Friends From Switzerland!
~Monday, July 18, 2022~
Day 764
Day 28 of Alaska Trip
While I was writing this morning at my usual location….the kitchen table, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. No, it wasn’t a bear, no it wasn’t a moose. It was our neighbors Christina and Marco walking by our trailer to say goodbye. What was supposed to be a quick farewell turned into an enjoyable 2-hour visit. We discovered we have kids the same age, and we’ve been married the same number of years. They have 3 children (all boys) in their mid to late 20’s, and all live in Switzerland! Two of their boys are shepherding this summer near their hometown and appear to enjoy the hard labor it brings. What endurance they must have, since they must carry a lot of weight up and down the 3,000 foot mountain (not just once a day), carrying food and other necessities for their herding dogs. It’s all about keeping the flock intact, protecting them from predators and guiding them to market areas in time for shearing. I’d take that job in a second! Christina and Marco are quite the world travelers so we thoroughly enjoyed hearing about their adventures to Australia, New Zealand and Africa in particular, since those too, are on our list. We exchanged contact information, so we really hope to meet up with them again before they return home in August. Wouldn’t it be great to even connect in their native Switzerland?!! Handing over a bag of banana muffins I had made the night before and waving a friendly goodbye, they were off to what they hoped were sunnier pastures near the Matanuska Glacier.
I guess we’ve been a little spoiled lately with the amount of sunshine we had up until we hit Valdez. At first, we thought the cold and the rain would be a short-lived thing but there’s some low pressure systems over Alaska
right now that are causing a dip in temperatures (10 degrees below normal) and a higher amount of precipitation. The rivers are really raging as we bear witness to, right next to our campsite at King’s River Crossing. While much of the world is baking, Alaska is chilling.
Looking forward to venturing out on a few excursions tomorrow in the Palmer area, rain or shine. So stay tuned.