Stuttgart
Back to van life
When we woke up at Sarah’s place in Stuttgart, we were welcomed by a white world outside. But it wasn’t the winter wonderland where everything looks peaceful, it was more the snow blizzard type of landscape which you don’t want to go out to. Lucky us that a night in the van and exploring the Black Forest were awaiting us!
Black Forest
Beautiful lookouts
After saying goodbye to Sarah and her cozy home, we were back on the road again: Black Forest – here we come! The drive on the “Schwarzwaldhochstrasse” (= Black Forest high street) was beautiful and we stopped at different lookouts and smaller walks, for example at the Lothar path (named after the storm Lothar in 1999; the path was built with the broken wood of the trees that had fallen down in a massive blizzard).
However, we had to stop the walk half way through since the snow storm was just too strong. It was probably just a wind with some snow, but it felt like a storm to us city folks.
Mummelsee
After driving a bit further on the “Schwarzwaldhochstrasse” with the snow falling on us, we both agreed that it was probably the wisest decision to stay the night in Baden-Baden, the closest city to the Black Forest. But out of nowhere the sky cleared up when we drove around the next corner, just when we were about to pass the Mummelsee, a big lake with a car park and a little shop next to it. And for some unexplainable reason Blake asked me if we should stay the night here instead and I agreed – both feeling confident that it was more practical to stay in the Black Forest to do some more exploring the next morning. What were we thinking? Definitely not that it might freeze at night, or that our van is really badly insulated, or that new snow would come down at night, or that we are staying above 1000m where it does get much colder than at sea level…
Clearly, the cold had numbed our senses and our common sense as mother nature had other plans for us…
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