No Luck Today

Still waiting.
The chaos on the east coast in the wake of hurricane Sandy has also impacted traffic moving out of Ramstein. Many flights for Baltimore, Charleston, Dover, etc. have been cancelled or rescheduled. Nothing today but for one flight to Birmingham, Alabama, which only took 10 duty passengers. We made the roll call but it was no surprise when we didn't even come close.

The good news is that we then had the rest of the day free, and since it was a sunny autumn day here we opted for a day out to explore some of the local area. Caught a taxi to the nearby town of Landstuhl where there was an old 12th century castle.

Looking up at the ramparts of Schloss Nanstein.

The knight who used to live here is memorialized with this 16th century statue. Note the cross on the front of his tunic, indicating that he was about to embark on a crusade to the holy land. When returning the knights moved the cross to the back of their tunics. 

There was a nice little cafe right next to the castle where we stopped in for lunch. Had Sauerbraten while sitting next to a warming fire and, best of all, a pint of the local brew...which went down REAL easy.

All in all it was a very enjoyable "day out".

Looks like they're going to try to dig into the backlog of flights starting tomorrow, but unfortunately there's nothing for us on the board until Friday morning. The good news is that there are several flights that day, including two to McChord (wouldn't that be nice), but right now it's way too early to have any idea how many seats may be available. So...planning to get up early and check the schedule in the AM, then probably walk into Ramstein village to check it out and maybe grab some lunch before heading back to the hotel. First roll call Friday morning is 0400, so the plan is to bank some sleep in anticipation of a loooong day that day.