Escaping the escape - time to be home

Travel is not always pretty for us. We like to spread out. And with too much space, we spread way out. And then we have to gather ourselves back together and load up. Nope, not pretty.

Then we made one last pass through town, to see one shop for DH. He loves that shop and we often stop.

We jokingly call DH "march or die." He is goal oriented. He focuses on the destination. Wandering is hard. He's not a "rabbit trail" kind of guy.

I, on the other hand, am all about the "rabbit trail," the distraction.

Still, we were ready to finish the drive and get home.

There are entirely too many bags here...and one Buddha "raising the roof."

Oktoberfest begins tonight...and we are going to miss it. Thank heavens. We are not "party" people. We are not "crowd" people.

See the little German couple? DH and I are not there.

See the beer tent? We are not there.

DH loves this store. I loved the cactus out front. People put inscribe their initials here.

I tried to look at the books in the shop. I didn't understand the organization of the materials. I still don't.

Having learned from locals that one doesn't use Main Street, we headed east down a back street and came to Der Stadt Friedhof, literally "the city cemetery." I had wanted to see it in person since noticing it on the Internet map. It is so orderly on the map. The rows appear to be perfect. Of course, my experience of Germans and Germany is that they are an orderly people and it is an orderly place.  This is a old cemetery in a community founded by German immigrants - it is what I would expect.

Since we were already at the gate, we decided to drive in and look a bit. I immediately noticed the windmill. Once windmills were everywhere, pumping water into cisterns and ponds. Then they seemed to disappear. On this trip we saw many, but none we could look at closely, until today.

The sun was just right.

Then we started reading a few of the stones. Many were in German.

Lina Priess, Geb. April 17, 1878, Gest. Feb. 17, 1893

Lina's angel - fingers and wings damaged by age or vandals.

Look at this beautiful ironwork. It was found all over the older section of the cemetery.

Ludolph Meyer, Pvt Company H, 1st Texas, Foot Riflemen, Mexican War, Jan. 20, 1807, Dec. 29, 1894.

Johannette L. Ochs, Geb. Koenig, Geb. 23 July 1827, Gest. 19 July 1896

Then it was time to be home.