The Epic Road Trip – Day 1

When I decided to return to California this spring, I started listing all the relatives and friends that I “had” to see. The list grew and grew. Then my sister retired and all of a sudden it became the Sister’s Epic Road Trip.
 
Two loops – one North and one South – trying to cram in as many relatives and friends as possible.

Monday the 25^th we set off. 
 

Traveling in style, chauffeured by my sister

Monday to Sunday and only a piece of luggage per person!

What to say, how many photos with which to bore my faithful readers. Shortly: day one saw us visiting first a bed-ridden cousin, then spending the night with another cousin.
Following are sights seen along the way – some for which one needed to rub one’s eyes!

Yes - a "tiny house" just being pulled down the road.

Great traveling weather - and this is sunny California

 

Best coffee yet, but since it was an Italian place just what I would expect!

On being Ernest…

I mean sociable

Coffee with my buddies at the usual spot;

Cleaned the car as I was planning on being “taxi”;

Coffee with my neighbor;

Lunch home alone (it does happen!);

Coffee, pear pie, chocolate mousse, champagne

with my friends from over 30 years ago;

Then the icing on the cake – and ever so unsociable –

A rising moon; not quite full yet, but ever so beautiful.

No need to be earnest or Ernest.

December 12, 2016 - rising moon.

My inspiration for the day

Or should I say inspirations as there were many.

Sometimes we simply need to sit back and enjoy life; enjoy what we come across. Today was one of those days.

I set off to the new tearoom for breakfast, as is my want on the weekends, not knowing if M would join me (we often do have coffee together of a Saturday morning, but her husband was having the company’s yearly dinner last night and she might need to sleep in) or not.

I ordered a drink of coffee and milk that here in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, is called a “turned over” or “tipped upside down” and lacking my usual sandwich settled for a roll of grains with one pat of butter. Lovely way to start the day even if I was on my own.

Then it was pick up the mail and make a trip to the grocery store in anticipation of baking Christmas cakes and cookies. Looked at tins, but prevented myself from accruing any more as I certainly have enough for this year’s giveaways (they were very tempting though so there is no guarantee that I might not crack later in the week).

Lunch was leftovers after I un-thawed the upstairs freezer (see, feeling productive always improves the mood), then I had time – and the need – for a “pause” (my husband always refused to call them naps or siestas and he was right).

Then it was off into town for a lady’s coffee at I’s house: an occasion never to be missed – I would even return early should I be elsewhere as she is from Vienna and makes and bakes everything herself. I didn’t care to interrupt the feeling of friendship and joy as we first enjoyed a glass of champagne followed by canapés of all sorts, then coffee or tea and home-made strudel and a nut cake specific to Vienna covered in chocolate.

not my friends - her's was even better!

In amongst all that there were beautiful views of the Jet d’Eau – I got plenty of inspiration for continued enjoyment of life.

Dec.10 around 15:30

Dec. 10 around 19:30 Blue for the UN's day of Human Rights

Breakfast reflections

Everyone is unique or…

The anomaly of a human being.                       

From the minute we’re born we depart the path of any one else in the world. Everyone’s experience is unique made up of family traditions, moves, chosen experiences or things that happen to us. Even twins no longer share every thing as they did in the womb – and they come closest to being similar.

Why this thought?

Breakfast this morning: there I was sitting in my kitchen in a French-speaking area of a country to which I possess the nationality even if I wasn’t born here.

The radio station – although Swiss – was tuned to a pop station and played mainly English songs, including one of my all-time favorites: “A Bridge over Troubled Waters” in its’ original version by Simon and Garfunkel. My table – bought locally but from a certain Swedish company, had place mats probably made in China and an old cut-glass vase from Germany holding tulips from Holland. I enjoyed peanut butter – so very American – and blueberry jam from the “Jam Lady” in the Swiss alps. I also had a slice of Italian Panetone received from good friends at Christmas (this is a wonder bread as it keeps) on a – for want of better words – sandwich board (flat wooden or plastic board that replaces a dish) bought in Germany. Coffee was “French press” Ethiopian – brought back from Addis Ababa by my older son just Friday.

Just that short 20-minute snippet of time belonged only to me – no one else in the world will ever exactly replicate it – the marvel of a human being and one in which we should all rejoice.

Guest Editor Scooby-Doo 3

Ah – lunch was Mexican and good even if not exactly the Tex-Mex of my youth, so why did my hostess think that one measly yogurt for supper was a meal? I mean, really, I need sustenance.

Especially in light of the short night: that storm they had foreseen for late afternoon managed to announce its booming presence – at 4:30 a.m. totally interrupting my beauty sleep.

That, of course, led my hostess to think that I could perhaps benefit from a coffee tasting – in spite of what my mistress had told her (that I couldn’t hold my coffee and would need to be within a 3-foot radius of the facilities all day long!). Some people just refuse to understand certain realities. Good thing she had a husband and a mother who took anti-diuretics and knows where every toilet is in Geneva or any other spot where she spends any amount of time.

Decisions, decisions, cup? coffee?

 

As the weather man was correct, for once, in his predictions that there would be 100% chance of rain, we didn’t move much. What he didn’t say was that it would be for 100% of the day!  My hostess, wishing to spare me I suppose (as I had neither winter jacket nor rain equipment) left me to my own devices, i.e. a nap, and went down to Martigny for coffee and a look around. She returned pronto as all the tourists were shopping and she doesn’t do crowds.

Ah the comforts of home.

Weather wise and just to impress upon you the variations that we deal with here in the Swiss Alps: when we arrived Saturday afternoon it was 32° C on the car thermometer; today when she went to the valley it was 12°C (90°F and 54°F approx.). And then we wonder why we are tired?

Well tomorrow is another day – we enjoyed the break in the weather – and the sun will probably be out again. I could really get used to this “vacationing” thing.

Portents

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One has to wonder how the day is going to go when one gets up, turns on the coffee machine, makes coffee, sits down to breakfast, cogitates on why the coffee isn't any good - yet still drinks half the cup before realizing that one never put a coffee capsule in...

As it was, I paid particular attention to every step I took, how I used knives, the way I drove and, perhaps miraculously, avoided all major catastrophes.

Even did something for the first time: attended the opening of an exhibition at the Giannada Museum in Martigny: Modigliani and the “Parisian School”.

www.giannada.ch

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So, barring any other major unforeseeable event in between now and my bed in 3 hours, I should have survived the day making this morning's omen happily a non-event.