I'm just trying to walk myself home.
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I have always maintained that making it from Point A to Point B on a long walk is more of a mental game than an endurance test. Physical strength definitely comes into play, but I believe your mindset wins the day when it comes to covering the distance. Wainwright’s Coast to Coast is 196 miles …
Coast to Coast: Children Welcome We had been watching for them all day, expecting to glimpse them around almost every corner. My husband, Taido and the kids were joining us for the weekend. After five days and eighty miles, the distraction of their arrival was a welcome one, keeping my mind from focusing on the …
Well, my month of posting about Switzerland has come to an end, and next week I will be turning the page on the summer and begin sharing all the fun from my latest adventure of walking Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Trail with my friend, Diane. But my memories of Switzerland would not be complete without …
Our last walk in Engelberg began like so many others. Heading up, up, up into the forest. Morning light catching the forest floor and making me wonder if I was going to be too warm in my long sleeves. Then we would emerge from the forest and be up high, where we could see a …
I mentioned yesterday that we walked to and from the village of Engelberg several times every day. Sometimes we went for groceries and other times to the visitor center to use the WiFi. Most days we walked through on our way to another hike in the area or to reach the local abbey to buy …
Because this hike was the closest one to our house in Engelberg, we did the walk to Fluhmatt several times, and often as the beginning or ending portion of another hike. For that reason I almost did not do a blog post about it as its own walk. But then I decided to go ahead, …
Taido has always longed to see the French Alps, and specifically, the mountain town of Chamonix, which is nestled just underneath Mont Blanc. Engelberg is about five hours away so we loaded up our camping gear and spent a couple of nights in this little French campground. When we first arrived, the clouds were covering …
One week in Switzerland the rain seemed to settle into our valley with no intention of leaving, so one morning we got up and drove the incredible Swiss tunnels through the mountains to a different valley in search of sunshine. And we found it. In Unterschachen, which was up the road from the town of …
After hiking so many trails right from our front door, you would think we would have run out of walks to do in Engelberg, but Taido always managed to find us another one. Sometimes they would begin the same way, with a steep hike up the town stairs and a view overlooking the village, but …
I think it’s probably clear by now that while we were in Switzerland, we were so taken with Engelberg that we would have been happy to never leave our little mountain home, but we decided that we should spend at least a few days seeing some other parts of Switzerland. Also, Taido was very keen …
Here’s the thing about choosing a favorite walk in Switzerland. It’s kind of hard because the whole month of walking the Swiss Alps is my favorite. But this walk to Stefali. Well, it was very special. Maybe it was the bright blue sky, or the crazy rushing waterfalls after several days of rain. Maybe it …
One of the most difficult hikes we did from the village of Engelberg was a climb up to this gorgeous alpine lake. Trubsee. It had rained the day after Peter and Whitney and our cousins went home, so we sat around the house and moped. They left from the train station in Engelberg with all …
The walk to the End of the World or to End der Welt was our last walk with our cousins before they left town. It was a hot, sticky day in Engelberg, but the skies were clear and the views of the mountains unobstructed. We walked from the village, past the Engelberg Abbey into the …
We spent one lovely day in Lucerne while Peter and Whitney were still with us in Switzerland. It is truly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen in my life. I mean come on! If it’s not enough that it has mountain views and is situated on a gorgeous lake, but hello …
While we were traveling this summer, almost every time I posted a picture of Switzerland, someone would tell us that we HAD to ride a certain cable car or take a certain train. All the guidebooks and blog posts say the same thing. But here’s the thing. They are really expensive. A lot of them …
Our first walk in Switzerland was to a waterfall. All the signs said “Wasservall” so we kept saying we were walking to a “Wasservall.” Which reminded us of The Willoughbys. The Willoughbys is a favorite book of ours that we’ve listened to over and over again, and a little boy in the book pretends he …
As I have been recapping my summer travels, you might have noticed that I skipped something when I went from Paris to our trip home through the Lake District. I skipped about four weeks that we spent in Switzerland. I have been saving it, holding it in my hands and heart like a precious gem, …
Walking in the Lake District: Windermere There’s a reason the Lake District has inspired poets and wanderers for so many years. We fell in love on our first visit last October, and I have been watching for an opportunity to return. When we mapped our route home from Switzerland and decided that I would be …
[pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pXGm5rWm_so/U_SDjPiuCoI/AAAAAAAAbng/d4Ks0Fv6j9g/s144-c-o/CousinsTakeEurope%252520Paris%252520%25252891%252529.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/100212479652479288017/ChinosGowithOhToParisInJuly#6049604840956234370″ caption=”Processed with VSCOcam with c1 preset” type=”image” alt=”CousinsTakeEurope Paris (91).JPG” ] I’m off tomorrow for Arkansas. I could not be more excited y’all. There will be all kinds of ridiculous-ness and I’m sure I will cry at least once every day. When I get back I am setting off on the Coast …
[pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-icSby_CQBzY/U_SDjAvraJI/AAAAAAAAbng/YRg6MJYPf_4/s144-c-o/CousinsTakeEurope%252520Paris%252520%25252841%252529.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/100212479652479288017/ChinosGowithOhToParisInJuly#6049604836984055954″ caption=”CousinsTakeEurope Paris (41).JPG” type=”image” alt=”CousinsTakeEurope Paris (41).JPG” ] I’m picking right up where I left off in last week’s post. Leaving London. We landed in Paris, went through customs and took the train into town, arriving at our apartment to meet our host at 11pm. [pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-cD3_2ftexh0/U_SEqmfN2KI/AAAAAAAAbns/4MfC-joXJJU/s144-c-o/CousinsTakeEurope%252520Paris%252520%252528385%252529.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/100212479652479288017/ChinosGowithOhToParisInJuly#6049606066886269090″ caption=”Processed with VSCOcam with …