The Kids at Ehrenberg Castle.
Ehrenberg Castle just over the border in Austria.

Dinner in Mittenwald, Germany. It looks like Brad and Ian both had a few too many pints.

5-31-10 Monday
Ehrenbug Castle and Mittenwald. I woke up this morning again at 6am. It had rained fairly hard through the night, but wasn’t raining in the morning, although it was pretty cool and wet. I got up and went for a bike ride. I ended up riding about 50 miles in just under 3 hours. There isn’t much flat ground around here. Even right onto the road we were staying on, I coasted down the little hill, then it was immediately up a 14% grade hill for about 100 meters, then up and down, up and down. The scenery though is spectacular. Towards where I was turning around, I was up on a plateau, and I could see the alps in the distance. They looked like the Tetons, except they went clear across the horizon. Several times during the ride I felt like I must had died and gone to cycling heaven. The roads were so much smoother than what I’m used to riding on, I didn’t see a traffic light all morning, of the few cars that past me, they gave me plenty of clearance, and the scenery was incredible. The only downside is that the roads were wet, and it was pretty cold. My bike computer said it was 41 degrees, and although most of me felt comfortable, my toes were pretty cold by the time I made it back.
We finally left the apartment about noon after Kindra had exercised, and everyone had showered and got dressed. We decided to drive to Mittenwald, but as we were going we decided that we’d go to Innsbruck Austria on the way, which is only a little over an hour away. After only about 20 minutes though we saw a castle in front of us up on hill and decided to stop. We were just over the border into Austria, and stopped an Ehrenburg Castle. They had a museum there we went to first that had a bunch of medieval armor and told some stories about life in the middle ages. Then we hiked up to the castle which was only about a 15-20 minute hike. It’s pretty much just ruins, but pretty cool.
We then drove on to Mittenwald which remind me a lot of Oberaumergau. It’s about the same size and has lots of picturesque shops. Mittenwald is famous for its violin making. After waking around the town we decided to have a traditional Bavarian dinner and found a place to eat. Several of us had the Weiner Scnitzel, which was good, and then we all had apple strudel with a vanilla sauce which was fabulous. It was almost an hour drive home and by the time we made it, I was really tired again, despite the fact that it was only about 9pm.

5-30-10
Church & Oberaumergau. In some ways I like the first few days being over in Europe, because I’m normally not a morning person, even though I’d like to be more of one. At least the first few days, I wake up at 5:30-6am feeling rested, but by about 9pm I just fall into bed. We decided to go to church today. We brought clothes that would be suitable for church, and I looked up on-line before we left the locations that would have the closest churches to where we’d be staying. It was about an hour’s drive, and we made it there just before it started. It was a little branch of with about 30 people in a little chapel. There was a pair of missionaries and they asked if we’d like a translation. We said we were OK, but just before it started they brought us head-sets anyway and said the branch president insisted. The kids were really quite good in church. They were much better than they are at home. We started driving back, and decided to go to Oberaumergau. They are having the Passion Play this year that they do every 10 years since the middle ages when the town was mostly spared from the plague. We’ve already read a few things about the plague in Europe during the middle ages. Within a couple of years it decimated Europe killing in excess of 25 million people. They estimate that within just a couple of years that 1/3-1/2 of the population of Europe died from the plague. Just outside of Oberaumergau we stopped at a store that sold dirndls and leiderhosen. Ashley bought a dirndl. In Oberaumergau besides the Passion Play, they are famous for their wood carvings. We went into a number of the shops, but I couldn’t find anything I was thrilled with. It has been lightly sprinkling off and on most of the day. Last time we came to Switzerland, Kindra was really upset that we didn’t buy a Coo-Coo Clock. (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) She staying in the car with Mitzi, and I found one that I think she’ll really like, so I bought it and had it shipped home. If I can keep it a surprise from her, and keep her from buying another one, I’ll surprise her and give it to her for Christmas. This area of Southern Germany is absolutely gorgeous. Cows with bells, thick forests, green meadows, high mountains, cute chalet’s and chalet looking buildings, quaint towns with white churches. It really is a fairy tale like land. We are staying about at a farm house that has a couple apartments in it. I get the impression that the grandparents live in one of the apartments, and they rent one out to people on vacation like us. It is about 200 meters from the end of a pretty lake out in the countryside. It’s very comfortable with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and kind of large open foyer area. They have cows, goats, and a couple of cats. Mitzi loves the animals. Again, by the time we made it back to the apartment everyone including myself pretty much fell into bed.

