KallMeKris

Like, funny to think about.

And the Stasi monitored these clubs so obsessively that their declassified files on the hobbyists reportedly filled an entire room from floor to ceiling.

So for East Germans, the American West represented everything the GDR was not.

Freedom, vastness, and the romance of just open space.

And growing up behind a wall, you learned what a horizon looked like from photographs and films and novels set in a country you were forbidden to visit.

So after reunification, actually going there wasn't just a vacation, it was the fulfillment of something that had been deferred for an entire generation.

and Egbert had talked about the trip with colleagues at work, and he was excited in the particular way that planners get excited.

He had thought about it very carefully, built out a schedule, and was looking forward to executing it.

So they flew into Los Angeles on July 8th, 1996, and the return flight to Dresden was booked for July 27th, 1996.

19 days to cover a lot of ground.

The itinerary they had put together was ambitious, but not unreasonably so for a family accustomed to European travel, where distances between major landmarks tend to be shorter and the infrastructure between them is a lot denser.

So they plan to spend time in San Clement, a coastal town about an hour south of Los Angeles before heading east to Las Vegas.

And then from Las Vegas, the plan was to loop back west through Death Valley and then north through Yosemite National Park before returning to LA in time for their flight.

So on paper,

That worked.

And where it started to come apart was in the details.

And the first problem was financial.

Because before leaving Germany, Egbert had arranged for his bank in Dresden to wire $1,500 to a Bank of America branch in San Clement.

A fairly standard procedure for international travel at the time.

But the transfer was set to the wrong location.