The next 20 or 30 pictures are probably boring to most, but are here to show my old air force buddies our "old stompin' ground" around Ramstein Airbase, which is just below and to the right of the town of Ramstein (although it appears as a mere forest in this mapquest map. If some of the roads on this map don't look familiar, there's a reason....there are a lot of new ones!There are lots more nice photos below, so don't give up on me yet...

Katzenbach and Glan Munchweiler to the right, Bruchmuhlback and Hutschenhausen ahead. Sorry, but I have no umlauts.

This is a new roundabout between Ramstein and Spesbach (the autobahn is right behind you here). There are a LOT of new roundabouts, and even new roads, in the area now (check the map above, and see the new bypass around the bottom of Ramstein).

Another trip to the old homestead.

This is Rolland Bauer, the landlady's son. I caught him out in the field feeding his cows. I walked up to the tractor and asked "Rolland, do you remember me?". After a long pause he said "Mark Langford, I remember you!". We stood around and talked about everything from the local economy, mad cow disease, and the Iraqi war...

This is where me and Smitty used to live in Schrollbach. The thing sticking out of the wall means is that the new wine is here! They are usually quite colorful, but this one's pretty faded.

The view towards the autobahn and Ramstein.

This sign is just another neat thing about Germany. When you leave town there's always a sign on the left side of the road that tells you that you are leaving town, and how far the next town is. The other side of the sign says "Schrollbach", telling you that you have arrived in Schrollbach.

This is the intersection in Spesbach.

This is the same new roundabout from the other side, coming from Spesbach, about to cross the autobahn (Ski might remember the night we slid across the autobahn overpass on black ice in his BMW 2002), and headed toward Ramstein.

And here's ANOTHER new roundabout between the previous one and Ramstein. I took a right, thinking U16 or U19 would get me back to the base...

...to find yet ANOTHER roundabout. Notice that there is no mention of the Flugplatz anywhere here! In fact, this whole road is brand new, a kind of bypass around to the south of Ramstein.

And here's Ramstein Airbase. It's quite a gauntlet now, consisting of two different gates and a huge visitor badging place on the far right. That place is just a little shy of where I suspect the missile shop road used to be, but they wouldn't let me any further than that building. Oh well, I didn't want to see it anyway, but it would have been neat to take a picture of the old missile shop and zulu, and to see if our old "picnic hut" was still out there.

Here's another road that heads off to Machenbach, on the way to Weilerbach and Rodenbach. Notice the "machs nix" posts on the sides of the road. The have reflectors on them and stick up high enough to see in deep snow, so you'll have some idea of where the road is. I had to buy a couple of these once...

This is a shot in Rodenbach, as I looked for Ski and Michele's house. I just knew I'd be able to drive right to it, but I took every turn that was located in a corner and followed it, but didn't see anything familiar. Sorry about that. I know you'll recognize the building on the left as a sort out-of-place modern store, back when were there. I think is was a Sparkasse or something like that. Correct me if you remember.

I could have sworn it was right around the corner on the right, but no dice.

I took this the morning we left. We were headed for rush hour traffic on the way to the Frankfurt airport. This sign means "no truck passing", which really isn't much of a problem anyway, as they pretty much remain in the right lane because of a strictly enforced 80 km/h (50mph) speed limit. Because of the enforcement, they have no reason to pass each other, and stay out of the fast traffic's way. From 11pm Saturday to 11pm Sunday, they are banned from the autobahn entirely, except for food trucks, which are still scarce.

There are 420 pictures above (I took almost 2000), and I've already reduced and compressed them by a factor of about 40, so the original photos are considerably better. Other than that, I didn't bother to fine-tune any of them for contrast, content, or otherwise. They are just like I snapped them. Some are not bad, if I say so myself. These photos were made with a "Canon EOS Digital Rebel", also known as the 300D. It's a fantastic camera, but it helps to have the kind of incredible scenery that we had in front of us!

If you have some more time to waste, you can check out my homebuilt airplane website at homebuilt airplane website.

Auf Wiedersehen...

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