We had a "Gemuetlich" (comfortable) breakfast and the rest of the folks headed off to Church while I brought the journal up to date. They returned in time for a relaxed Sunday morning of reading the newspaper and chatting about family and current events, after which Helga and Jim treated us to a fantastic luncheon at the local country club.

The country club is part of a chain of high quality golf courses designed by Robert Trent and financed by the State of Alabama. In part, the financing was from the state teacher's retirement fund and Helga had taught German for years in the Auburn school system, so we felt a proprietary interest in the clubhouse and golf course. Finishing lunch, we wandered outside and decided to walk around the golf course using the paved golf cart trails that led from hole to hole.

The course itself was spectacularly challenging, in my opinion. A large artificial lake had been created in the middle of the course and many of the holes used arms of the lake as water hazards. We watched two guys play a couple of holes as we walked by, and I saw them lose at least one or two golf balls in the water hazards. Although the sand traps were quite gracefully sculpted into the sides of the hills, they were located in devilishly difficult positions. Some of the "fairways" were completely interrupted by sections of rough, and by "rough" I don't mean just a patch of level high grass but rather a folded and jumbled landscape of carefully constructed hillocks and gullies. The terrain certainly looked more difficult than I have ever seen on the TV broadcasts of PGA tour events, but I was not sure if the courses such as the Master's in Atlanta were really more level or if the perspective of the TV camera merely made it seem so. I was curious if the course was part of the PGA tour, and personally I felt it was quite difficult enough to qualify for that series.

In fact, the terrain was so convoluted and the golf cart paths so twisty that we all got turned around a bit and confused as to the correct direction to get back to our car. Naturally I had forgotten to take along the GPS, which could have resolved the issue, and when we took a guess as to which way to walk to get to the car, Helga, Monika, and I pointed in 3 different directions! Jim resolved the issue by actually asking one of the course workers where the main parking lot was, and we walked back on the roads.

Since the weather was so wonderful, we returned home to don walking shoes and set off to another city park to walk a few miles on a trail there. This trail was shaped in a figure 8 and nicely groomed so that we could walk two abreast, which made conversation much easier. It was quite warm so we were walking in shirtsleeves and shorts, and I was surprised to see camellia bushes blooming in profusion. Helga had daffodils coming up in her front yard, so apparently the local climate was just transitioning into spring. All in all, it was a very pleasant day for early January, especially as Terry was still experiencing 20 degrees below zero in Moosomin, Saskatchewan.

We finished our walk right around sunset, climbed back into the car, and drove back home for the evening.

On our way back home, Jim stopped at the house of their gardener whose front lawn was the ultimate in Christmas light shows. Not only were there lights everywhere, but each group had different themes and were choreographed to music playing softly in the background. For instance, when the music of Swan Lake ballet played, a lake with swans lit up. Certainly it was a much better show than we have seen at parks charging admission fees. The neighbors, of course, objected to music as well as all the strange people walking or driving by, so they wanted it all taken down. That made me wonder how those same neighbors would react to, say, having relatives with a crying baby living out in the garage, shepherds singing on the front lawn, and weird guys with camels parked out on the street. I imagine in such a case they would call the police and zoning authorities to have the whole lot of them evicted, which would put quite a different spin on the Christmas story, to say the least!

During dinner we discussed the type of trip we all could possibly take with Heinke and Gustl sometime in the future. Finally deciding on some possible times, we emailed Heinke and Gustl with our proposal and turned in for the night.