After our Mother’s Day marathon last week, we had a low-key week at home. The weekend came really fast!
This weekend, Ryan was to attend his induction into the Order of the Arrow, which is kind of like an Honor Society for Boy Scouts. You have to be nominated by your peers and leader and then pass a test called ‘The Ordeal’ to be inducted, so it’s a pretty big deal!
Ryan and some of his fellow scouts headed to Baumholder, about three hours away, directly after school on Friday. The nominees have to take a vow of silence over the weekend. On the first night, they are sent out into the woods with only survival gear and no tents. They have to make their own camps and sleep rough. On day two, they wake up at 4am and continue their silence while completing 12 hours of work. This year, the project they worked on was clearing a campsite for a future campout this summer that will host thousands of Scouts from all over Europe. During the day, they also choose to forego food. If they make it to til 4pm, they are inducted into the Order and can eat and sleep in a tent that night.
We were thinking and worrying about our buddy all weekend but lucky for us, one of our friends spotted Ryan on Saturday and was able to get a few pictures and inform us he had passed the test! We are so proud of him! Not only did he pass, he asked if he could go back again next fall. I was sure he would not want to repeat the experience, but he said he enjoyed it. He really does love being out in the woods and camping rough.
I had planned to drive Ryan up to Baumholder Friday night, but at the last minute, another parent offered to take him! This meant I got back six hours of my life and my Friday evening, which I spent playing in the Parents vs. Kids softball game. The parents won, but it’s only fair to say the umpire was definitely calling things in our favor. 😉
Saturday was another beautiful day! Lucky for me, I had plans to finally take a ride on Stuttgart’s hop-on-hop-off wine bus with a big group of friends! Three of our group will be returning to the US this summer, so it was our last chance to get together before the goodbyes start.
The bus is actually a convertible and has an open roof, which means we got to enjoy the beautiful weather to the fullest!
The first stop was Rauscher’s, a wine besen just inside Unterturkheim. A besen is a house or small business that sells wine in its garden for a few months out of the year. It was packed, but we made friends with some Germans who made room for us at a table.
The stop lasted one hour, and we hopped back on the bus for the next stop: Grabkapelle. Grabkapelle is a mausoleum for one of the queens of Germany, Queen Katharina. It’s also the peak of Württemburg Hill, which has vineyards filling all its slopes. There is a cafe near the chapel, where we had a few more bottles of wine and some snacks before walking up to the chapel to see the views of Stuttgart.
After the Chapel, we returned to the bus stop, only to find we had missed the last bus 😆. We decided to go on foot to the last stop, Collegium Württemberg. By the time we arrived, they had just closed, but they had a wine vending machine, and a worker who was locking up kindly gave us some glasses, and we sat out in the vineyard to enjoy another bottle.
By then, we started to get hungry, so we walked a little further and found a pizzeria, where we refueled and rehydrated before catching an Uber back to the train station.
When we got back to the train station, Matt picked us up, and we decided to have one more bottle of wine at Vinothek Giarola, which was down the street from our house.
Sunday, I needed most of the day to recover from the wine bus. 😜 Sunday night, our group got back together but this time with husbands and families to have one last Biergarten dinner together and give our leavers their parting gifts; framed maps of the towns they each live in.
Once again, we had beautiful weather, and we enjoyed the evening before heading home for bed!
Gilcrests Abroad 