Easter Break Day 1

Having just woken up from the most luxurious nap, I decided it would be a good time to start writing about our trip. Hopefully, I can keep up with it, because that would really remove those feelings of being overwhelmed at the end of a vacation.
Please bear with me though with the pictures, I don't have a photo editor on this computer, so I may just put a few pictures up for right now.

Our original plan was to leave work at 3:15 and head out immediately. We got sidetracked trying to track down a prescription for me, which never got filled, but resulted in our getting on the road at 5:00 instead. It was a rather bleak outlook when we turned on the radio, evidently all of Germany was headed south for Easter. Joern's boss' niece, who lives in Switzerland, was also asking Joern for help with her computer. Turned out that she lives in the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere town we were going to drive through. Miles and miles of traffic were all over all of the roads. Joern decided to drive on the back roads through Germany, and in 45 minutes, we were already over the Swiss border.
Again, the traffic outlook was pretty bleak when we crossed the border. Switzerland requires you to purchase a Vignette, a pass that you stick on your windshield, in order to drive on their highways. The man who sold us our Vignette told us that we would be losing at least 4 hours to traffic to go through the St. Gotthard tunnel. Oy! It was 6 pm and we planned on getting in around 12:30 am, if this was the case, we would be looking at arriving between 3:30 and 4:30 am! Yikes!
Ever optimistic and resourceful Joern had already planned a route that would take us off the highways for the majority of the trip. Turns out that the ride through what Joern likes to call "Sticksville" is incredibly beautiful!