Category Archives: Food Scientist

Arriving in Luxembourg, helpful sales ladies, and picking up Cheddar, at last.

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family with their luggage standing by their orange camper

May 18, Saturday – Arrival Day

Finally arrived in Luxembourg at 8:30 am, Luxembourg time. We did stop in Iceland for 30 minutes. The airport a real tourist trap all though the prices in the tax free shop looked good, did not buy anything. I had set it up with the Volkswagen dealer in Luxembourg to meet us at the plane and take us to the Holiday Inn and then pick up the camper. Since we were many hours late in arriving no one showed up to pick us up? Everyone was very tired-including me! Jet lag affected all of us. The lady at the auto agency booth was into a big argument with a French woman returning a car when we found the agency. We were supposed to check with her about the person from Volkswagen. I did after she and the French woman finished hollering at each other. She told me that the man from Auto, Martin Loesch was expecting us yesterday. She called someone and then I talked to him, he indicated that he would pick us up at the Holiday Inn at 11 am. So we took a taxi to the Holiday Inn. Registered at a typical Holiday Inn, the pool was not functioning. Everyone upset about no pool! Everyone very tired and went to sleep. I showered and shaved and waited for the man from the Volkswagen agency. He arrived at 11 am as promised. He was very nice and helpful. We went to the agency and I picked up the camper. The delivery was uneventful but no international registration papers, which we were supposed to have with us. We made arrangements to have them sent to us in Amsterdam.

What a long day! The first time we ever experienced no night, 24 hours without darkness, a disturbing experience-nobody wanted to sleep, but they did!

I drove back to the Holiday Inn about 2 pm, finally got everyone awake and then we had a lousy lunch at the motel. We then piled into the camper and headed down town to find a camping store to pick up needed equipment. The car man recommended a camping store “Stenbergs”. Couldn’t find it but stumbled onto one after driving around, parking and walking. Purchased cooking equipment and a one-burner stove for extra use until can get ours in the camper hooked up. The sales lady at the store insisted that we get saucers with the cups. Every once in a while she would mention, “having to buy saucers”. Marsha liked the butter dish.  We walked back to the camper and discovered a street carnival. We all had sauerkraut and bratwurst for dinner. Found “Stenbergs”, but it was closed. Then we discovered that we were only parked three blocks away! We turned the wrong way when we left the parking lot.

We returned to the motel, a tired bunch. Palmer and Esther unbelievably overtired and could not get to sleep but they finally did. Paul and Theresa slept well as did everyone else when we finally got to sleep – what a long day!

Good night.

An Introduction

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My dad was a consummate scientist. He wrote everything down with the idea that information has value. When he traveled, he kept a journal of all the things he did on that trip. 40 some years later, I feel incredibly lucky that dad did this. Our trip, which looms large in my childhood, was recorded for us to remember. A few years ago, he printed out his diary in book form and gave us all a copy for Christmas. Following is the introduction he wrote to us. Thank you Fad, we love you.

(Aside from changing it from all caps, changing my siblings names, and a few spacing issues for readability, I have not changed the text from the original.)

Introduction

This book is nothing more than my diary of our time camping through Europe. I have put it together in the hopes that you will enjoy it while recalling some of the things that we did as a family on this trip. This trip was a long time dream of mine. When I was a child other countries, other parts of the USA, the other states and sights fascinated me. I wondered about my heritage. Where did my father come from? Were my mother’s parents from the same area?

I was born in California in a small town full of ethnic groups, Italians, Portuguese, Mexicans, English, Germans, Orientals and others: a real melting pot. When we moved to Grants Pass I encountered just the opposite, there was not the mix of ethnic groups that we had in Gilroy. For a short time, I felt that the Zottola’s were the only Italians in the town. It was all most an all “WASP”* community. I thought this was strange but soon forgot about it. As I grew up in Southern Oregon, I traveled very little. Family trips consisted of trips in the car to Crescent City to see Uncle Ernie, his family and the cheese factory. For a time we also traveled to Roseburg to visit the small cheese factory located there and operated by a friend of my father. Both of these trips required travel though the mountains surrounding Grants Pass on very curvy roads. As a result the trips were usually associated with carsickness and a couple of stops to throw up. I wondered if all roads were as curvy as these roads and longed for a straight road where carsickness did not occur. I think I was about 12 or 13 years old before I rode in a car on a straight road. I took a trip to Portland with my brother Palmer and one of his girl friends. The straight roads we encounter once we got past Roseburg overwhelmed me. During World War II travel by car was severely restricted because gasoline was rationed and long trips could only be taken if it was an emergency. So for many years, my world consisted of Grants Pass and the mountains that surrounded it.

*WASP stands for “white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant.

This changed dramatically when I left home to go to Oregon State in the fall of 1950. I met a lot of new people from many parts of Oregon, from many other states and from other parts of the world. The opportunity to met people from so many different places increased my interest in traveling out of Oregon. When I graduated from Oregon State in 1954, I felt obligated to return to Grants Pass to work for my Father, which I did. Most of my friends from OSU were in the service and ended up spending a lot of time in Europe as part of the Army in Europe. I envied them and their seeing Europe and enjoying the many sights and pleasure of these countries. I wondered if I would ever have an opportunity to see Europe and visit the birth place of my Father.

About this time I vowed that if I ever got married and had children that they would have the opportunities to do things that I could not do when I was a child. This trip was one of the things that I wanted to do with my family. And we did it!

It didn’t take me long to figure out that working in a family business was not for me. While at Oregon State the life of a college professor intrigued me so I set my objectives to become one. I returned to OSU the fall of 1956 to start graduate studies to begin my quest to become a professor. One of the intriguing things about being a Professor is that I would have opportunities to travel to other places including overseas. I thought that I would be able to finally see Europe and other foreign countries.

It took me 10 years to attain my goal of becoming a Professor at a University. I was hired in 1966 and returned to be a member of the University of Minnesota faculty where I had obtained by Doctorate. Our first trip overseas was in 1969. We spent 4 months in Venezuela. Three years later, fall of 1972, your mother and I went to Europe. Finally I made it! This trip increased my desire to see more of Europe. Several of the things we saw and did on this trip provided the impetus and the purpose to return. Return we did in 1974. The following story is the result of that trip. Enjoy it and remember the good times we had as a family.

Love,

Father, Dad, Fad and hey you!

One further note:

I decided to call this adventure, “Travels with Cheddar”. Camping in Europe is too mundane and does not do justice to what we accomplished. I named the VW camper “Cheddar” because the color is close to the color of Cheddar Cheese. The color is probably closer to that of “Double Gloucester” but travels with double gloucester as a title did not appeal to me. Thus the name!