Megan looked at the map before we left and found Meggan and said "we have to go there", so we did. It was right on the banks for Lake Lucerne.

Brecken at the Bern, Switzerland temple where we stayed last night.

I was really impressed with Lucerne. The lake was beautiful and the town/city was very interesting. It had these 2 wooden bridges that cross the river as it leaves the lake and splits the city. There are paintings as you go across the bridge if you look up that have been there since the middle ages. It's pretty neat.

5-29-10 Saturday
Lucerne driving to Germany. I woke up about 4am with Mitzi crying. I took her and tried to entertain her. Brad played with her a little bit while I took a shower and got dressed. Then I took her for a drive with Ian about 5:30am. Finally the rest of the girls were up and getting ready by about 7am, and we were ready to leave by about 8am. We hit a grocery store for some food and basic supplies that we needed, and headed to Lucerne. I didn’t quite know what to expect at Lucerne, but loved it. Lucerne is at the end of a beautiful lake with mountains and trees on all sides. Right at the end of the lake, the river leaves the lake and splits the city in half. We parked about a mile from the city center by a park right next to the lake and walked from there. There’s a beautiful walkway right next to the lake with big trees along it. The city center is extremely old and has 2 wooden bridges that cross the river. These bridges have been there since the middle ages and have scenes painted in the eaves of the bridges. When Kindra and I came to Switzerland about 10 years ago, we stayed a night in Interlaken and loved it, but we both agreed that Lucerne was much better than Interlaken. It had the beautiful lake, the mountains and hills around it, the history of the down-town area, and much more. Anyone going to Switzerland needs to stay a day in Lucerne. After we left the city center and walked back to our car, we let the kids play in the park for about a half hour and they had a great time. We then had about a 2-3 hour drive to where we’d be staying the next week in Southern Germany/Bavaria. Of course, 10 minutes into the drive everyone was fast asleep and I was left again to fight staying awake. One of the things that I bought to take with us that has proved to be a huge benefit was a Garmin GPS unit with maps of Europe. You can tell it where you want to go, and it tells you how far until you have to make the next turn, reminds you when you get close, estimates pretty accurately when you’ll arrive at your destination, and more. It’s been fantastic already. I’m also planning on taking it on my bike. I’ll probably leave it off the first ½ of my bike ride, then turn it on and tell it I want to go back to where we are staying, and I won’t have to think about getting lost. We made it to where we were staying in Germany and everyone crashed into bed.

5-28-10 Friday
Arrival in Europe. We could see on the airplane it showed where we were and where we were flying to. We could see we were flying over the English Channel and then into Belgium. We made it to Brussels in one piece. We had almost a 2 ½ hour lay-over in Brussels. Brad wanted to borrower the camera I had got, so I let him, but told him to keep track of it and take good care of it. Of course he left it on the plane when we arrived in Geneva, so we lost 1 camera. Also somehow we lost the DVD case that had most of our DVD’s in it. Not sure who’s fault that was, but it must have been left on a plane, or else I just haven’t found it yet. I’m pretty sure it’s gone. When we arrived in Geneva, we picked up our bags that had been checked through, as well as my bike bag. We were leasing a van from Renault and were supposed to call them when we arrived to make arrangements where we supposed to meet them. They were supposed to have a shuttle at the airport to take us to our car. I had bought SIM cards for mine and Kindra’s phones for Europe, but I couldn’t get it to work. Also when I tried a land line, I couldn’t get that to work either. Finally after asking a couple people I found out that we had to travel a couple hundred meters across the airport to the “French” side, and then the land lines worked. They came and picked us up in a shuttle and took us to our car. I was going to drop my bike bag off in Lausanne, Switzerland with the people who’s chalet we are staying at our last 2 weeks, and they were going to drop it off at the chalet so it would be there when we finished our trip. Unfortunately I couldn’t get in touch with them as I still couldn’t get my cell phone to work, so we didn’t drop the bike bag off. We can take it with us, and when we get to each new place we are staying, we can take it out of the car, but that’s just a pain and takes up space in the van the days we are traveling between places we are staying. We managed to make it to the outskirts of Bern where we were staying the night, despite my almost dozing off a half a dozen times. I felt like I was about to end up like Chevy Chase in the movie where he fell asleep in the car on their vacation and they ended up bounding across fields. Actually I feel a little bit like we are the Grizwalds on our European Vacation. Everyone but me was fast asleep in the car by the time we made it to where we were staying and I got them into beds before I crashed for the night.

