and headed out the autobahn into Germany and around Munich. Anyone who tells you that all Germans drive 100mph on the Autobahn probably has never been there. This is a typical scene on most Autobahns:
a line of semis (mostly from Eastern Europe) in the right lane, and everyone else in the left lane. And there's a general speed limit of 130km/hr anyway. (But I do know a couple of stretches of Autobahn with no traffic or speed limit - I got up to 180km/hr last year.)
After a few hours of this, we left the Autobahn at Karlsruhe and headed northwest into Saarland. There are some pleasant low mountains in this area, but it's not the Alps. Eventually we crossed the Mosel River at Schengen and we were in Luxembourg, a new country for both of us. Luxembourg is clean and boring in a Swiss kind of way (but without the scenery).
Diesel is cheaper than almost anywhere else in Europe, but everything else is on the slightly pricey side. We ate at an Italian restaurant on the main square (the cheapest thing except for McDonalds)
(yes, that's a Belgian beer - there is Luxembourgish beer, but they didn't serve it) and had some good but expensive ice cream. Then it was back to our Ibis hotel (a step above the Etap which is a step above the Formule 1).
The next morning we drove across the border into Belgium looking for breakfast (and keeping an eye out for ornery people).
We found a bakery with some nice waffles and pastries, but there was no way to warm the waffles. Maybe they don't do microwaves in Belgium.
We crossed back into France and drove the backroads into Riems, where we had coffee in a PMU (off-track-betting) cafe. (No, we didn't place any bets.) Then it was onto the Autoroute (expensive tolls) to Paris and our hotel near the CDG airport. We took the train into Paris where we visited a couple of bookstores and an internet cafe before dinner at a nice but somewhat touristy restaurant.
Paris is famous for Bertillon ice cream, but at $6 for a modest cone, I let Cindi enjoy it while I watched. After a bit of a battle to find where to re-enter the train station, we took the train back to the airport area and walked back to the hotel in the rain.
The next morning I packed everything I could into my two bags, and Cindi dropped me at the terminal. I must have triggered some kind of warning, because the security people grilled me for about 10 minutes about the contents of my bags (including the large black bike box) and how I had managed to arrive at the airport. Apparently the idea of being dropped off by your wife in your car was something new to them, but fortunately Cindi was back and had the car registration to show them. My flight was uneventful, and I got lucky on the exit-row seats again. US Customs in Dallas was slow, but they didn't ask any strange questions. Andrew picked me up in Denver, and I dropped him off on campus and managed to stay awake for the half-hour drive home. The house didn't smell too bad, so I said hello to the cats, unpacked a few things and got to bed around midnight.
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