Remembering

 

What age are you supposed to be before you can use the word reminisce? If I had to guess, I would say probably mid to late-fifties would be a safe place to start. Early sixties might be better if you want to really make good on your reminiscing. I haven’t attained the age or the experience to start yet, that much I know.

Anyway, I was looking back at various documents and ran across some stuff that I will reminisce about in another forty years or so. Right now, they are just nice events to remember. According to my calendar, the events were exactly two years two months and two days ago.

There were four of us guys, Titus, Johannes, Caleb, and me. Probably four or five-ish in the afternoon we rolled into a little town in the Alps of southeastern Germany, nearly on the Austrian border. I don’t remember how long the train ride had been, but it had started in France, we had spent the night in another German town, and as we got into more and more desolate terrain, the train had gotten shorter until when we finally arrived, it had only two passenger cars.

There is something about those high mountain towns that is different than anywhere else. It’s almost like life itself slows down a little bit in awe of the snowy peaks that soar into the sky behind the buildings and streets that humans have dared to put on their slopes. None the less, they provide some breathtaking scenery. The town itself, Berchtesgaden, is fairly small. A train station, a few restaurants including a Burger King, and of course a few churches.

One day of our stay there, we hiked out of the town and took on the mountains. The trail we found took us about three miles up in what I would describe as a wide canyon. Supposedly there was an ice sculpture or something way back in there, but we never found it. While we were walking we would intermittently hear a booming noise echoing through the canyon. After an hour or two, we got to the end of the canyon and found out what the sound was. It was a sunny day, and every so often, way high on the mountain, snow would break loose and come crashing down. Probably the closest thing to an avalanche this delta boy will ever see.

Anyway, that’s probably enough “remembering” for now.

One more thing before I go, if you get a chance to ride a train to a town in the mountains in Germany, take it. You’ll be glad you did.