Friday, June 2 – Ulm

Our day began with a mini-disaster. Helmut called and asked for me while I was in the shower. As soon as I was decent, I went down to see him and found him laying on the floor of his room, incapacitated by severe back pain. He said that he had gone to bed with a sore back that had become worse overnight. While in the shower, his back had gone into spasm, so that it took him 15-20 minutes just to get to the phone and call me. He had called for an ambulance and he had called his company to send another driver, likely in 2-3 hours.

We watched as the ambulance took him away at about 8 a.m. and decided to kill some time by going to a nearby mall for some breakfast. We gathered Helmut’s possessions, loaded them onto the bus, and planned to be back by 10 to see how things worked out.

A little before 10:30, who should walk in but Helmut. They had taken an X-ray, given him a shot of pain killer and some chiropractic treatment, and suggested that he stay for 10 days. Meanwhile, he had learned via his cell phone, that the bus company was unable to arrange another driver. So, he came back to us. We were happy to have him back as we have become quite fond of him and he has become quite interested in our mission. We admonished him to let us do all his lifting. He will take it easy for the next few days as we are staying put in Ulm. He will self-assess how he feels on Sunday morning and we must assess the risk of continuing with him.

With Helmut back at the helm, we were off to Tuebingen for a guided tour of the old university town, constructed tin 1477 and still in use. Our guide was Elisabeth Tielsch.















From there we drove to Ulm, our home for the next couple of days. Our hotel is within walking distance of everything we wanted to see. We made a short tour and had another excellent German meal. We have to stop eating like this. Later, several of us headed out to a Laundromat. The Fritz’s and Dornstauders got the jump on us by spending half the night doing laundry in Pforzheim.