Central Europe: “seeing old friends”

I spent a few days in the Rheingau where I come from for last preparations of the trip and to treat my dad and his wife to a fancy dinner as they have put up with me for the last 1.5 years with using their basement as a storage for all sorts of truck parts and hosting and feeding me episodically when I passed by to do some work on the truck, (thanks again, but there may be some more parts arriving ;-). I took off towards Holland to see some of my good ol’ friends and also my little house there the 18th of September. But not after having passed my old study friend Sebastian and his family (what was the name of this great game again: Normannen Schach??) who luckily moved very close to where I am from.

Seeing the kites on Scheveningen beach in Holland did put a bit of a spike in my heart as I did not take any gear with me but the cold weather and rain eased that feeling quickly…. Was great to see all of you in The Hague and Delft! Unfortunately I did not take the classic picture of Fifi and the Mog, so there will have to be another time and occasion Mr T.!

From there I raced back to the Eifel crossing through the Belgian Ardennes for a weekend with my Unimog forum buddies. Great to have seen many of the familiar and a few new faces and reconnect outside of the virtual world. These are the guys that basically taught me everything about the Unimog, A great, diverse bunch and I would love to be able to have more frequent diesel talk around a great bonfire with you guys! Sadly 1 person was missing, the founder of the forum, he passed away 2 weeks before the event but he will be remembered.