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Published: September 26th 2011
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We left big city life for the natural beauty of the Swiss Alps. Here, our tent came in handy, but we quickly realized that it was not water proof. On a couple occasions, we had to get up in the middle of the night after the rain had slowed to take all of our luggage, sleeping bags, pillows, and gifts out of the tent. Next, we had to squeegee the sleeping bags and pillows out and dump the water out of our tent. On the nights it didn’t rain, we slept well despite the fact that we could see glaciers when we peaked out of the tent and didn’t really have any winter clothes. At least I didn’t have any winter clothes because Ali had dressed in all of hers and then used mine as extra blankets. When I would argue, she said “well then let’s go shopping for some nice, expensive Swiss winter clothes or stay at the five-star hotel up the road.” Of course I quickly accepted her taking both the sleeping bags and all of my winter clothes over the other pricy alternatives.
AM: We (yes, me too) froze at night but the campground was great. They
put on a traditional folk concert where locals from all over came and made traditional food (cheese and more cheese😊 and played ukuleles. There was also a festival during the day where I was able to buy a fleece jacket for cheap so Will got his jacket back and was then only able to grumble about his hips being sore from sleeping on the ground. I can't wait for the day we give this tent away!
Every morning, after Ali woke up well rested and ready to go, we set out on a new hiking journey. The mountains were truly spectacular and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The areas in Colorado and North Carolina, where we previously vacationed, don’t compare to the breathtaking views and extreme sporting activities we witnessed here. From hiking to base jumping, we got to watch and even partake in a few of the exhilarating activities. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to which activities Ali and I participated in the most: paragliding, parachuting, hiking, hang gliding or base jumping. Keeping with your imagination, look closely at the pictures that Ali captured of me in flying through the air in my wing suit
and then pulling the parachute after my most thrilling base jump ever.
AM: Yes, Will has lost about 75 pounds and now speaks with an Aussie accent…We did go hiking, picnicking, flower and butterfly watching though.
After Ali finally got fed up with the rain and the freezing nights, we took a ride on a gondola up to a hostel even further up in the mountains. Ali convinced me to stay here because we wanted to begin a 14 hour hike the next day to a mountainous area called Schiltthorn that was named after my family. This area of the Swiss Alps where we stayed was called Grimmelwald, which was above the Interlaken valley. The top of the mountain had a ski resort named after my family called Schiltthorn where people can ski year round. The biggest obstacle to skiing on most of the other mountains in this area was that you had to be air lifted by helicopter and dropped off on the top of the mountain. I surely would have done this, but I didn’t want to leave Ali back at the bottom of the mountain by herself with nothing to do. Gimmelwald was a very
peaceful place and they kept the prices at a level necessary to keep the population and tourists down to a minimal amount. Steve Correll even said this about Gimmelwald: “If I don’t make it to heaven, I’d like to spend the rest of eternity in Gimmelwald.”
AM: Rick Steves said something like that. But Steve Correll, Rick Steves, very close.
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