SATURDAY, 9/2:
It may have taken eleven years and five
trips, but we can finally say we've been to Losheimergraben.
More on that in a bit. First,
greetings again from Bastogne, where we spent the day crawling around
in some of the strangest places ever, thanks to our old friend Carl
Wouters and our new friend Doug Mitchell, an American expat who's an
expert on The West Wall, the seemingly non-stop series of bunkers
and barriers known as “Dragon's Teeth” that the Germans erected
on their border with France & Belgium to stop any Allied advance
into the homeland. Obviously, they didn't do their job as intended,
but they were so well built that even today, 70+ years later, parts
of them remain.
And, as you can tell, they were huge--
Doug showed the three of us around a
whole series of them, one of which was even in sturdy enough
condition that we crawled around in it--
Inside what is now dirt and blown up
chunks of cement once sat rooms full of people and equipment, all
with over three or four meters (10 or 12 feet) of reinforced concrete
over their heads. Most of these bunkers were destroyed by the
Allied occupation forces in the years following the war, and others
were just covered up by dirt in farm fields, but Doug has made it his
mission in life to catalog and visit the site of each and every one
of them, just to see what (if anything) is still there.
It was nice hanging out with fellow
history geeks today.
From left to right, that's Carl, then the
Most Amazing Woman in the World, and then Doug, sharing his knowledge and
passion for what's around us. Carl's foot, by the way, is sitting on
one of those dragon's teeth, millions of which were constructed, one
of the ideas being that the pointy tops of them would stop tanks from
entering Germany. Unfortunately for the people who constructed them,
if you cover the dragon's teeth with enough dirt they just act as a
super-sized bump in the road. And if there's anything tanks are good
at, it's driving over bumps in the road.
Oops.
We also visited a large tower called
Weisser Stein, where you could climb around 100 feet and see for
miles & miles. While up there I noticed there were antennas
stuck on all four sides of the structure; as it turns out, there was
a group of amateur radio enthusiasts using the tower to try &
pull in radio signals from far away as part of an international
competition. When they found out I work in radio, they had to show
us their set-up--
I had no idea there was an
international competition to see who can pull in the most radio
signals (and from the farthest away) over a 24-span, but there is. I
guess you learn something every day.
Speaking of which, I also learned
something from Carl when he showed us a memorial plaque he personally
built a few years ago in a late-night frenzy to honor a group called
“The Lost 500”. The “Lost 500” was a group of soldiers from
different outfits who banded together to try & hold a hilltop
after they were left behind by their retreating units during the
first day of the Battle of the Bulge. For almost five days they held
their position; Carl put together the plaque the day before he showed
a survivor of the “Lost 500” around the hill when the veteran
paid a return visit eight or nine years ago--
Like I said, Carl personally designed
and built the memorial in one evening in his father-in-law's
workshop, using the only material he could find lying around,
plywood. They're actually in the process of replacing the original
plaque with sturdier material, but I kinda think the original is
priceless just the way it is.
But, then, I'm a history geek.
Speaking of which--
This is a picture of Doug taking a
picture of Carl, who's trying to recreate (exactly) a picture taken
72 years ago, a picture taken of an American soldier in front of that
very same church in a small Belgian town. Carl, who devotes a huge
chunk of his spare time to finding out information about American
soldiers, especially those of the 106th Infantry Division,
also loves to try recreating as many old photos as he can get his
hands on.
Well, today he was able to scratch
another off of the list. And if you ever wonder why we come to
Europe, one of the big reasons is because of people like Carl &
Doug. So thanks, guys, for a fun day. We appreciate it. And thanks Sofie for loaning us Carl for the day. We hope he made it home in working condition!
In and amongst our travels today, which
included going back & forth between the German and Belgian
borders so many times we lost count, we also stumbled upon the
heretofore mythical “town” of Losheimergraben. We first noticed
the unusual name back in 2006, on a sign saying it was 20 or so
kilometers away, and attempted to find it, just because we thought
the name was so interesting. However, we didn't find it then, nor
did we when we looked in 2008, or in 2011, or in 2014. It just
seemed like Losheimergraben didn't exist, that it was a myth. Well,
thanks to our travels today, we know it actually IS real--
“Town” is a little too strong of a
description for Losheimergraben. “Roundabout with four buildings”
is a much better way to put it, and is probably a big reason why we
were never able to find it on our own. But we finally have, and thanks to
our friends we can now cross Losheimergraben off of our European
bucket list.
Since we spent most of the day driving
around to various sites and crawling around bunkers we didn't have
time to do too much else, although we did have a little fun with
animals, including (of course) a cow--
A cat here in Bastogne--
And also from Bastogne, a sign of what
you're NOT supposed to let your dog do on public streets--
We need more signs like that where we
live!
Finally, I know some of you are
probably wondering if we ate a healthier lunch than the one we ate
yesterday, the one consisting of samples of free chocolate at the
Galler store. Well, I'm proud to say that we did not each free
chocolate for lunch today. Nope; we did not. We had this--
Sure, there's chocolate in a Black
Forest Cake, but there are also cherries in it, and cherries are a
fruit, which makes the Black Forest Cake healthier than free
chocolate samples.
Because, you know, there wasn't any
fruit in the free chocolate samples.
Tomorrow, we (sadly) leave Bastogne for
the rest of the adventure, which continues with a night in
Luxembourg, a place that will (hopefully) actually force us to eat
something other than free chocolate or Black Forest Cake for lunch.
Just don't place any money on it.
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