September 12-13: Baden Baden

 Monday, September 12

We drove off the ferry and directly to Antwerp to collect our boxes.  Yikes — what a shit show!! We have way too much stuff for our tiny van.  We spent two hours organizing and then drove to a campsite with a pit stop for lunch.

Lunch was outstanding as Ashley made a tasty salad and I cooked the amazing lamb steaks — the mint marinade is out of this world.  After getting to the campsite, I collapsed in my camp chair — reunited and it feels so good.  While I was napping, Ashley did an incredible job of organizing our shit — we definitely have to throw some stuff away.  

The campsite is interesting— an actual working farm with 30 horses — you have to smell them to believe it.  

Tuesday, September 13

It was a travel day — after a workout and tasty breakfast that included another fantastic omelet and fried rice thanks to Ashley, we headed toward Black Forest National Park.

I drove for over five hours before stopping in the city of Baden Baden.  It was a really nice town with beautiful parks, ample bike paths, a variety of restaurants and a hot spring pool.  We made it for the Tuesday after 7:00 pm special for 17.50 euro per person.  The hot spring pool was amazing as they had an indoor and outdoor pool with hot tubs of varying temps.  We spent most of our time outside between the hot pool and warm on.  The warm one made a cool whirlpool that we glided around and around — super fun.  We ended in a couple of tubs indoors— one hot and one cool. Awesome end to a long day.