An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travels with him.
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(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) The Ford Mondeo wagon is a nice car. It's got sat/nav, air conditioning (a rare treat in this country), a nice stereo with iPod dock, and cruise control. This will be a nice break in public transit for a couple of days as we journey eastward for a detour to the Czech Republic for a few days.
I just wish I'd checked with the Hertz agent at the counter on how to put it into reverse...
Watch the Video!
I'm in a narrow lane, with a tight turn, trying to exit the garage in a station wagon that's just a tad too long to make it in one pass. The manual shifter says reverse is way to the left and up. Every time I try that, I end up in first gear and edge a bit closer to the wall.
Pretty soon, there will be no more room to edge.
I figure there must be a button or something to press but I can't find it. I can't find a manual, either, in this dark car in a darker garage. Finally, I see a small ring at the bottom of the shifter...lift that...and I'm in reverse.
Whew! that was a close one. Now, I just have to do this for five more floors in this cramped, little parking garage until I have to make a blind exit onto a busy, Berlin street.
I manage somehow and find my way back to Lindemann's Hotel on Postdamerstrasse...our home in Berlin...where the manager kindly let me park out back to pack our bags, wheelchair, and Tim into the car.
Before we leave, we notice that it would only be about fifty miles out of our way and only add about 45 minutes to our drive to take a detour through a corner of Poland. We hadn't planned on going there but we can add a checkmark to our list (we add a new place to our list if we do something significant there such as eating a meal...changing planes at an airport doesn't count).
Once out of Berlin, I see my favorite German road sign...a circle with five diagonal lines through it...that says there is no longer any speed limit. Yes, we're on one of the country's famous autobahns with little traffic.
The cruise control is set to 160kph (100mph) and, in no time, we've crossed the Polish border on a very smooth, well paved, high speed highway (Note: be sure to watch the video, above, to experience this).
Then we crossed the Polish border...
Suddenly, the smooth pavement turned into a cracked and potholed disaster. Speed limit was dropped to the equivalent of 45mph, and even that may have been too high. It felt like the tires on our car suddenly became square.
After about 40 miles of this stuff, my wife found a side road that would lead south about 20 miles to the highway we'd need to take back towards Dresden, where we'd turn off towards Prague.
This road's much nicer. Just a two-lane country road, it winds through some very nice scenery. My wife tells me the map shows a village up ahead. The village turns out to be Dabrowa Boleslawiecka.
The village has an interesting history. Before World War II, it was part of Germany. After the war, it became part of Poland and the German population was expelled so that Poles could move in. Despite the ugliness of the war, it's a picture perfect European village in the rolling, green, tree covered hills.
It's time for lunch. There's a restaurant in the center of town but parking there looks iffy as does the wheelchair access. We saw a little 24 hour, truck stop diner at the edge of town so we turn back to go have a quick bite there. There's plenty of parking and wheelchair access at the Zajasd Lesny.
We quickly realize we're not on the tourist trail anymore when the server does not speak more than two words of English and we speak even less Polish. Somehow, we manage to get our point across and, luckily, the restaurant has had the foresight to print one menu in English. Pointing will help at this point.
Tim orders a plate of cheese and potato pirogies, I get a plate of the meat variety. The plan is for each of us to eat half of the other's meal so we can have both. Letty goes with the pig knuckle and some red beet tea.
The guys get their pirogies and they're heavenly. Steamy little puffs of dough with such tasty fillings.
The star of the show, though, is Letty's pig knuckle. It's a softball sized mound of pork that is tender enough to slice with a fork.
Happily, she agrees to share some with us. The savory broth that covers this dish up adds to the joy our stomachs are feeling after this meal. This will turn out to be one of the most memorable meals from this trip...here, at a little roadside 24 hour diner, far off the main highway in a corner of Poland.
Before we venture back into Deutschland, Letty wants to visit one more town appearing on the Polish map, this time Boleslawiec. Expecting just another pretty Polish village, this is clearly a bigger town with old Communist factories and smokestacks dotting the landscape.
Some of those factories specialize in ceramics, a tradition in this town going back several hundred years, making this a hotbed for the product. My wife immediately wants out.
Tim and I pass the time in the parking lot while she shops for some plates to take home, picking up a nice little haul for only around twenty bucks.
Done with our side trip, we get back on a much smoother highway for the trip back across the border and on to tonight's destination, Prague in the Czech Republic.
Stay tuned for that adventure.
Darryl Musick Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved
As the sun sets on 2016, we look back. Not our busiest travel year but we still managed to hit the travel trail a bit last year, including to major international destinations. Gotta get our money's worth for those passports, you know...
