July 5

July 5th (cloudy, showers and cool)
It was not raining this morning. Yeah! We left Colmar and drove south to Lake Constance (Bodensee in Deutsch). As we approached the German border and over the Rhine River at 9:15 am, Georg broke into singing of the “old” German national anthem. The drive was pleasant, but my God, do the Germans drive schnell, making my usual speed of 100 kms seem like we are standing still. Remember, we drive the smaller roads, not the autobahn.
While we were in a “P” having lunch, a couple of police officers were observing our van. Georg that I was being a bit paranoid in that I thought we were going to be interrogated for having “blacked out” the “NL” on our license plate. I have probably not mentioned this before but others still approach us and speak Dutch to us thinking we are from Holland, even though the “NL” is not visible and we have taped CANADA on the front and back of the camper’s canopy. We just found out that the reason they recognize it as a Dutch car is that Holland is the only European country that does not have black and white front plates.
It was a little disappointing that the weather did not improve very much when we reached the 80-km-long Lake Constance, but it was obvious why this is probably the most popular tourist holiday resort area for the Germans. Georg knows that his parents spent a holiday here long ago.
We found an internet café and spent another evening of cards, reading and looking forward to driving from Immenstaad to Immenstadt tomorrow and spending time with Sebastian and Susi and meeting their families.