Weekend update

Fall is my favorite season. I love the food, the smells, and the chill in the air. I love long sleeve tees and hoodies and boots. Oh, and the holidays -- I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. But it feels like we completely skipped over fall in Vienna. Bundled up in my coat, scarf and gloves. No Halloween specials on TV. No trick-or-treaters. No pecan pie. It's a little sad. But I'm looking forward to Christmas in Vienna. I've heard that the Christmas Markets are marvelous. And they're already selling roasted chestnuts on just about every corner. And maybe we'll get some snow.

Speaking of snow, check out what I've been looking at the last couple of days.


This is the view from a cabin located in the mountains outside Vienna that is owned by the churches in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The cabin, which can sleep about 50 people, is used as a camp. We went there with the Haskews and a couple of people from the Inzersdorf congregation to clean, paint, do some maintenance work and prepare the building for winter.

The night before we left, the Haskews asked if we had any snow gear. Being from Texas, I didn't even understand the question. (Because we don't get snow in Texas, not because people from Texas are slow -- just in case you were wondering.) Fortunately, one of the families from the church had an extra pair of boots that I wore and some waterproof thingy that Brian wore from his knees to his ankles. I don't remember what these things are called. So anyways, we headed up there on Friday morning. We arrived in the general area of the campsite and parked, got into our snow gear and started to head towards the campsite.

What the experienced people failed to tell us is that it was a 45 minute hike to the camp -- 45 minutes in good weather. We were working our way through at least a foot of snow with several inexperienced hikers. What I failed to mention to the experienced people is that I'm diabetic. So, about 15 minutes into the hike (which I still had no idea was at least 45 minutes), my blood sugar level drops. I was in the back of the line with two other people and we all stopped so I could eat and wait for my sugar to return to normal. This is when I found out the camp was still a good ways off and I decided that I needed the car to come back and pick me up. (There was one car with snow chains that took all of our luggage and Amanda and Abby to the camp.)

We couldn't get a signal on any of our cell phones and as we were trying to decide what to do I saw Brian heading back our direction. He asked if everything was okay and I told him no, that I needed the car. I was close to tears. I had plenty of food with me and had been eating it all along the way, but I can be a little irrational when my sugar is low. I was convinced that they were going to make me hike the whole way and I was going to collapse and die right there on the mountain. But as soon as I told Brian that I needed the car he said he would go for it and took off running towards the camp. He was my hero.

Meanwhile, the three of us still there decided to jump a fence and sit on the porch of this little cabin along the trail. I was feeling a little better, but my sugar was still too low to start hiking again. That's when Josef, the man who had driven the car to the camp, showed up. I think he still had the keys with him because I later found out that when Brian got to the cabin no one could find the keys to the car. Josef was coming down to retrieve a snow plow thingamabob and he offered to give me a ride on the snow plow. So this is how I made it up to the cabin.


Now you may notice that there's really only room for one person in that seat. And no, I didn't drive it. See the little grater thingy right in front of the tred? Well, I straddled the backhoe arm and stood on that grater thing facing the driver (Josef). It was a long, bumpy ride. But there was only one time I feared for my life, so all in all it wasn't too bad. As we were making our way to the campsite, Brian made it back to tell me they couldn't find the car keys. Poor Brian must have been chilled to the bone by the time we finally made it to the cabin for the last time.

Aside from the life-threatening hike to the cabin, the weekend was really nice. I got to know a couple of people from the church better and enjoyed a little time away from the city. The three families that went (us, the Haskews and the Hayes) all brought our dogs along, so Sharkdog had a blast. It was so much fun to see him running through the snow. He doesn't get off his leash much, so I think he really enjoyed it. Here's some more photos from the trip. You can see all of the photos on my Flickr account. I'm working on adding descriptions to the photos in Flickr, so if you want more details on a photo you might be able to find it there.



Here are the links to the original photos:
1. road to cabin, 2. road to cabin 2, 3. sharkdog and daisy 2, 4. schwarzwaldeckhaus, 5. mountains 9, 6. abby and daisy, 7. daisy and sandy, 8. sharkdog and daisy, 9. brian and sharkdog, 10. abby, 11. mountains 5, 12. sharkdog and daisy 3

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm loving fd's Flickr Toys right now. You can use it to make the cool mosaics that I've used in several posts. It's free, easy and a great way to add lots of photos without taking up lots of space.