HOTELS - One of the best hotels we've ever had the pleasure of staying in...and we've stayed in many...was the absolutely wonderful Hilton Prague. From the moment we stepped in the door, to the duty manager showing us a selection of rooms we could choose from, accessible bathing equipment we could choose from, very comfortable beds, quiet room with good view, great location, top-notch service from beginning to end, this was the best hotel we stayed in last year. (NOTE: This is not to be confused with the Hilton Old Town Prague a few blocks away)
Another nod to the great RIU Palace Hotel in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The RIU's comfort, service, and amenities are top-notch. Stay in one if you ever get a chance. We didn't stay in any really bad hotels this year but the Oxford Suites in Redding did not live up to expecations, especially as we've stayed in some very nice examples of the chain in Chico and Pismo Beach, California. The Novotel Schwabing in Munich, Germany was also not as nice as we'd hoped it to be. AIRLINES - Two this year, Alaska Airlines to Costa Rica provided outstanding service, comfort, on-time service, and...best of all...price. American (with a leg by British Airways) provided us with very good service over some very long hauls across the Atlantic. Again, no bad flight hassles due to airlines, which can be pretty rare. On the other hand... AIRPORTS - Munich and Liberia, Costa Rica airports let us down this year. From waiting hours with no seating and no air conditioning tropical Daniel Odubor Quiros Airport to the lack of amenities in the older part of Franz Josef Strauss Airport (especially compared to the really excellent new terminal) was a huge letdown. Berlin's Tegel Airport wasn't much better. RENTAL CAR - A huge raspberry for Alamo Rent-A-Car in Costa Rica for blatantly trying to rip off every customer to the tune of an extra $600 for insurance and making the check-in process as miserable and long as can be. Even when you showed written proof of extensive car insurance, valid in Costa Rica, that could cover everything imaginable, you are called a liar to your face and told no American insurance is valid there (which we found is not true). On top of that, you're stuck at their depot in the middle of nowhere with a two-mile walk back to the airport...unless you want to pay $35 per person to take their shuttle bus back. A true den of vipers there, taxis are much more honest, affordable, and even wheelchair accessible there. Skip the rental car in Costa Rica, it will truly ruin your trip. On the other hand, Hertz in Berlin and Munich were very professional, friendly, and efficient in the handling of our vehicle there.
FOOD - We had some outstanding meals this year starting with a very memorable meal of pork knuckle and pirogies at Zajasd Lesny, a 24-hour truck stop diner in the southwest corner of Poland. The Alte Heide biergarten had the best food in Munich with its pork Cordon Bleu, German meatloaf, and steak. Again, Taste in the Motherlode town of Plymouth in California produced a wonderful dinner.
DESTINATIONS - We've cast our shadows on the beaches and jungles of Costa Rica; the remains of the Berlin Wall; the cobblestones of Prague; the truck stops of Poland; the biergartens of Munich; the waters and trees of Redding, California, along with the state's Motherlode country. Costa Rica is much more accessible than I thought it would be and there are some great adventures to be had. Still, the beaches left something to be desired and I really felt I had to keep a good grip on my wallet for the next rip-off that could be around the next corner. It was nice but not as nice as I'd imagined it would be. Redding, and the area around it, is beautiful but a little on the quiet side. Prague was too crowded and full of tourists to be really enjoyable but the residents of that old city are very friendly and accomodating to visitors like us. Munich has been, and will always be, one of our favorite cities in the world to visit. Wouldn't even mind living there. But this year's most enjoyable destination was the slightly grungy, sometimes dangerous feeling, always lively, at times drop-dead-gorgeous, and extremely drenched with history, Berlin. I cannot wait to come here again. Darryl Musick Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved
We don't travel as much as we used to here at The World on Wheels but we still keep ourselves on the road a healthy bit.
2016 started off with a big bang for us as we toured and zip-lined through the jungles of Costa Rica.
The water on the Pacific Coast isn't all that clear, and there are a few people out there trying to scam you, but the Riu Palace was magnificent as always and the tropical jungles proved a lot more accessible than we'd imagined.
A Sunset article that glanced over our area without really knowing anything about it inspired me to write about some of the charming and overlooked downtowns in Los Angeles County.
A new light rail line made all the way out to our neighborhood in the eastern San Gabriel Valley which motivated us to explore our region a bit more and, since we weren't driving, led to not one but two Gold Line Pub Crawls.
June found us at the northern edge of our state where I stumbled up one of my old elementary school teachers completely by accident after 45 years apart in Redding, California.
After that, we got to deal with Tim's stomach issues back in the Motherlode. The big kahuna of the year, though, was our grand European tour.
and ending up with a week in one of our favorite cities in the world, Munich. Along with Tim regaling with tales of living with cerebral palsy, me with some caregiver chronicles, and a few new Cocktail Hours sprinkled in between, that was our year. Can't wait to see what 2017 brings. Darryl Musick Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved Photos by Letty Musick Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved
