And Back Into Nature

In my last post, I talked about the Netherlands being the third country which we had visited but not slept in. In this post, I want to talk about Luxembourg being the fourth such country (and the 49th country we've ever been in.) This is very exciting to me, because both 4 and 49 are perfect squares. Not only that, they are each a perfect square of a prime number!

A welcoming bear

But before I math out on these number theoretic facts, there is a bit of a question hanging over the entire discussion. Alrica pointed out that my definition of "slept in" may be less than rigorous. (That's a huge problem for a mathematician.)

Weinfelder Maar

You see, one of the countries that we visited was The Bahamas. We arrived on a ship and went out into the island and explored. We slept that night back on the ship, but it was still docked in the Bahamas. So does this count as sleeping in Bahamas? If it does not, then Luxembourg is the fifth country of this non-sleep status. That certainly dulls the perfect square pattern.

Wooden Wizard with a Roof Hat

If I slept in a houseboat on Lake Erie north of the Canada-U.S. border, wouldn't that count as sleeping in Canada? Or maybe it is the salt in the water that matters. But if I slept in the same houseboat just off the coast of South Carolina, wouldn't you consider that sleeping in the United States?

We're painting the roses red.

I see the argument that if I fall asleep in an airplane flying over Uzbekistan, I cannot claim to have slept in Uzbekistan. But Alrica and I wouldn't count that as even having been in Uzbekistan. In fact, our rule is that if you are only transitioning from one flight to another and you never leave the airport, that doesn't count as a new country. (At one point, that was our experience in Qatar, where we spent a long time in the Doha Airport, but we did not consider ourselves having visited Qatar. Over a year after that, we did go to Qatar, and stayed in Qatar, and then we counted Qatar.

A knight in lacquered armor

I'm still going with Luxembourg being the fourth country we visited but didn't sleep in. But if you disagree, feel free to give me grief in the comments.

Setting all of this aside, let me tell you about the second half of our road trip. We headed from Belgium to visit the Vulkaneifel region of Western Germany. The Eifel mountains are geologically active. Much of the region sits on top of a huge caldera. Much like Yellowstone National Park, some places seem calm and other seem more volcanic.

The village across the maar

We stayed in a very cute village called Schalkenmehren which is situated on Schalkenmehren Maar. A maar is a lake formed in a volcanic crater. This was a chance for us to get into nature, to hike, to breathe fresh air, and to hear lots of birds. (We saw some too, but only a small fraction of those we heard.)

The maar from the village

We have been very city bound for quite a lot of this trip. I miss hiking sometimes, so we used the second half of our road trip to get some good hikes in. Not only did hike around Schalkenmehren Maar, we also hiked around the neighboring Weinfelder Maar. Plus the village is filled with all these amazing wooden sculptures. (I think the sculptor lives there.)

Think it is a woodcarver's self-portrait?

We had some lovely hikes, but we still weren't satisfied. So the next day we did a very fascinating hike in Echternach, Luxembourg. This hike involved a lot more elevation change. We hiked up to Wollefsschlucht, which translates as Wolf's Gorge. The gorge was formed by an enormous landslide (tens of thousands of years ago.) There are many caves in the gorge and we invested one of them. Though we didn't go too far, as our light (and our legs) were inadequate for real spelunking.

The cave as far as we got

There is a legend about Wolf's Gorge that tells of an avaricious Count who sold his soul to the devil to obtain more riches. But he was so greedy, even the devil said "To heck with him!" (I think the devil would use heck, because he isn't going to say "To my own kingdom with him.") The devil cursed the Count and turned him into a black wolf. Now the wolf roams the gorge, protecting the many small caves where the Count hid his wealth. But don't despair for the cursed Count, my readers. Legend also says that if an innocent child places a rosary into just the right crevice in one of the many folds and creases of Wollefsschulucht, it will release the Count from his curse. In reward, he will reveal to the child where his treasures are. So if there are any innocent children out there reading this, grab a rosary and start placing it in crevice after crevice of Wolf's Gorge. (Okay, you have to get to Luxembourg first.) But note: if it does work and the Count grants you all his treasures, I would like a 1 percent finders fee for putting you on this path in the first place.

If only Alrica had brought along a rosary

Now we are back in France. Soon we leave this part of the world, an end to the first era of our international sojourn, around and about the Mediterranean (and a bit further north.) Tomorrow we fly across the Atlantic Ocean to San Jose, Costa Rica. And we will sleep there too.