5-26-10 Wednesday
Last minute preparations. For those that don’t know me and my entire family terribly well, I’ll start off like some novels and introduce the characters. My name is Adam Catmull, I’m 41 years old, and I’ve decided to take my family of 8 to Europe this year for the summer. My wife, Kindra, and I have been married now for almost 19 years. I can’t believe it. I always viewed middle age guys who had kids who were 16+ as old, but I certainly don’t feel old yet. Anyway back to my wife. I love her to pieces, but she isn’t always the most organized person. That means the planning, preparation, and execution of a trip like this falls almost entirely on me. My oldest daughter, Brecken is 16 ½ and is very excited about our trip, as are the 4 oldest kids. The two youngest I don’t think really understand what all’s going on. Bradley is 14 ½ and has been a bit of a challenge the last couple of years. He’s always been a bit of a challenge having ADHD, but this last year or so, he’s really struggled in school. He’s smart, he just doesn’t like to do the homework and we seem to be butting heads a lot lately as I try and get him to do his homework, clean his room, etc.. I’m hoping this trip will do him a world of good and show him there’s a world out there besides video games. I hope the trip will also built up our relationship which I feel has deteriorated over the last couple of years. Megan is 12 1/2, a sweet heart, and really looking forward to the trip. Ashley is 10 and has been working hard around the house to earn money for the trip. I’m not sure what all she plans on spending that money on, but she’s looking forward to it. Ian is 6 and is a little noisy at times for European standards. We’ll have to find a way to keep him from causing a scene everywhere we go by being too noisy. Mitzi is almost 2 ½ and a handful. She isn’t the most mellow of kids and always wants to be doing something. She’ll be a handful at times.
Today I got up early at 5:45am so I could get in a ride before I packed up my bike and got ready. I went on a 2 hour ride with Curt Doman and then when I got back to my office I realized I had locked myself out and had my normal hide-a-key up on my desk that I had used the day before when I had gone on a ride. So I decided to ride home and help pack until people arrived at the office. Kindra still had a long ways to go to pack her and Mitzi. I helped with that, then finally went into work. I had a lot to finish at work, and had to pack up my bike and bike gear. I thought I’d get home early at maybe 5pm to help get the house ready for us to leave, get the bags in the car, and get the house ready for us to leave, but didn’t get out of the office until nearly 8pm. I still had a ton of things that had to be done, and didn’t get most of it finished until almost 1am, and I still had a good couple of house before I’d be ready to go.



Finally at the airport ready to go.
5-27-10 Thursday
Off to Europe. Our Europe trip kicked off with almost no sleep for me. I was up until about 1am cleaning the house, finishing the packing, and getting everything ready to go. Then I was back up about 5am to start getting everything ready to leave. Our plane left at 11:15am, so I wanted to plan on leaving by about 8am to get to the airport by about 8:30am. With so many kids and bags I felt like I had to plan in some cushion in a lot of what I was doing in case of emergencies. We made it to the airport just fine, and got all checked in. Every time we would check in, go through security, etc. a lot of the people would kind of glance up as I hand them 8 passports and kind go “wow”. Several of us, most notably Kindra and Brecken threw a lot of things in at the last minute and we ended up some things in bags I didn’t know, and our carry-ons were more packed than I’d have liked. Kindra’s mom and dad drove in their car out to the airport with us and drove our car home. We made it onto the plane OK, but it was a small plane with only 18 rows and 2 seats on each side of the aisle. We were spread out all over the plane, despite me telling them when we checked in that we’d really like to sit together, especially as we had small kids. Actually it went better than I had hoped to Chicago. Probably because I was up by myself and also because the trip was new, exciting, and there were plenty of distractions at this point. Our plane was a little late leaving SLC, then we detoured a little north to avoid some turbulence, so we arrived in Chicago about 15 minutes later than we were scheduled. By the time we got everyone off, those that needed to went to the bathroom, we checked where our next flight was leaving from, and made it across the airport to our departing gate, it was about 30 minutes before our flight was to leave, and only about 10 minutes before we were supposed to board. Nobody had had virtually anything to eat all day, so we grabbed quick bites at the McDonald’s in the airport and boarded the plane. Luckily we were mostly together for the flight over. Unfortunately our bags were all over the place, and trying to find what you wanted was difficult. I spent a good portion of the time trying to entertain Mitzi, but she seemed want to go between me and Kindra. I tried to start a book I was reading, but I kept starting the same page over and over. I think I dozed off for about an hour. I knew it was going to be a challenge staying awake over the next day or two.