Ferropolis, in Gräfenhainichen, Germany - The Bagger 197 bucket-chain excavator. If you zoom way in you can see Wade.
The treads alone are taller than a person.
The classic true bucket-wheel excavator!
Wade, next to the wheel’s buckets (which have bottoms made of chains)
The VW “Transparent Factory” in Dresden. Very cool place, but no photos allowed once we were in the production area …even though the whole point of it being all glass is that it’s all visible?
Berlin, Germany - We found a working paternoster! It’s in the old “NeuesDeutschland” building on the East side of town.
Parisians lost their minds when Paris Saint Germaine (aka PSG) won the European Championship, a few days ago. Two people died in the rioting, and people lit fires all over the place. This fire that melted multiple rental e-bikes & scooters was right near the base of the Eiffel Tower.
A public garden just across from the main train station in Nantes, and there’s a flock of chickens just running around! 😄
The Augustine Fresnel, a buoy handling and lighthouse maintenance vessel that happened to be entering the harbor in Saint-Nazaire as we walked past
Saint-Nazaire, France. When I was 16, AirBnB didn’t exist. We’re staying in one here, and I love the flavor of just being in a residential neighborhood.
Our AirBnB came with a view that included a window dog (center; you have to zoom in.) Paris Saint-Germaine won the UEFA Championship last night, so it also came with a lot of fireworks, honking, and celebratory shouting (which drove the window dog inside, sadly.)
We spent the afternoon on the HMS Belfast. This was in the onboard machine shop. “It’s a pantograph mill!” he exclaimed when he first saw this. (Before I asked him to pose pointing at it enthusiastically.)
This is a two-man portable pump, small enough two fit through narrow ship corridors. But only if you have two stronk sailors, because it’s heavy
We had lunch at Spud Hutt. I think it could 100% work in just about any college town in the U.S.
London - the view from our cheap Travelodge hotel room. Wade looked out last night and said something like “I love how three-dimensional cities are” and I think … I’ll always think of that, now. He loves that we’re right over an Underground track, too. I agree - it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
Setting out on the West Highland Way at Balmaha
One day’s hiking, to Sallochy
The day’s journal entry
Loch Lomond in the morning light
One rule of global backpacking adventures is that if you experience a minor catastrophe, you simply declare it a win. I packed a canister of Quaker Grits, to make for breakfasts on our three-day hike; it’s one of Wade’s favorites, and I figured you probably couldn’t easily find it in Scotland. I didn’t figure the canister would crush & break, but it did. Fortunately almost everything in the pack was sealed up one way or another, so … it’s really not so bad. Just funny, mostly. So a W.
As a Philadelphian … and as a person who has eaten both sushi and burritos … I have no idea how to even process what this could be.
