Aarau Switzerland

We spent our days in Aarau Switzerland with the wonderful Linder family.

This is Tobias's BBQ grill. In Tobia's words and accent: "This is sutch a daum nitce grill." It was really nice for us that their English was so good that we could really enjoy each other's sense of humor.

I have to admit that this daum nitce grill made some "daum nitce piedza". I think that our son agrees.

What a wonderful family. The Linders remind me of what I hope our family was like 10 years ago. They are such nice people. Warm, generous and friendly. We miss them already.

Leaving Besancon France

This is some of us with Eric and Ely, our hosts in Besancon.

Our sons had a good time getting all their energy out.

This is my new Bronze friend ala Cobert style.

Besancon was definitely one of the prettiest cities that we have visited this summer. If we were to choose 1 place to spend a year in Europe out of the places we have visited so far this summer this would definitely be it. The people living there were friendly to us and stopped to say hello to each other on the street. People seemed relatively happy with their lives and the city had a good healthy vibe to it. At this point we have spent nearly 2 months traveling and are getting tired of everything being an extra struggle with the unfamiliar. We are currently thinking that when we spend a year somewhere it will be at our condo in Mexico just to keep things easy. Of course, another 2 months from now when we've had a chance to recover a bit, who knows what we'll be thinking.. Our exchange student will definitely get a lot of empathy when she gets homesick and overwhelmed. (been there, done that, but not for a whole school year completely on my own).

Besancon France

Trunnelbach falls

At 5am in the morning it was clear enought to see out the window of our hostel. By 7am when we were up it had mostly clouded over.

We took the sideways elevator up the inside of the mountain to see the falls cheared by the runoff of two glaciers.

It was very impressive. My camera was low on batteries so I have very few shots of it. This is corkscrew falls named for the way the water twists though the rocks at this point.

Yeah! Some sun and a view! Time to leave Switzerland quickly before it starts to rain again!

Through the Alps through the rain

Our hike across the Alps was much as you see here.

Our family had a good attitude dispite the long hike, the dissapointing view, and the pouring rain.

We hiked for 8 miles past misty hillsides and cows with loudly ringing bells.

Until we reached a train station in the middle of a deluge. It was time to call it quits for the day,

Disappointment in the Alps

We arrived in Geneva late in the evening. It is a beautiful but unfortunately I have no pictures to prove it. The next moring we drove to Grindelwald were we took a cable car up into the Alps were we were to walk across a ridge and back down into Grindlewald (around 12 to 14 miles)

Unfortunately the weather was rainy and cloud covered.

Unfortunately this was about as clear as it got. There are huge mountains all around that we could not see. I know that it would have been spectacular if we could have seen it. Instead it was wet.

These carins in the fog looked rather spooky.

Day 1 post race wrapup

At the end of the day the Swiss rider Fabine Cancellara was still in yellow. We atarted the walk back across the country to our hotel.

We were quite incredulous at Monoco's strick anti Schnauzer laws. ;-) (we own 2 miniture schnauzers)

This is dispite the fact that they allow cats.

And bears are welcome. It was time to leave Monoco.

Tour de France Day 1 2009

From our highside location we could just make out the riders as they passed below.

And then they were flying up the hill. I had always been told to choose a hill location to watch the tour. Otherwise the riders pass too quickly. Even at the top of a small hill the riders where quickly here.

And then gone.

The only thing remaining being the caravan strung out for miles afterwards.

TDF Day one pre race

Monoco is nice, it is hot, it is humid, but it is nice. Our son and I walked to the Monte Carlo Casino across town where the grand caravan of sponsors and the race was departing from.

More floats and swag similar to the day before, but this time we were in the right place to get some goodies.

Since we were already across town coming from just across the boarder in France, out son wanted to complete the walk across the country to the oposite boarder going the longer length of the country. We did this an so ended up staged on a highside in France to watch the Tour de France.

We had time for a quick dip in the Med before the riders came by.

Post Prologue

This was as close to the awards ceremony as we could get. Why they announced to the crowd to come to the ceremony is beyond me. There was room for maybe 1/50th of the people trying to attend.

Ah TDF bliss. A table all to myself. Just me, a beer, my 5 sweaty hats and my giant green Peruvian man purse.




The table next to me was still going strong even after 7 hours in the hot sun watching cycling all day. My family did awesome.

TDF Prologue 2009