Germany: Autobahn and Camperfest 2011

7/22 - 7/23
Today we drove into Germany where I (Adam) fulfilled a life dream of driving on the Autobahn. The only problem is - driving fast sucks the gas and the computer on Peugie tells us so.  That takes a bit of the fun out of driving 175kph; as does the economy nature of our car - not too stable at that speed.  So I dropped back to our normal 120kph and enjoyed the rush of the sports cars whizzing by at about 200kph.

After a long drive we got to Bonn and spent hours trying to find camping, climbing, and generally trying to get our bearings without speaking the language.  We found a beautiful campsite with just a bit of daylight to spare and we relaxed and made our plans to go to the climbing spot we had been given GPS coodinates for at the sporting goods store.  The next day we would discover these coodinates were for an indoor gym - language barrier FAIL! We did however find out how to get to a different climbing area - WOOT!

So we were off to Nideggen, Germany for some sandstone climbing... but it started raining - you can't climb sandstone when it's wet because the rock becomes brittle.  Luckily there was camping nearby.  We stumbled across Camperfest 2011- imagine a mini Octoberfest in the woods complete with a stage, dancefloor, bounce castle, carnival games and of course a beer tent.  After putting our tent up 20' from the stage in one of the last 2 sites available, we spotted a family trying to fish their volleyball out of the river with a tent pole.  I went into superhero mode and quickly changed into my superhero costume.  In moments my clothes were laying on the bank of the river and I was rushing into the river wearing nothing but my undies.  Everybody was laughing and taking pictures and we had no common language in the whole group so smiles and laughter were my thanks.  Until later when they came and found us to speak the international language of thanks - beers! The music continued until morning, I think. 

7/24
We woke up with climbing plans foiled by further rain - a relaxing day at the coffeshop it is then.