DarrenGT

I am jealous Steve, i have 3 toys that would love to run the 'ring, especially my aprilia.
If you do get onto the ring with your GT, i hope you record some laps and post them.

ON the subject of stripes though, i admit, i really appreciate your less is more approach on the stripes. I am considering this look for mine...
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/02/08/2...-chicago-2012/

without a hard top i think mine could use these wide stripes and the sides, but if i had the roof, i'd go with the same as yours.

Stevedotmil

I like the wider stripes on the verts as well. Although I still want to do some thin 1/4" outlining stripes to accent the ones I have. I can't wait to get to the Ring while I'm here. There are a bunch of buddies that will be going this summer. I hope I get to go.

Stevedotmil

Pictures from the other day finally.

Stage_3

Looks great Steve.

Boss 1409

Keep me posted. Def want to hit up the Ring a couple times before I ship the Boss. Still waiting on orders, but hope to ship in early July.

Stevedotmil

I'm home on leave right now and will be back middle of next month. I will let yah know if I go before you have to ship the BOSS. Thanks for the compliments.

cjd82187

Great thread! Read through it last night while waiting to get my account activated.

Hope you have fun a the 'ring, pretty jealous, although even driving the 'ring in Forza makes me nervous!

Stevedotmil

Thanks. I have been driving the Ring on driving games since GT on Playstation in 99. It's gonna be surreal when I finally go.

Stevedotmil

So I finally aquired a hose so I could wash my car on my own. I did wash it but used dish soap so I could strip the crap that's in my wax off of it before I clay and re-wax. There are some run off ponds near where I can wash my car and the mosquitos were like B-52 bombers in a cloud around me. I got done finally unscathed and got the roof clayed before I lost all my light. That was around 1030PM. I'm going to rinse off again today and then finish claying. I'm going to a big car show tomorrow in Nuremburg and need to get the ride looking good before then.

Boss 1409

Sounds like a blast! Welcome back. I'm looking to head to the Ring soon, maybe next Saturday.

Stevedotmil

This weekend or the next? I can't go this weekend but maybe next. I'm going to the Nuremburg Streetculture car show on friday night at the XXL. Weather depending.

Boss 1409

Next weekend, have tons going on this weekend and then pick up the girls on the 30th. Everything with the PCS is really picking up now too. HHG are gone 11 July, still not sure about the Boss, probably around 25 July.

Stevedotmil

It depends on how things pan out with renting my house in SC out. Next weekend is going to be busy at the Ring because the weekend of 4th of July is the F1 Germany race there. So people will be trying to get laps in before the shut down to prep for that. Just something to think about. I really do want to go though and that might be the last opportunity I have to make it till after I come back. I would like to go with my car stock because after I get back I'm going to start doing my suspension and I would like to be able to gauge the difference close to the limit on the same track.

Boss 1409

My weekends are numbered and Shelley leaves after the 4th. Still trying to figure out when I am going to ship the car so I may go again before that happens. As of now the plan is to head there, not sure what time yet, but always fun to go there and just chill too.

Stevedotmil

So this weekend I took a road trip from Southeastern Germany where I live in Bavaria over to Southwestern Germany to the city of Baumholder which is near Kaiserslautern and Ramstein. I went to visit some friends of mine who live there. I hadn't seen them in over 20+ years (since I was 14 almost 15) and they just had a baby. Their sister Paola and her mom were there visiting for the month and I have been good friends with her since we were in middle school and lived in Kansas. It has been almost 10 years since I have seen her. I had been meaning to go see them because it's a rare opportunity that you cross paths on another continent after so long. Small world they say.

I actually woke up around 530AM for some odd reason. Partly because it's fully light outside at around 430AM here in the summer in Germany. Partly because I was excited to see old friends after so long. I headed out after packing the backpack up and forgetting to put my lawn chair and rack of beer in the trunk. I also forgot to make sure that the fridge was fully closed but I will get to that at the end.

I took the A6 which pretty much stretches from the Czech Republic in Prague all the way to France. It took me about 30 minutes or so to get to it from where I live which is fine because it's all windy country roads till then. I finally reached the A6 and hit a cruising speed of around 90mph. This section of the autobahn is "unrestricted" meaning you can go as fast as your car can safely operate. It is this way until you get to Nuremberg which is the closest major city. I didn't hit much traffic till then and I reached Nuremberg at around 800am or so. There it slows down till you reach the other side and then picks back up to 120kph which is around 75 mph. 120k is the default speed limit in Bavaria on the autobahn.

