Laowai

After the via ferrata I needed a rest day. Brian headed out for a really long bike ride. He turns on the location thingy on his phone so I can see where he is (makes me less nervous). Every time I checked on him he had just gone over another mountain pass. He misses biking in the mountains so much so it was a good day for him.

Meanwhile, I did some more knitting and the girls and I wandered around the charming little town of Andermatt.

The Swiss know how to do window boxes.

Switzerland is mostly classy and then you come across something like this. He he he. What is going on???

As I was crawling up this mountain, following Bea, I thought about how when your kids are little you ask them to do difficult things and now my kid has grown big and she's asking me to do something difficult. 

Bea really wanted to do a Via Ferrata which is a climbing route with steel fixtures and cables that you clip into using climbing gear. It gives the feeling of being a rock climber but there are already fixed foot holds and ladders attached to the rock. There's our approximate 500 meter route above. It took us about 2 hours.

We started the day watching some helicopter forestry. We watched this helicopter over and over – picking up a tree on one side of the valley and placing it gently on the other side of the valley. So Swiss!

Here we are just at the beginning of the Via Ferrata. I was nervous but once I got started it wasn't really that hard. You hardly have to put a foot anywhere but on a pre-made foothold so that makes it easier. And of course your harness is always clipped onto a safety cable. I did avoid looking around and down at a couple particularly scary spots.

Almost to the top.

I'm so glad I did this with Bea. It was a challenge but the views were amazing and Bea was so happy. She was in her element. 

We had a longish walk down the other side of the mountain.

Meanwhile Brian and Claire were doing a somewhat less scary hike.

On our second day we took a long hike to the Gotthard pass. 

The Gotthard Pass is a historically important connection between north and south Europe. The famous road is filled with cyclists, motorcycles and all kids of interesting cars. You can even take an old timey horse drawn carriage over the pass. If you want to see some fancy cars – old and new – just watch that road. We ate a picnic lunch by this big structure and we couldn't figure out what it was; until Bea looked at Google maps and found that it's an air shaft for the Gotthard Tunnel. The tunnel, opened in 2016, is the longest and deepest tunnel in the world. Kind of crazy to think of the tunnel down deep below our feet.

The pass crosses from the canton of Uri to the canton of Ticino

Here's Bea and Brian at the top of the pass. I, unfortunately, got overly tired and so Claire and I turned back about an hour from the top. 

It felt so nice to be back in Switzerland. Like going home. We stayed in a town called Andermatt – it's way up high in the mountains and it is surrounded by famous alpine passes. Here are some photos from our first day there.

Claire caught a nap on the train – and then we made a stop at the chocolate aisle of the grocery store.

Bea's friend Brady came from Zurich and we took a little walk to the famous Schöllenen Gorge and it's bridges.

Brian was happy to go for a bike ride.

And I was happy to do some knitting.

Later we explored the town and had a fondue dinner.

It's always nice to come home. I was so pleased to be back in my garden after our vacation. I immediately started puttering and inspecting all my plants.

I picked a couple bouquets of feverfew and bachelor buttons.

My peas were completely overgrown and flopped over. The peas were mostly overgrown (sad). I decided to pick them and try shucking them even though they are the snap pea type. 

And they were fine – tasty in spaghetti carbonara.

Here's the result of my puttering. After I groomed my potted plants I thought these compost-bound bits were pretty.

The morning after we got back I went to pick strawberries. I had been unreasonably worried that I would miss the strawberry season this year.

Today I resumed my weekly walks at the Chicago Botanic Garden. So fun to see how much everything has grown and changed.

Are these called bunny tails? If they're not, they should be.

I'm sort of bad at adjusting to local time when we travel. It's a pain in the butt during vacation on those first few days in Europe. But when we get home I secretly don't mind it. I enjoy getting up at 4:45 and sitting outside. I love hearing the birds being their most chatty right before the sun comes up. I love the feeling of being wrapping up in a blanket when it's chilly outside. And I know I'm lucky that I don't have the pressure of being functional (a job) when the afternoon comes and I'm ready for a nap.

We went away to Switzerland and to Norway and I have so many photos to sort through. Here's Brian – a quintissential Swiss scene where mountains and cows go together. I captured him and he captured the cow.

I'll get the rest of our photos sorted soon.

We're gearing up for a vacation to Switzerland and Norway. Bea wants to bring the new drone along and decided she needed to sew a custom little bag for it. 

I helped her figure it out and it was not easy! But she has worked really hard and look, it turned out great. Here's link to a video Bea and Brian made the first time they used the drone.

Little bouquets from my garden are all I need.

The strawberries that grow around the house are so cute. They're not good for eating just a sweet ground cover that the bees and bunnies also enjoy.

Brian's company offered free tickets to Six Flags again so we made a quick trip.

I've started a new knitting project – a cotton short sleeve sweater. Seems like the beginning of a project is often the hardest part. The most complicated shaping happens at the top of the sweater. But I am super proud that I now know how to turn this:

into this:

And just a couple more shots from the botanic garden this morning.  

Often when I go in the morning there is carillonneur (just learned that word) playing. It's so pleasant – sometimes I get up close on the hill behind the carillon. The person sits in a little glass box under the bells to play and today I noticed he used his bare feet and his hands to control all the bells.

Here are the girls heading off for their last day of school. 

And another biking photo – Brian biking home from Yerkes Observatory a couple weeks ago.

Yay summer!

Over the weekend we took a field trip to a fascinating place called the Yerkes Observatory. 

The observatory houses the world's largest refracting telescope. It was build in 1895 and it became a super influential place full of a who's who of the world of astronomy. I didn't recognize most of the famous scientists names (other than Hubble and Carl Sagan) but these people were the first to photograph space and they discovered so many amazing things that I really don't understand (ha). It's even described as the birthplace of astrophysics and Albert Einstein visited on his first trip to the US. It's all housed in an amazingly ornate building and it's situated a couple hours north of Chicago. 

Until just a few years ago the whole place was closed to the public. It was handed from The University of Chicago to a non-profit organization. Apparently if you want to study space today you actually go to space or you go to a tall mountain with lots of clear skies. So the organization been working hard to restore the building as well as the telescope and to reinvent it as a place for the public. 

They have some nice old windows too.

Here's the telescope – the whole floor goes up and down so you can get close to where you look through the telescope.

Here's a science desk (rather Wes Anderson looking)

Old artifacts and books and equipment on display.

The scientists lived in dorm areas in the observatory as well as cottages that surround it. The tour guide pointed out that the dorms were located where the little porthole windows are on he upper level of the the building. Since the work was often done at night the scientist would sleep in the daytime and the little windows could be closed off to block the sun.

I'm so glad we visited this beautiful place!

My favorite thing lately is to get outside early in the morning. Here's where I have my coffee most days. I'm enjoying my garden so much!

 

Here's the vege patch. Peas. green beans, tomatoes, one bell pepper, lettuce and some herbs. It looks polka dot because our maple tree is dropping a ton of seeds this year.

Lettuce harvest.

The front yard.

Had to hack away the catmint so it wasn't all over the driveway and it made a big fat bouquet.

This is my Bradbury Monarda (below) about to bloom. It blooms earlier than the other bee balms and it's much shorter too. Love it.

My false indigo looking tall.

My nasturtiums are really taking off this year. I don't even mind if they don't make flowers I love the leaves so much.

One bachelor button bloom.