Bob:

Heinke and Gustl made sure we were up on time and had a good breakfast, and we drove off about 9:15 a.m. in the direction of Hannover. The drive went fairly smoothly once I readjusted to the huge speed differentials that can occur on the German Autobahns; the right lane is limited by the truck traffic to about 100-110 kph while the left lane is used by everyone from those just passing at 120-130 kph to the screaming speed demons who come roaring by at 200 kph or more, sometimes much more. You have to be really good about checking your rear view mirror carefully before pulling out to pass in conditions like that!

Two other things I found the German drivers were really religious about: one was using turn signals for every turn or lane change, and the second was not passing on the right. But the not passing on the right can only work when you don't have the left lane dawdlers, so the slower German drivers are generally quite good about moving over into the right hand lane. In the U.S. in contrast, many quite rude drivers crawl along at a snail-like pace in the left lane and force all the faster traffic to pass on the right. As a result of the consistent behavior on the part of German drivers, the multi-lane traffic on the Autobahns was much more successfully stratified by speed from the slowest traffic on the right to the fastest traffic on the left.

A light fog kept us from seeing much of the countryside between Hamburg and Hanover, but it burned away about the time we entered the foothills of the Harz Mountains southeast of Hanover. The Harz Mountains are gently rounded, wooded, and top out at around 3500 feet, so in many respects they resemble the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern U.S. One critical difference, however, is that they are almost completely covered with evergreens whereas the Appalachians have a dominant deciduous forest.

Bob:

We arrived at Braunlage about 12:30, found our pension and checked in without any difficulty. Unfortunately they didn't seem to have any non-smoking rooms when I reserved the room on the internet, but our room had been aired out rather thoroughly and we caught only a faint whif of cigarette smoke, not enough to trigger my allergies. After unpacking we set out on a walkabout with an immediate aim of having Mittagessen. We found a nice restaurant just around the corner, and after a restful lunch continued walking down the single main street of the town. The town did have some deciduous trees, and they were just changing into their fall colors so it was quite pretty. Many of the buildings were in a Swiss chalet type of architecture, and that combined with the mountain valley setting gave Braunlage quite a nice atmosphere.

Bob:

At the end of the town we found the cable car up the mountainside, but it was closed that day so we decided to walk up the mountain instead. We chugged along straight uphill for the better part of two hours and almost made it to the top. Near the top we found some cliffs that reminded me of the formations in the Wisconsin Dells. Apparently the glaciation had not reached that far up the mountains, because certainly any glacier would have ground the soft, layered sandstone or shale right into the ground. The tops of these curious formations were quite flat, which had probably given rise to the myth that witches danced on them. Just to be sure, however, Monika and I decided to try dancing on top of one formation, but we found that ground was rather uneven and we really had to watch our step. Well, if you stop to think about it the witches in the old days also had to watch their step also or else they were burned at the stake!

About 1/4 of a mile before the summit we finally gave up and turned around. As we did so a young couple came up to us, paused a couple of minutes, and then resumed their upward trek. That wasn't in itself so impressive, but the young woman was obviously about 6 months pregnant and that made me feel like a wuss because she was going to make it to the top. My excuse was that I didn't want to get so stiff and sore that I couldn't walk to the top of the Brocken in the next few days, so in the end I decided that discretion was the better part of valour (Napoleon, I think) and we descended the mountain to our pension for the evening. Walking back down hill was hard on our knees, but we could breathe much more easily and the deep green of the tall, straight, conifer forest with rays of sunlight streaming down through the gaps was very pleasant.

Using the rather steep ski slopes as an alternate route we almost fell back down the hill; it took us only 45 minutes to cover the ground we had painfully gained on our way up. At the bottom I found a curious type of pool with a mountain stream running into it. Apparently it was used to wade in and was considered by the Germans to be "healthy" in something of the same way that some folks think that drinking castor oil is healthy. Some of the suggestions on the sign posted by the pool made for very interesting reading. One suggestion was, "If your feet develop chilblains, you should get out of the water." Another suggestion was not to eat for 2 hours both before and after one of the ice-water wading sessions. Just to make the experience complete, one suggestion was to not dry off your feet after the bath but rather engage in vigorous physical activity. Once down the mountain we worked out way back through Braunlage to our hotel, stopping off to buy a small cushion to give me better lumbar support while driving the car. The rest of the evening we just put our feet up, ate a light Abendessen, and then worked on our respective journals.