep forward a few meters and Colin would sit on my lap and "drive" thinking he was the coolest kid ever. By the time we made it through the stau and the detour we had been in the car for 9 hours and both of us were beat. We were only an hour and a half away from Garmisch, but decided to call it a night and stop somewhere. The iphone proved handy again as I went to booking.com and found us a great little Gastehaus and reserved us a room.

FINALLY Sunday morning we made it to Garmisch. We drove in the long way through Austria since it was early and spent a while at the Plansee. It was warm but a little windy and the water was still ICE cold. We sat on the beach and threw rocks in the water for over an hour. Colin could do this for days on end I am pretty sure. He had a blast tossing rocks in the water and putting his feet in. He got a little too brave though and took a tumble and fell in the water. He was soaked and cold and I of course was snapping pictures, so this didn't help his mood so much. I wrapped him up in our beach blanket and we headed to the car to change clothes and then went off to find some lunch. He was very upset about leaving the lake and cried even though I promised we'd go to more lakes in Garmisch.

We stopped by Linderhof Palace to enjoy some lunch overlooking the beautiful palace grounds and then walked all over the trails there. Colin loved the swans and ducks and tried to feed them rocks, he was so disappointed they weren't eating them and some kind person shared her bread with Colin so he could stop tormenting ducks with rocks. We walked and walked and walked all over the place and Colin had a BLAST in the forest... Collecting rocks, checking out bugs, gathering pine cones, throwing rocks in the water and admiring the castles. After that it was finally time to head to the hotel and check in. I had promised him swimming and he must have asked a hundred times on the trip when we were going to the pool. The night before when we had to unexpectedly stop and spend the night he was very upset because I told him we could swim at the hotel. Of course when I said this I assumed we'd made it all the way to the hotel in Garmisch....so as soon as we got to the Gastehaus he asked "where pool Mommy?" Oooops. When we got to Edelweiss he recognized it and knew we'd go swimming and I had told him yes we would. Until I discovered that the pack of swim diapers I had packed had been removed AGAIN by him and didn't make it to the hotel. Uh-oh. I had packed them three times while getting stuff ready for the trip and he kept taking them out because he was excited about swimming. He must have pulled them out again when I didn't notice and now we didn't have any. The commissary and BX were already closed for the night and being it was Sunday...all the German stores are closed all day. Thank goodness there was ONE left for sale in the gift shop and it was close enough to his size I could squeeze him in it. Damn thing was THREE dollars for ONE diaper! I suppose three bucks is worth avoiding the meltdown that would have occurred had I tried to explain to him he couldn't swim for a second night in a row.

We didn't make it to bed until almost 11pm and he hadn't napped in two days...he was one tired, but happy, little boy. Day 1 = success!