Kuckucksuhren

Continuing our travels on a rainy May 17th - we got a rather delayed start in mid morning. It was a religious holiday to celebrate Christ's acsention to Glory. Lots of people were going to church services this particular morning, most places of business were closed and it was holiday from school.

In the early afternoon we stopped beside the road in a pull off near a mountain stream to have our lunch (mostly stuff we brought along from Suzanne & Achim). Since the rain wasn't too heavy we walked along beside the stream for a little exercise after eating.

As we came close to Triberg we noticed the Kuckucksuhren Fabrikverkauf was open so we stopped in to see what they had. Hundreds of cuckoo clocks adorned all the walls of the little display rooms. The factory was closed for the holiday so we didn't get to see the construction in process. After much browsing around and choosing a few little postcards and trinkets Helmut indicated that we should decide on a clock for ourselves. This process took a while longer as we had to look at all of the lovely carving and cutouts that give the character to the individual clock, then consider the various types of functions that each clock could perform and of course make a decision what our budget would allow for. Finally we purchased a pretty clock with three weights which means it runs to give the time, the cuckoo pops out every half hour, the chimney sweep pops up on the hour and the musical 'water' wheel turns and plays a tune every half hour. It took the proprietor quite a while to specially pack the clock for safe travel - he treated it with utmost care.

This box of clock travelled safely with us the remaining weeks of our visit and home as hand carried luggage on the airplane. Several weeks after our return Helmut had the time to find a place on the dining room wall to hang it up and start it going. It has an on/off button to control the noise making functions - some of the family don't appreciate the various noises that it makes particularly at night. The weights arrive at the floor in less than 24 hours so I guess it is not hung high enough on the wall.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent driving on towards the south and the Swiss border. We located a nice Alte Muehle (hotel) in Rielasingen. It was a three hundred year old building right beside a river. As indicated by the name it was a hotel and restaurant. This place had real character - a very quiet atmosphere - clean and lovely fine dining. The prices turned out to be comparable to many of the other places that we stayed. After supper we took a nice walk along the riverside path. All of us with memories of The Lamp Shop in Des Monies would have been interested in the lighting fixtures in the dining room - they were converted kerosene hanging lamps with glass or brass founts and big glass shades ( we've seen many such that Dad electrified) - these were electrified also but the socket and bulb were suspended inside the top of the shade instead of being mounted into the burner (the wicks remained in the burners).

I have some neat pictures of these places that I'd sure like to share with all of you.