The weather was cloudy and the temps were in the upper 50's and lower 60's. Once I started getting closer to Stuttgart which is in the middle of the southern country along my route the weather started to get a little wet and ominous. The default speed limit in this part of the country is 130k or 80mph sans the "unrestricted" sections. That's all good and well if there isn't much traffic. This was a Thursday morning and that unknown to me was the day that every semi truck in the country was going to be on the highway. There were trucks every 100ft in the slow lane basically the whole time I was on the highway. This slowed traffic down quite a bit when it's only two lanes each side. It had been sprinkling on and off for a while now and then it started pouring out. So much so that everyone was slowing down to a crawl of around 60kph. I decided that it would be a good time to empty the bladder and take a break to stretch my legs so I pulled off at a "P" lane since I had been on the road for going on 2 1/2 hours.

Now let me explain something really quick about the rest stops in Germany. There are a couple things you need to know should you ever come here and travel by car. The rest stops here are typically not like the ones we have in America. Those a few and far between because travelling for any distance by auto versus train is frowned upon as a waste of time and natural resources. People don't take road trips in Germany, in cars anyway. Most "P" or parking areas are for just that, parking. There are NO restrooms. None. There are plenty of trees and picnic tables but no toilets or "WC" which stands for Water Closet in case you were wondering. So most people either pee in the bushes depending on which gender you are may make for an interesting stop if there are a lot of people around. So I utilized the woodline when the rain slowed down to a drizzle and stretched the legs a bit. When I walked away from my car to pee I noticed that there were several people that came up to it and peered in and took photos. This happens a lot when I park places.



I had a good break and then got back on the road. About 30 minutes after I was on my way again the weather cleared up to just light gray, cloudy skies so that was a welcome relief because I really didn't want to spend the 4th of July in the rain.

At about 3 hours and 15 minutes into my ride I was approaching the town of Hockenheim, Germany. If you are a fan of the Gran Turismo or Forza racing games then you might recognize the name. This town is the home of one of the famous racing tracks named the "Hockenheimring". Here's a link to some of the history of the track.

http://trackpedia.com/wiki/Hockenheimring

There are all types of racing that take place at this track. F1 used to always race there. DTM which is the factory European racing takes place there. Everyday Joes can go there on the open days and drive around it along with everyone else and their mother when the weather is nice for less than $20 for 15 minutes worth of track time. It takes a decent driver in a Mustang around 2 minutes to get around the track with traffic. No traffic and some suspension mods and things are much different.

I took a bypass on A61 for some reason because my iPhone nav sent me that way so I didn't get any pictures of the actual track from the highway. I went by it on the way back home but was going much to fast to take pictures and not die.



I eventually got back on the A6 and headed into the mountains heading towards Kaiserslautern from Manheim. Here I ran into some longer unrestricted sections and not much traffic. I sped up cruising along at a comfortable 135mph for a around 5 minutes when I was passing someone and I caught the flash of some high beams in my rear mirror. Looking behind me I saw a brand new Alpina (BMW) B7 Bi-turbo sedan right on my bumper. Now if you don't know anything about this car...here you go..

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/201...-and-info-news

So I had my window cracked about an inch getting some air and I moved over to the slow lane still going around 120ish mph. We were headed uphill and he hit the gas. All I heard was the turbos spooling and the exhaust note. He took off like I was sitting at a light and he was blowing through it. When I got to the top of the hill he was already on the next one and was a small blue spec in my view. Awesome.

I reached Ramstein Air Force Base where I stopped for some tax free gas because at this point I was getting close to the 1/4 tank mark. Ramstein is very close to Landstul Army Medical Center. This is where all the injured military members that are currently overseas come for treatment should they be unlucky. This happened to be where my friends were when I got to Ramstein because they were taking their older son there after doing a fun run for the 4th.

