In February 2020 we made another trip to Athens, Ohio. This time it was to see the Ohio University production of the play She Kills Monsters and to see the props Julia made for it. We flew this time, taking a United Express flight from Washington Dulles to Columbus, Ohio. There were no hotel rooms available in Athens, so we booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Logan, 30 miles north of Athens. We rented a car at the airport and headed for Logan along US Highway 33. US 33 was a pleasant drive, with minimal traffic. This was good, as we would be commuting a lot between Logan and Athens. Logan is the center of the Hocking Hills, an outdoor recreation area for southeastern Ohio with a state park, a national forest, kayaking ... read more

Our daughter began study for her Master of Fine Arts degree program at Ohio University (OU) in fall 2019. In November, we made a trip out to Athens to visit. We drove from Northern Virginia to Athens in a single day on Friday. On this trip, we stayed at the Hampton Inn Athens, We would learn that we were very fortunate to get a reservation there. Athens, despite being a university town, does not have a great number of hotel rooms. They book up quickly with conference and sports game day traffic. Saturday morning we drove around town, visited an antique store and did a bit of exploring on foot on our own. After meeting up with Julia and Frank in the afternoon, we walked the central campus, known as Campus Green, and the main street ... read more

If The Netherlands is known as the land of windmills, then Kinderdijk is the place to see them in operation. Windmills in the Netherlands are typically used as water pumps to keep the polders dry. Viking Sigrun arrived here late in the afternoon, around 3:45 p.m. There are 19 windmills to see here, the earliest dating to the 17th century. They are positioned along two rows. The Overwaard's wooden mills and Nederwaard's brick mills use wind power to move water from the polders to the basins. The surrounding land is below sea level. Water is pumped into the River Lek. As we disembarked, we joined a local guide for a tour. It was late on a blustery and chilly day, and there were few visitors about except our cruise group. The information kiosk was closed, but ... read more

After returning form Strasbourg, there was time to explore the Rhine waterfront of Kehl. Baedeker described Kehl thus: Kehl (460 ft.), a small Baden town (3000 inhab.), was erected by the French as a tête-de-pont of Strassburg in 1688. Wars have taken their toll on Kehl. A number of monuments line Rheinpromenade, the Rhine Promenade, the riverbank park. Begegnung (Encounter) commemorates peace and reconciliation between France and Germany. Another memorial commemorates French resistance fighters killed in 1944. Four cenotaphs, the Denkmäler für Flutopfer, memorialize those drowned in Rhine floods in the line of duty. A stone marks the Jakobsweg, The Way of St. James. This was a pilgrimage route through Germany that led ultimately to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the park is a Biblical Garden. Each of the 17 stele made of red sandstone ... read more

While Viking Sigrun remained at Breisach, there was an afternoon coach tour to Colmar across the border in France. Colmar is in the Alsace region of France. It is one of those cities that has been contested between France and Germany over time. Germany occupied Colmar and the surrounding territory in 1871–1918 and 1940–1945. The Rhine forms the border of France and Germany today, but with the advent of the EU, there are no border formalities. The landscape upon entering Alsace is a flat plain with farms. In the distance rises the Vosges mountain range, comparable to the Kaiserstuhl across in Germany. I spotted a water tower rising from the farmland and thought how I love the French term for a water tower: Château d'Eau (water castle). The road to Colmar leads past Neuf-Brisach. Neuf-Brisach was ... read more