Excitement all 'Round

 Well, Campers...It's been an excellent week at Rancho Juvat this past seven or so days. Even after a long return from our Wine Cruise down the Danube river with our Winemaker and Winedrinker friends last week.  All ramifications from a broken British Airways jet in Budapest and running through subsequent airports were cured with a 16 hour sleep session.  We have now reset our nocturnal clocks to coincide with the sun's orbit.  

Re: The Cruise, we got on the boat at Vilshofen an der Donau and cruised to Budapest.  That involved 7 Days, 3 oops 4 Countries (seems I forgot the Czech Republic in my list of Germany, Austria and Hungary), beautiful scenery, good food and great wine.  HIGHLY recommend AMAWaterways River cruises.

Yes, Beans, that's unpaid advertisement.   

British Airways was a bit of a disappointment, but they did have one feature I liked, and for some reason, used virtually the entire flight.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make it do an aileron roll.  

Rats!

Got to Munich and met up with our van driver and were off to meet the boat.

As one can see, this isn't an ultra large ocean liner.  It holds a max of 162 passengers (~120 on this trip, 28 of whom were confirmed Texan wine consumers, the rest would be converted) so the atmosphere on board was quite pleasant.

Set sail and saw quite a few interesting sites.

Interesting photography courtesy of our new Friend, Nuncio Previtera.  I think it's a cool shot.

The following morning we got our wine business out of the way with our first wine tasting.  Open to all passengers, it went quite well with a lot of comments along two lines.

1. "I didn't know they made wine in Texas."

2. "Wow, this is very good wine."

Gary, the winemaker.  Mrs. J is ready for the toast

 So...Mission Accomplished.

Lots more sites to be seen as we got further south. One of the more interesting, historically, was this castle.

This castle was where King Richard I (AKA Richard the Lionheart) was imprisoned on his way home from the Crusades.  It is also the location where I updated my understanding of the difference between the word "Can" and "May".  There was a Hiking tour option with a hike up to the Castle itself.  "May" implies permission, "Can" implies ability.  

No, I didn't visit it.

Stopped at a very old abbey and inspected their wine cellar.

Did I mention "Very Old"? No, they wouldn't allow us to taste it.  (I was ok with that.)

It did have a very nice Chapel though.

So early on in the cruise, we're back on board after an exhausting day exploring castles and drinking wine and I'm sitting at a table with one of the other guys from Mrs. J's group.  Doing the usual "get to know you" routines and I mentioned that I'd been a pilot in the Air Force.  He said that so had he.  I asked the usual questions assigned to that "get to know you" track. You know..."What did you fly?" He said "F-4's"  Well, the conversation got fun after that.  I asked where he'd gone to Pilot Training.  He said "Laughlin".

Talk about coincidence.  So had I, but about 5 years before him.  Meanwhile, one of the other guys on the tour was sitting at a table nearby.  He leaned over and said he'd gone through Laughlin also.  He'd gone through a couple of years later than my new friend and had then flown C-130's in the Guard.  I asked my F-4 friend when he'd gone to Lead-In and which squadron.  He'd said 1985 and the 435TFTS.  Talk about Coincidence Squared.  I was an IP in that squadron at that time.  There's a good probability I'd flown with him.  The three of us had a great time telling flying stories (commonly referred to by mere mortals as "Tall Tales").

But it was a good time.

This picture was courtesy of Milly Young, the F-4 Driver's better half.  She showed it to me and I knew it had to put it in the post. Thanks Milly.

Per Beans Request, Panorama of Budapest taken from the Castle on the Buda Side.

On a different subject, it's been a while since I've updated Miss B's status.   Bottom Line, Up Front.  She's doing well and making progress.  The pulmonologist has given permission to start weaning her off supplemental oxygen and she's handling the reduction quite well

She also passed a couple of significant milestones this past week.  First, she's gone over 12 lbs and the fact that she's putting on weight is a very good sign. Another good sign is this.

She's able to sit up (for a short period) by herself.  You GO, Girl!

On a final note, I had to run to Austin yesterday for a Top Secret Mission.  Secrecy had to be maintained until the forces were successfully redeployed and the target maneuvered into the proper setting. 

 

Mrs J was able to distract LJW by taking her shopping for Baby Stuff.

Apparently, Little Juvat was able to align the gravitational forces of the Moon, Sun, Jupiter and Mars and teleport himself from Honk Honk to Texas.  A little quick thinking and a misdirecting comment by yours truly of LJW while He and I were RTB'ing from Austin kept the game afoot and...

Voila'!  A little Family getting re-acquainted time for a week.

Dad and Miss B reintroducing themselves.

Life is Great!  Peace out y'all!