A yippie red dog on the road nearby (closer than we realized last night) tries to rat us out to its owners but is unheeded and glumly retreats.
Other than the barking, it's a tranquil Sunday morning. Our trail follows the road, meticulously paved with interlocking bricks, uphill past the entrance gate to a "psychosomatisch" hospital and past an unoccupied forest management house, then along some rectilinear logging roads.
In a cold, steady drizzle, we reach the tiny town of Groß Köris. By tradition everything in Germany is closed on Sunday, but we're lucky enough to pass by a gas station, exempt from tradition. It even includes a small bakery, so we indulge in a second breakfast with real coffee and tomato-laden brötchen -- served on real dishes, with the gas station logo! Happy to be out of the rain, we eat slowly and watch the entire population of Groß Köris buy their Sunday brötchen.
Fully warmed, we brave the rain over a little bump to Klein Köris -- yes, Groß Köris was small, but Klein Köris is even smaller, just a few houses
and barking dogs.
Back in the woods, we're shielded from the unrelenting sprinkles by tall pines. We pass another "försthaus" -- still not quite sure what these are supposed to be, some seem like ranger stations, some like logging headquarters, some like hunting cabins, some like little farms, some like mad hermits' ruins. This one looks like a little park, and has delicious wild game sausage for sale, and picnic tables, and drinks -- but closed on Sunday, of course, too bad.
We approach the grand Dahme River. Just a glance through the trees at first, then a full glorious river, flowing north. I realize I've never really seen a river flowing north before! I mean, there was the Havel, but it seemed more like a lake than river. And I've seen the Rio Grande at Big Bend of course, in fact I swam to Mexico and back there, but that's just a temporary wiggle. And of course there's the Hudson when the tide's just right, flowing backwards. But still it's strange to see a normal river just happily flowing north.
River walking is a nice change of pace, and the rain's slowly letting up. Before long we find ourself at our day's end in the little town of Märkisch Buchholz. We take a room at the only hotel, and count ourselves very lucky that there's a tiny pub in town that serves dinner on Sunday.
The trophies on the wall are all for Radball; the proprietor was a DDR champion and his son and grandson also play. It's like soccer but all the players are on bikes. You're not even supposed to kick the ball apparently; you just bump it with the front wheel. He says the Czechs are crazy good.
Anyway, the food here is nice, especially the Klöße (potato dumplings.) We drink and wait out a fast rain storm, then back to the little hotel for a quiet night's sleep.
Cola is saying hi (that's what all the barking is about)
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