Dave & I are doing a couple days at home, a couple of days up in Bavaria. With travel restricted due to COVID, it’s a wonderful change in routine to have two “homes” to rotate between. I feel energized & refreshed. Despite bad traffic going up to the mountains on Sunday.

Something about mountain air just blows away the cobwebs. It clears my head & I can fly through tasks that were practically undoable a day earlier. A change of scenery is doing this body good. I feel more myself than I have in months.

One of the companies we are working with is a small father-son company to build a BBQ. Their family has been building Kachelöfens (masonery heaters) or built-in fire places/ovens, since 1477. The son is the 16th Martin in a long line of Martins. The history in just this one family is incredible.

We are a little nomadic. To get a glimpse into a family that has been in the same place, in the same profession, for centuries is mind-blowing. It is the opposite of what I know.

Herr BBQ, because Klampfleitner is difficult to say, and he loves having a nickname from the Army guys, happily shares family history, and local stories. I admit to understanding about half. Maybe three-quarters. My German is pretty good these days. My local Bavarian dialect? Not so much.