The Post Exchange (PX)located on Ramstein AB is by far the most ridiculously large and extravagant shopping experience you can have on a military post. This thing is massive. It rivals some city malls that I have been to in size and variety. Just the inside of the PX here is as large or larger than most Super Wal-Marts or Super Target stores, which incidentally they don't have here in Germany. Impressive. I was starving and it was lunch time so I decided on Captain D's for food in the food court. Yep, you read that right. After eating I sent a message to my friend Carlos to let him know I was stopping here for gas and food. I then left the "Mall" and went to look for the gas station. I haven't been here before so I asked the taxi guy for directions. He, of course spoke broken English and gave be bad directions. After 35 minutes and 1/8 a tank of gas I finally made a huge loop and ended up 2 turns from where I started and at the station. 13.5 gallons of 98 (93 US) at $4.11/gal later and I'm ready to go. I got a text back from Carlos saying that they would meet me at the Mall in 20. So off I go to wait.

Now I'm going to explain something real quick that might sound not so Politically Correct. There is an urban legend/understanding/whatever in the military that all women in the Air Force are rather attractive and in shape. Most of them are smart as well. So while sitting there waiting for my friends I happened to see the opposite and I got so much of a kick out of seeing a Purple Unicorn that I had to post it on FaceBook which turned into a whole other story. I digress.

So I meet up with Carlos and Paola and follow them to their house which is about 30 more minutes up the road. We had a great time at the 4th that evening after drinking tons of beer, sangria, eating bratwurst, and Italian ice followed by a very short fireworks display. Thanks Sequestration and the National Vacation fund. We were glad that it was finally over because by now it's almost midnight because it doesn't get completely dark till after 1030PM in the summer here.

The next day my friends and I headed out to Kaiserslautern to the Altstadtfest that was going on in old town. We got there really early when they were still setting up and ate at a nice Greek establishment inside the ring. After that we walked around and saw the city center and then headed back to the house. Here's the Facebook page link.

https://www.facebook.com/AltstadtfestKaiserslautern

Fun times.

So on the way back I ended up getting a little lost. This happens quite a bit because of either Siri or the fact that here in Germany roads aren't mapped out like they are in the states. They don't run N/S/E/W most of the time. They run off of the city center which is a Ring road and end up looking like a very large spider. So a little over two hours later and a nice detour through two lane mountain roads and we finally got back to the house. Here are the pictures from the walk.

Looking into the city center "Ring"



Here's a link to the history of this church. The "Collegiate Church". First mentioned in 1571.

http://www.kaiserslautern.de/tourism...x.html?lang=en
Pipe organ





Martin Luther statue






Cool brass door handles.



German soldier statue. The German Army helped to rebuild the city in the 1870's.





Old city jail. There are underground dungeons too. The entrance was near were I parked around the corner. It's locked of course. We saw a HUGE rat running out of this thing.


Cool sculpture near the theater in the background.



Kid heaven. I love the candy here. This smelled so GOOD. I didn't buy any as I'm trying to watch my figure in my old age.



This the stained glass window in the church.





Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about my latest adventure here in Germany. Stay tuned.

Steve

Ajcruz1

Seems like good times Steve, reading and seeing all your pics makes me miss living in K-town. I always hated the fact that there were never any bathrooms along the autobahn. I would always stop at the McDonalds along the way between K-town and Mannheim to use the "WC" lol. I use to travel that way a lot to see my then girlfriend now Wife. I can't wait to go back to Germany only this time I will probably be living near Geilenkirchen. I just picked up my 2014 DIB Stang on Firday so hopefully I can finish getting and putting on all my mods before I go back, which should happen since I have about a year before I do. That way I can maximize my autobahn experience!

Stage_3

Awesome pics Steve.

Stevedotmil

Thanks. AJ, sounds like a good plan for your new car. I do enjoy the autobahn most of the time. Construction sucks though. I ran into it a couple of times on the trip. Hopefully once I get the family settled and the house in SC rented I will have an opportunity to save for some mods. Probably be next year before I do anything drastic though.

OMG of War

great road trip story Steve! i went to Europe for the first time last summer and i decided to make Berlin my destination. i wanted to rent a car just so i could drive the bahn, but i didn't budget enough so i missed out. that's definitely my biggest regret. beautiful country though -- at least from the little that i saw.

Stevedotmil

I have really enjoyed living here as an adult. I lived here when I was in elementary school when my dad was military. It's much more fun now I think.