Little did I know how special my 4th Rick Steves B, B, & B Tour (now called Bus Plus) would become. Early in my planning stages my daughter, Bree, decided that she would like to join me. This would be her first Europe trip. THEN my friend from college, Karen, decided she would like to go to Europe for the first time. THEN Dale, another college friend, and veteran tour member, decided to go. With the support and blessing from their spouses they joined me in the pre- and post-trip planning.

The excitement grew during the 10 months that followed but soon our departure date arrived. The first step in our journey began at 3am when Bree (armed with a brand new passport) and I caught the shuttle to San Francisco. Soon we were in the air heading to Frankfurt via Dallas. Our excitement seemed to be contagious as several people around us were soon discussing their travel plans, swapping travel tips and sharing maps.

We arrived 2 hours before Karen and anxiously awaited her arrival at the Frankfurt airport meeting point. Soon we were hugging and laughing - passerbys looked at us strangely while we captured the Kodak moment.

Pumped full of adrenaline we headed straight to the airport train station and caught the high speed train to Cologne. This was to be another "Wow!", especially for my daughter, a safety engineer who inspects at-grade rail crossings. During the entire trip she was constantly looking the rail system and impressed with the infrastructure.