Here comes the snow...

Being from Southern CA, I still get a tad excited when snow falls outside. I am sure it's a novelty and it will wear off in time but for now, I'm still happy to see the white stuff fall.

Now driving in this stuff is a different story! Rewind to the early nintien when Jen and I were first dating and we drove the T-Bird up to Big Bear in Feb to meet up with the family. We made it past the artic circle just fine but once we were on the road to moonridge, the car started to slide towards a snow bank. I recovered control in time and we fared just fine. Fast forward fifteen years and the same thing happened during our drive down to Garmish for the long weekend. It's the craziest thing! One minute you are going along just fine and the next minutes, it's as if some kid with a remote control started to control the car. We all decided that from now on, we're taking the train rather than driving in heavy snow.

We stayed at the Edelweiss resort hotel which is fantastic. With their spa, pool, gym, American food, woodburning fireplace, we never wanted to leave the place. See the pix below of the girls who look relieved to finally be there.

Edelweiss is in the middle of my favorite region of Germany: Bavaria. I'm not sure if this is where our German relatives are from but I definitely feel a connection to the place. Bavaria is home to all things distinctly German such as the Alps, Munich, Oktoberfest, liederhosen, etc. Ironically, Bavarians don't consider themselves German much as Southernerns didn't consider themselves Americans before the start of the Civil War.

I asked some Germans outside of Bavaria what they thought about this and they rolled their eyes and said with considerable distain, "Those Bavarians think they are sooo special..." I didn't admit say anthing to this guy but the truth is there really is something special about Bavaria. For one, this place is hands down beautiful. You see cool villages nestled in the middle of a forest, half timbered construction, soaring mountains, etc. Also, Bavaria is the Catholic hub of Germany. As a Catholic, it was great to see that these guys weren't afraid to be proud of their religion. Many of the buildings with beautiful religious murals painted on the side and crucifixes are displayed everywhere. And you better believe the biggest and grandest building in most villages in this area is the Catholic church. Finally, the traditional greeting in Bavaria is "Grus Gott!" instead of Guten tag. This loosely translates to "Glory to God". Jen wondered if a greeting like this would ever fly in PC minded America. Uh, no.

Anyhow, the trip to Garmish was great (besides, of course, the drive to and from). We stopped in Munich on the way back up and at lunch at the legendary Hofbrauhaus. The beer at this place comes in these massive one l liter Kugels (steins). Here's a rare pix of the entire family at this place. If you look closely, you can see Baby Luke in Jen's belly.

Auf Wiedersehen for now...