Clouds Are Pretty--When You're Not INSIDE THEM!

June 15, 2007

Our agenda today was to hike up to Murren and then up a bit further to an even smaller town in the Alps, at about 6,000 feet. I had slathered myself in sunscreen and was prepared for a hot hike, but I opened up the window and--lo and behold--cloud comes in.

The clouds had drifted upward from Interlaken and had smothered us, and I didn't see the sun until about 9 pm. We hiked in the rain, looked at fat slugs in the rain, bought presents in the rain, and pretty much got soaked to the skin. My altitude sickness kicked in like nobody's business, however, and I could only hike up to Murren. I felt like my lungs were bursting and my heart was going to implode. I hopped on the furnicular with John Rose and the other gimps, and we took a lovely ride up to the top of the mountain before walking down a ways to the second hiking site. It was still raining and there wasn't a glacier in site, so Dr. Hartford bought us soup and hot chocolate, and we hid in there until time to hike down again. Cows and electric fences barred the way, but we manuevered and had a grand ol' time.

The sky cleared up around 9, after dinner was over and we had sung farewell to Walter. The sky turned robin's egg blue right behind the white peaks of the Alps, and we had 30 glorious seconds of photo opportunity before another cloud chased us back inside. And we thought NC weather was unpredictable!