Germany and Paris

Hi everyone,

We are in Paris on our last day. Can’t believe we will be packing up this morning after we spend a little more time in the city. Our big concern is Randel’s health. He’s been fighting a low grade fever and feeling rather punk for the last 5 days so we’d appreciate prayers for his health. Also for Elise as she’s been having headaches. It must be time to come home! This has been a long enough trip that there are things about getting back home that we will really appreciate.
Brief update but again not enough internet for picture uploading. Please check after we get home as we’ll upload more then. Also Elise will have picture on her Facebook page.
Rothenburg is a wonderful medieval city and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. A highlight was hearing an organ concert at St. Jakob’s and taking the night watchman tour. The guide was dressed as a night watchman and walked us all around the walled city with a very entertaining explanation of sites and history. Our kind of humor! Ate one supper in a cellar restaurant. Fun shopping there also.
We did our first hotel in Heidelburg as it was raining and Randel was not feeling well. Television-what a concept!! We listened to BBC and learned a little news. We’re coming home on the 3rd and it sounds like that’s the day something has to happen for the gov to pay its bills. The next morning we toured Heidelburg castle. Saw the gigantic wine barrel-about 4 times as tall as a person. Meant to have refreshments during a siege. The next two days were on the Rheine River. How we loved the castles-very storybook and fairytale like! One morning we rented bikes and rode about 14 kilometers along the river and took a cruise boat back. Fun and beautiful!
The cathedral at Cologne was the next big stop. Brett, Elise, and I climbed the nearly 600 steps to the top for an incredible close up look at the Gothic carvings everywhere and a view. Randel rested as he’d done the same with Grant in 1999. Cologne was 90% destroyed in WWII but the cathedral was nearly untouched. The inside is so tall and has beautiful stained glass.
Yesterday, August 1st we drove to Paris and still had time to visit the Louvre-pretty amazing to see Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and much more. The size of some of the paintings is gigantic. We walked the Champ Elysee to the Arch de Triumph and then to the Eiffel Tower. We stayed to see it lit up at night and a light show at 10. Very beautiful. We will soon head down to Notre Dame and the city center. We are riding public trains and subway from our campground. That has worked quite well for us in most of the major cities with maps and lots of thinking. We Nebraskans are not used to doing this public transportation thing.
The weather was very cool in Germany but warmed up yesterday. We plan to pack up this afternoon and tonight and will be on our way tomorrow morning. We’ve already had so many moments of remembering earlier time in our trip. We’ll need time to process and remember all we’ve seen and done. It’s been incredible-a trip of a lifetime. Thanks for your support, thoughts, and prayers. We’ve felt them and God’s presence with us so strongly.

Blessings to all and we’ll see you soon!

Betty