Europe Trip Day 1, Germany: Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vaihingen an der Enz, to Strasbourg, France

July 24th finally came-- the day we left on our trip to Europe!  We flew from Austin to Atlanta, and from there, overnight to Frankfurt.

Joseph was my seat partner. :-)

I made sleep bands for everyone in our family-- an invention that slips over your head and around the back of the seat to hold your head immobile.  I actually slept for most of the flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt.

Brigham at the Atlanta airport during our layover.  This is the first of many, many pictures I took of Brigham reading books in various places.

We finally landed in Frankfurt, made it through customs, got our baggage, and then went to the car rental desk to pick up the car I had rented.  Only, I had made the reservation for July 24th, not July 24th, I guess forgetting the overnight part of the flight.  I was very nervous since July is the height of the tourist season in Europe, and I feared there would be no cars available.  But there were, and before too long we were on our way in a Mercedes (!) S-class station wagon.  Nice!
Our first destination was a little town where Ben's ancestors had once lived-- Wiesbaden, Germany.  We wanted to buy lunch, only to realize we hadn't exchanged any money yet, little shops don't take American credit cards, and the notion of public restrooms hasn't yet taken off in Germany.  Ah, well.  We drove around a bit, then ate our very first German meal at... McDonalds.  :-)  McDonalds took our credit card and had a restroom open to the public, so that was that!
Soon we were on the road to Stuttgart where we stopped to visit the Mercedes museum.  

Then back on the road with a stop at Vaihingen an der Enz, a charming little city on the Enz river where we went to a clothing store so that Ben and Mosey could buy clothes.  Ben only brought one change of clothes, wanting to buy clothes in Germany-- to look less like tourists, perhaps?  It turns out that there really isn't much difference between German clothes and American clothes. The only tee-shirts they had were printed with English phrases!
But one thing was very German:  A whole rack of Lederhosen!  I was tempted to buy some, but the price was a bit steep.

(This is not my picture-- I didn't take any pictures there at all except of the Lederhosen!-- but this is what the town looked like-- so clean and pretty and green!)

Finally we were on our way again, with a quick stop at a grocery store to buy food for Sunday.  We drove all the way across the border to Strasbourg, France, where we slept at the Strasbourg Hilton and a good night's sleep was welcomed by all.