Never Enough Fun

The last part of our stay in Switzerland consisted of two trips to the Alps with an R&R day in between.  The first trip was to a town called Kleine Scheidegg (Lauterbrunnen) that was close to one of Ethan’s favorite mountains, the Eiger.  As might be expected, we rode a train about 65 miles southeast to the beginning of mountains, and then we rode a tram up the mountain to Kleine Scheidegg.

It was just as awesome as Ethan claimed it would be. So, we enjoyed the scenery, had lunch, and tried to appreciate.

On our in-between-mountains day, we accompanied Stacie to the recycle center. The Swiss are heavy into recycling. At home, food-related waste is collected to be picked up and taken to a compost facility. Special bags must be purchased for non-recycle garbage (e.g., tissue paper), and that pays for the garbage pick-up each week. All things recyclable are taken to the recycle center and separated into their respective bins (e.g., cardboard, glass, two kinds of plastic, aluminum and non-aluminum cans).

Our second mountain excursion was to a mountain not too far from Luzern. Along with our guide (Ethan), Stacie, Tanner, and Lindsey accompanied us. So, we first road a train to Luzern, then a short trolley ride to a place called Kriens, where we next boarded a gondola for our first leg up the mountain.

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The gondola ride ended at a park/playground with a summer Toboggan run, which the kids rode (with Ethan taking Lindsey).

Following the toboggan ride, Stacie and Lindsey returned home and the remaining four of us rode a cable car to the top, which included a resort with hotel and food services at 7000 ft. There were also many hiking trails.

After lunch and taking in as much scenery as we could hold, we rode the world’s steepest (up to 46% grades) cog-wheel railroad down the mountain to the end of lake Luzern.

At lake Luzern, we got a boat ride back to Luzern where we caught the train back to Zug.

Early next morning, we began the long ride home (Zurich to Paris and Paris to Salt Lake City).

We had a marvelous Switzerland experience, thanks to Ethan and Stacie taking such good care of us, guiding us to interesting places and working so hard to make us comfortable.  Since they live in the German-speaking part of the country, things become quite challenging because of the language.  Interestingly, however, there is a fair amount of English (e.g., announcements on trains and buses and ads in stores).  To make certain we boarded the correct train from the Zurich airport, Ethan met us there and also guided us to the correct bus to their apartment, where we arrived at approximately 9:00 p.m. on Friday.  They live in the town of Zug, approximately 30 miles south of Zurich.

Tanner and Lindsey attend an international school, which was holding a fair our first day there, so we attended it in the morning until lunch.  After lunch, Stacie stayed to help with the fair, while Ethan and we took the children to an animal park/petting zoo.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant up on a mountain close to town, which required us to ride a cog-wheel train up to the restaurant. The food was excellent, as one might expect.
On Sunday, we attended church in Luzern, about a half hour ride by car. However, because their car wasn’t large enough for all six of us, Ethan took the train. Since the church service was in German, we were able to have some of it translated into English by LDS missionaries.
On Monday we and Stacie first walked to downtown Zug (about 20 minutes) and just looked around.



We had lunch with Ethan by his office, and then for the afternoon, we went back to Luzern to do more “looking around.”
Along with some interesting architecture, we saw a famous and old covered bridge that was decorated with original artwork. Unfortunately, there was a fire on the bridge a few years ago, and some of the art was lost.

We had a great time in Ireland. Fortunately, Jed and Chelsey were able to accompany us so Jed could do all the left-hand driving
and a myriad of other details, which he worked out with Geri. Thus, I could just relax and try to enjoy, especially on the days I wasn’t feeling all that great.

At the recommendation of my cousin Marty Reeder (who spent two years in Ireland), we flew into Shannon and spent our time exploring the West,       Southwest, and South. First, we went to Galway, which is about half way up (north) the west coast.  There we stayed in a bed and breakfast (B&B),   close to Galway Bay.  

After a full Irish breakfast the next morning, we headed south toward County Kerry, where we had rented a cottage in the little town of Glenbeigh as a base of operations for the next three days.  On the way south we explored  the Burren, a remote, desolate looking, moonscape area sprinkled with old rock forts and stone age burial sites.

Further down (south) the coast are some well-known sheer cliffs known as the Cliffs of Mohr.  These cliffs are 600-700 feet above the Atlantic.  Because there have been a number of people who have died by venturing too close to the edge in high winds, the government has installed fences to prevent folks from doing so.

