Sunny Sunday, nice day for a drive.

[Clipper]

Off to Greeneville Tn to buy canning tomatoes. 25# boxes for $12 a box. Kathy will be able to do a big batch along with the occasional smaller batches as our own tomatoes ripen a few at a time.

It is almost 90 degrees here so a nice ride, and a stop for ice cream sounds like a great way to spend the afternoon .

[Clipper]

It has been an interesting day. We drove to Greeneville to buy 25# box of tomatoes for $12. Ended up with TWO boxes, and 10lbs of cucumbers for pickles. I guess I will know where to find Kathy for the next couple of days. She won't be able to get out of the kitchen. On a positive note, we will have plenty of chili sauce, spaghetti sauce and a couple of quarts of salsa, along with a few more jars of pickles.

On the way home a Mercedes sedan passed me. I was doing seventy and he was moving much faster. He passed the semi in front of me and the next thing I knew I was swerving to the left to avoid the semi, who had locked up his brakes and was laying down a screen of tire smoke. The Mercedes had cut back in short, lost control, spun 360 degrees, and plowed into a clump of cedars at highway speed. By the time the semi got stopped and off on the shoulder, and I regained control of my bowels, I was pretty far past where the car went into the woods, and I noticed in my mirror that several cars had stopped so I kept on going. The driver of the Mercedes had to be hurt pretty badly, just judging by the fact that he was going so fast when he flew into the clump of trees. When he hit the trees the ass end of the car came about 4 or 5 feet off the ground and slammed back down.

I am just thankful that there was no car to my left and I had maintained a decent following distance from the truck. I was probably 50 yrds behind the truck so I had time to move left onto the rumble strips and slow to about 60 as I passed by the truck. I was busy controlling our truck but Kathy was quite shaken by the sight of the car plowing into the trees so hard that the rear left the ground.

[Deleted]

People are always in a hurry today especially after having this

[clarencebunsen]

Germans have a saying (translated) "A Mercedes has a built-in right f way." I was in the situation once driving at 90 mph on the autobahn and a Mercedes 1/4 miles behind me flashed his lights to move me over. I was in no hurry so I slowed down and moved over. That was one of the dumber duty stations I had. The army required that the military customs post be staffed a fixed number of hours per day. Thee shift started several hours before the first flight from the US. It really didn't matter whether I was sitting at a desk watching German Customs process flights from Istanbul or driving on the autobahn.

Glad your driving skills kept you and Kathy OK.

Our son picked up some tomatoes for us at the New Hartford farmers' market. They were good but he said they were quite overpriced and he wouldn't be going back. Meanwhile our daughter picked up cukes at the Whitestown market and Barb tried a new recipe for refrigerator pickles. She said they would be ready in two weeks. We don't do any large scale canning or freezing of vegetables anymore. Getting lazy I guess.

[Deleted]

I made refrigerator pickled onions. Didn't think it would work but i did. I used them within the week. Just one red onion sliced gives a lot of sliced onion.

[Clipper]

I know what you are talking about when you talk about the speeds on the autobahn. The first couple of trips I made there after I acquired responsibility for the transportation branch and the vehicle fleet there they parked a Chrysler K car at the Frankfort airport for me. A fleet staff car from the motor pool at Lindsey Air Station in Wiesbaden. I used to shuffle back and forth between Lindsey Air Station, Ramstein AFB, and Kaiserslautern. That little K car was always wound tighter than a cheap watch while driving in excess of 80 on the autobahn. I told the commander that it was not safe to drive that little car that fast, especially on American tires. The first time he traveled with me and the first sergeant he was scared to death riding in little tin can. After that our orders always provided for renting an Audi in Frankfort. That would get in the center lane and run 90 or 95 with ease. I never DID get comfortable driving at that speed on the autobahn. Our installation teams that used our vehicles out of the motor pool that we had in Kaiserslautern drove dodge 6 passenger pickups and telephone maintenance trucks at that speed, and our lowboy equipment tractor trailer and bucket trucks also had to run at 70 or more to blend with traffic.

German and other European made cars are so much better engineered for high speed driving. Those rental Audi's would cruise at 90 with ease and the handling at that speed was good.

[clarencebunsen]

I was also at Kaiserslautern for a few months. There our detachment was dependent on the motor pool for our vehicles. I always seemed to get a full sized American van or a green station wagon. Neither was very good for negotiating streets or highways there.

In Stuttgart I was in charge of our detachment's 3 vehicle motor pool: a green Chevy station wagon, a cargo van one seat, and a German Ford which was supposed to be used for plain clothes work. We usually went with German customs on plain clothes interviews since they had a Mercedes with a driver.

One day I was driving the Ford back from the airport and took the route through Stuttgart. That involved a steep climb with stop lights. A chance to practice my clutch and brakes skills. That day the accelerator failed. Luckily someone helped me find the missing piece and we got it moving again.

[Clipper]

Our unit's detachment was located in what was at one time a military hospital complex in Kaiserslautern. Several old brick structures. We occupied a very small segment of the entire complex. Two buildings and small parking area for general purpose vehicles such as sedans, pickups, and telephone maintenance trucks. The larger construction equipment and large trucks were actually in a fenced compound at an army caserne just up the road a little ways. The actual engineering and installation folks were stationed on Ramstein where we had an office building and a warehouse space for the installation resources such as cable and electronic equipment. Are you familiar with the old hospital complex I am speaking of?

We eventually closed down our operation in Wiesbaden and consolidated everything at Ramstein and Kaiserslautern. I always loved Wiesbaden. There was an American hotel there that we always were quartered at when we were there tdy. Of course there was a room full of slot machines off the lobby and more machines in the bar. I had a favorite gasthaus that we often frequented for an evening meal and for the commander and the first shirt to drink their fill of German pilsner and Weissbier while I slurped soda and waited to drive them back to the hotel, being the only sober one of the crew. When we had moved everything to Kaiserslautern I missed our gasthaus and a special little bakery where I always bought a bag full of fresh brotchen to bring home. I loved those crusty little gems with lots of butter and a good cup of coffee for breakfast, and with the hard crust the inside would stay fresh and soft for days. Much better than the buttered hard rolls we find next to the cash registers in the convenience stores in the mornings.

You spoke of the narrow streets and the large and bulky American vans and station wagons. When we would go to the bakery the street was so narrow that parking was with the two passenger side wheels on the sidewalk and half in the street because the street was so narrow. Our installation teams used to get into some tight spots with our lowboy semi trailer trying to make corners in some of the villages where the buildings came right to the edge of the road with no setback or sidewalk.

I would love to go back there again but I most likely never will visit Europe again at this stage in my life. Germany certainly is a beautiful country.

[clarencebunsen]

We went on a Danube river cruise last year. Part of the timing was, "If not now maybe never." It was expensive but our best vacation ever. We spent about 6 months training, walking on the treadmill or around the neighborhood every day. From the river everything is uphill.