The tempest

Still damp from a quick dip in a mountain stream.

Today we took a 17 km hike through beautiful agrarian landscape, past small farms where the farmers and their families were out en masse gathering hay with pitchforks and hanging it up to dry on large racks specially built for that purpose. The glacial streams here are so clean and clear that the locals swear you can drink from them. A fact which B actually tested personally, much to my chagrin when I found out about it later. (Note to self: remember to tell the doctor this small tidbit in case he comes down with Giardia later...)

This was the part of the hike where they were still smiling. ;-)

We had a really nice lunch at a small Gasthaus and hiked further. The whole trip was pleasant and dreamy, absolutely fantastic… ...until around km 13 when one of our children was suddenly hit full force by puberty. He was enraged at the heat, angry at the gravel on the path, pissed off about the sudden steep grade and livid about the fact that we had no idea how much further / steeper / gravelly the rest of the hike would be. To his credit he stayed reasonably civil, but it was like being trapped with a very angry toddler but then without the stroller to strap him into or the pacifier to break the mood and calm him down so that we could keep moving towards the car.

Eventually M was able to talk him down from the ledge and we eventually made it back to the campsite in one piece, but I’m a little hesitant to tell him that we’ve got any more big, unpredictable hikes planned in the near future…