We arrived at our cottage rather late in the evening, and since we were all suffering from jet lag, we didn’t get out until after noon the next day on which we decided to explore the Dingle Penninsula, which was just north of us. Some interesting things there were ring stone forts consisting of a circular stone wall enclosing a group of beehive huts, essentially stone igloos, which provided shelter for small families from 1,000 B.C. to as late as 1200 A.D.

An interesting thing about these stone structures and many remaining fences is that the stones were used for structures and fences without the aid of mortar, and they are still standing today. Today the fences are covered with plants so it is not obvious from a distance that they are built of stone. But the hillsides are divided into fairly small fields bordered by these stone fences.

Sadly, we were now halfway through our Ireland Adventure.

Trip couldn’t have been better. Lucked out with the nicest Compfort Inn I’ve seen for $99 in Gathersburg, MD — great breakfast and only a 15 minute walk from the Metro. Weather was perfect — cool, but no rain. Began with three days seeing all the tourist things in DC. Some highlights worthy of photos (we went to all the museums) were:

Washington monument

Lincoln Memorial

Inside the Memorial is pretty plain, but looking up at the statue, just couldn’t help thinking, “Here is a great man.”

Arlington Cemetery

The guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Changes evey 30 minutes in a very formal ceremony. In between, these guys march back and forth about every 5 minutes, again very stiff and formally.

Drove down to Bob’s for the weekend and on the way back we stopped at Fredricksburg, site of one of the big Civil WarBattles and where some 2000 Union soldiers are buried (13,000 casualties to 5000 for the Confederates, who were clear winners).

Union General Burnside kept sending wave after wave of Union soldiers across a large open field against Confederate soldiers with rifles and cannons behind a wall. Before he finally called it off, the Union soldiers were piled three deep.

On the way back, we also stopped at Mt. Vernon, estate of George Washington. Lot’s to see, but we didn’t have enough time, so we’ll definitely plan to give it more time another trip.

So, now on to the big bike adventure on the Blueridge Parkway for which Larry has been training all summer. It starts about 80 miles west of DC in a place called Front Royal, VA. So, here we are:

(my friend Alan and I) ready to go

with our trusty support crew cheering us on.

The first 20 miles had us climbing 3000 ft, but it really wasn’t bad, given that I’d been training all summer doing 2800 ft in 10 miles. So, here we are at lunch time, feeling pretty good.

Did about 50 miles a day, which was about all we wanted. But, when ya got this kind of stuff:

consantly overlooking the Shenandoah valley, life can’t be too hard, can it?. Meanhile, as we’re rolling up the pavement, out support team is

playing with some new friends and

getting some much needed rest from the hard work of support (:-}.

We rode W,Th,F (50 miles each day) and decided to take Sat morning to see some stuff around Lexington, VA (e.g., Stonewall Jackson Museum,

campus of Virginia Military Institute,

and then the Parkinsons (our friends) drove down to see their daughter in Chaple Hill, NC, coming back on Sunday. Meanwhile, we drove over to Charlottesville, went to Church, and then out to Thomas Jefferson’s Estate, Montecello.

Very beautiful grounds, including a hill, overlooking his estate and home (the white structure in the middle),

and the home itself (which is what we’re looking at).  We didn’t remember this, but this back view of Jefferson’s home is on  one side of a nickel.

Biked again on Monday down to Roanoke, which gave us just over 200 miles, where we decided to give it up and spend some more time enjoying some of the surrounding attractions.

Lest some of you think, “Well, 200 miles in four days is nothing,” according to the Shenandoah National Park map, we climbed a total of 20,646 feet in those four days. Glad I had trained as much as I had (guestimate I spent well over a hundred hours on my bike before the trip).  I became very intimate with the Alpine loop in American Fork Canyon, just 2.5 miles from our house.

On Tues we drove all the way back up (north) to Antietam National Battlefield (another Civil War battleground), because we had to take our rented bikes back to Leesburg. Antietam was another very sobering place. It remains the largest single day loss of American solders in US history (total of 23,000 soldiers killed on both sides). It resulted in a stalemate, but was considered a Union victory, because it stopped Lee’s advance toward Washington. This is a shot of the cemetery where most of those solders are buried.

All around, don’t know how we could have had a better trip.