We'v e done so much traveling this year that I couldn't fit it on one page.  As I type this, the year ain't over, so I may not even be able to fit it on two...we'll see..

Bernkastel-Kues, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    In September 2006, the Army forced me to spend a week in training at a conference center in Bernkastel-Kues, a historic town on the Mosel River in western Germany.  And during Federweißer season, to boot! Oh, the humanity! I managed to have a good time anyway.  Due to budget cuts, this was probably the last off-site US Army Europe conference for a while, so it was nice to be a part of it.  More photos of Burgruine Landshut,. the ruined castle above Bernkastel-Kues, on my castles page.
 
 

Burgruine Landshut  towers over the  town

Budapest, Hungary

    We went to Budapest over the Columbus Day weekend. For a while there, I almost thought it wasn't going to happen; while I was in Bernkastel-Kues, the big news stories included coverage of riots in Budapest after a video surfaced in which the prime minister basically admitted lying about the economy in order to get elected.  As it turned out, we did see some demonstrations, but they were by and large peaceful ones.  We also saw Szoborpark, or Statue Park, which is where all of the old Soviet statues that littered Budapest ended up when the Communists lost power in 1989.  Good times.
 
 

Parliament building		On Castle Hill in Buda
NO idea what this guy was up to.
Protest outside Parliament
In Szoborpark - where the commies are

Limburg and Montabaur

    One weekend, Kelly and I decided to jump into the car and go to Limburg, a nice town near Wiesbaden that we'd seen several times from the A3 autobahn.  Well, that weekend was in July, and we ended up going castle hunting instead.  But another weekend in August, we actually made it to Limburg, as well as to nearby Schloß Montabaur, another place we'd eyed from the A3 but had never been (reminiscent of the Festung Marienberg in Würzburg, but a nice yellow color).  It was a day well spent.  The Limburg cathedral itself was worth the drive, but the town of Limburg is itself quite lovely.
 
 

Miscellaneous

    OK, these don't really fit into any particular trip or outing.  But they still turned out nicely, so here they are: Scenes around Rüdesheim, a nuclear (or is it coal?) power plant near Köln, and fields of rapeseed (a/k/a canola) near Wiesbaden.