Salzburg Natural History Museum

Today, we arrived at opening time at the museum.  To do this we had to leave very early in the morning, before the sun was up.  Cruised the Autobahn at a high rate of speed and found a surprisingly close parking place less than a block away from the front door!

Now this museum is not small... it is 5 large floors of fantastic exhibit...

Salzburg Natural History Museum

On the second floor, the space exhibit we fascinating to look at!  It is the first time that I have ever seen a space exhibit outside of the USA, and it was apparent, too.

Now don't get me wrong, all the exhibits I have seen in the USA are good, but there is a definite bias shown in the display.  Whether by design...

Salzburg Natural History Museum

Easily, the most impressive part of the museum was the Reptile Zoo.  I have been to many museums, zoos and exhibits, but this exceeds any I have ever seen.  There are over 50 terraria housing about 200 animals.  These exhibits are designed so well that you can come within inches of the specimens and study every detail of movement, markings and more...

Hohensalzburg Fortress

The Hohensalzburg Fortress is perched high on the peak of Festungsberg. The castle served as a refuge for the Archbishops when ever they felt threatened. The best way to get to the fortress is by taking the funicular. You can walk up the mountain if you wish but the funicular is quick, inexpensive and very comfortable. The ride takes less than a mi...

More Pine from Ike Storm Damage!

Sargent's Ranch is the property of one of our neighbors.. 1100 acres of beautiful country side.

We went to get a large pine that probably has enough wood to finish the garage.

The usable trunk is 54 feet long and 22 inches at the bottom. I cut it into three 18 foot lengths. These pieces were all too big for my tractor...

Roller Skating in Eureka Springs Arkansas at the ESkate

A while back, Adam went with his school to The ESkate in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  He enjoyed it so much, he asked that he could go back for his birthday.  Saturday, we went and rolled around for about 3 hours... after a couple hours of trying, Val pretty much got the hang of it.  Adam did good, too.

As...

Neuschwanstein

Next we headed to Neuschwanstein, It was a glorious scenic drive up the mountains. It is quite a walk up a steep hill to the castle but in the royal fantasy they offer horse drawn carriage rides up and down the mountain. I had to do this, there is just something so fairy tale about riding up to the castle in a horse drawn carriage. we squeezed in,...

Salt Mine

Today we headed to Salzburg Austria to the Salt Mines of Halein. It seems 250 million years ago slat deposits were formed by the sea and over the course of the formation of the alps enclosed then in rock and the Durrnberg Salt Mountain was formed. We took a tour of a former working salt mine. After purchasing our tickets and adorning our white jump...

More Cabin Progress Photos

Here are more photos of the cabinets I designed.  Much of the wood is milled here on property.  I am getting the hang of using the Timber King log mill we purchased this past summer.

Here you can see the boys shelves that they use as a dresser, the cabinet that Jen and I use in the bathroom for storage and laundry...

Space Shuttle Launch

After many months of hard working on the house. We decided that after school let out we were going to take the boys on a  vacation. To keep it a surprise we didn't tell them.

The kids got out of school Thursday, so Friday morning we went to Kansas city on the rouse of going to one of out favorite restaurants The Rain Fores...

Interior Cabin Pictures Before and After

When we arrived in January, the cabin was dried in and sealed, but it was still, very much a construction zone. It had the basics, electricity, heater/airconditioner, sub floor and bathroom and basic kitchen.

We have made much progress. It is going slower than I would like but we work on it as often as possible.

Take...

Toy Story Musical

We we on a 4 night Disney Cruise  the end on May after the boys got out of school. We had gone to Florida to view the Space shuttle launch ad decided to make a quick family vacation out of it.

Disney premiered a new show on the wonder to replace Hercules the Muse-ical in March. We had heard so much about this show that we...

Germany - The Alps

Today we went into the Alps in on a castle day.  The Alps were very impressive how the foot hills have trees and the peaks are barren because it is too high for anything to grow. This is the first day we ran into real snow that was several feet deep, the higher we went the more snow there was (logically). It was a clear day and absolutely...

First day in Munich Germany

Today we slept in a little trying to get rid of our jet lag and did some work this morning. As a reward this afternoon we headed to the Marienplatz to the Christmas Markets. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had.  In the center of the platz and all the r...

Deutsches Museum

Today we went to the Deutsches Museum, according to the guide book this is a great museum for kids, so we thought we would check it out. We packed a picnic lunch and headed to the u-bahn. The museum sits on an in the Isar River, so unless you take the S-bahn you have to walk across the river. We didn't mind except we walked the wrong way. The stree...

Deutsches Museum - Aeronautics

The history of fight begins nearly 200 years ago with balloons. There were two rival balloon systems the hot air balloons developed by the Montgolfier brothers and the gas balloon by Robert Charles. The first manned ascent in a balloon was by the Mongolfier brothers from the garden of la Muette castle  near Paris in 1783. They were howeve...

Deutsches Museum - Boats and Marine Navigation

In the Boats and Marine Navigation section the Fishing Boat the Maria that is called an "Ewer" was built in 1880 for use in the North Sea as a commercial fishing boat. It was one of the last of it's kind. The vessel took over most of the room, and was at full mast, there were cutaways showing the some of the quarters and conditions that they crew l...

St Peter's Church:

Today we went to see Munich oldest church (1180) Peterskirche or St. Peter's Church aka Old Peter., located conveniently between the marienplatz and the Market in the old town square.

This church It has recently been rejuvenated with gold leaf and the alter and organ loft are striking. In the second chapel is a bizarre relic of the...

Rothenburg, Germany

Today we drove and spent the day in the mideval town of Rothenburg on the tauber river. We got to Old Town Rothenburg around lunch time, it is about a 3 hour drive from Munich and we ran into construction traffic. We had packed a sack lunch, so we picnicked in the card before we headed into the city. You can actually drive in the city walls but it...