The Travels of Eric and Lorna

Since I haven't posted it in a bit, you can also see more pictures at my Tumblr page , which is called (and is) random vacation pictures. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tenfootmonster PS For those who might not know, tenfootmonster is one of my online names (and my gamertag). If you don't know what a gamertag is then you almost certainly don't care :-).

If you want to see more videos check out my youtube channel. Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDCeZFfuBfoFC7Ld7Zh4pQ

Before going into Lindau we drove up the mountain, during which time we went into Austria. I don't read German, so... You can see the island of Lindau in the upper left of this map. The ridge top we are on is the red dot (I assume). Still snow up here. The alps. That's Lindau there left of the evergreen tree. See the lighthouse on the left side of the island? We'll see it again below. Church You can see the lighthouse easier in this one. See the big red and white antenna on the ridge? That's where we were in the above pictures. Zoomed in as much as possible. The lighthouse and lion of the harbor of Lindau. Lindau is a beautiful, charming city set on the Bodensee (Lake Constance). The old town is on an island, the only access to with (not counting a boat) are one railroad bridge and one car bridge. It has a beautiful preserved old town. It seems like a nice place to spend a week, particularly if you could

On Sunday we went into Weingarten , which is 2.5 miles (4 km) from Ravensburg, although as is common in the US the cities are pretty much conjoined by development. We were there for the big parade for the finale of Fasnet (also called Fashing and Fastnach I think). It's the typical 'big celebration before Ash Wednesday' that is common in many Christian cultures (e.g. Mardi Gras). This was a huge parade, lasting almost three hours. It was easily the highlight of the trip for me. All the different costumes are amazing (and apparently very expensive, figures in the thousands were bandied around). They parade as groups through the streets. The groups usually have a theme, and almost everyone is wearing an elaborately carved mask. These masks were amazing. Words really can't do it justice so I'm going to post a couple of videos. These guys were a hoot. There was a good group of them. Prominent citizens, presumably. They certainly look important.