Walking with Waldo

 

Happiness is a warm puppy.

-Charles M. Schultz

 

It’s been a long hot summer here in Massachusetts.  There have been years when it’s been hotter, but it hasn’t ever, for as long as I’ve been here, been so hot, day after day, week after week.  It’s almost fall and the high temperatures are still on the mid-eighties.  For Waldo and me, that’s a nuisance because it means we have to finish our walks before late morning.  It’s not such a big deal really, except when I need to be somewhere else in the morning and then we can’t walk that day.  It’ll sure be nice when things cool off enough that we can walk later on.

Although the temperatures are still hot, the length of the day is getting quite a bit shorter.  That signals many plants to begin their slow transition into winter mode, despite the high temperatures.  Although most trees remain green, a few leaves on the maples and sumacs have started to turn.  A small number have even fallen onto the ground.  The weeds and grasses have gone to seed and the oaks are profusely dropping acorns on whatever sits beneath them.  It’s not unusual at all to be walking along and hear a whack! as one of the things crash to the ground (or the roof of a car).  Outside our door, the ground is covered by large ball bearings deposited by a towering oak.  Tennis-ball sized black walnut fruit can be found on the trail, although just a few.  I’m sure most of them are still hanging onto their branches, waiting for the next big rainstorm to separate them from their parent tree.

Fall is definitely not far away, along with its cooler temperatures.  Waldo and I will soon be able to walk later in the day.  Among other things, that means we’ll be able to go on longer hikes — ten miles, twelve or even longer.  Walking was one of the reasons I got Waldo, you know, and it’ll be good to stretch that to the extent of our endurance.

Walking wasn’t the only motivation I had in getting a dog when I retired, of course.  It’s true I wanted a dog whose needs would inspire me to get off my duff and get the exercise I need to stave off the unavoidable dissolution of old age.  But I also wanted a companion, another living being, to share life with; a personality with whom to interact and hold loneliness at bay.  Waldo has given me all that and in spades.

I am amazed at the spectrum of animals that can form deep bonds with people.  People don’t have just domesticated animals (like cats and dogs) for pets, but also animals whose evolutionary separation from humans is hundreds of millions of years old.  That includes animals like snakes, birds and even spiders.  Some even have wild predators, like lions and tigers and bears, for companions.  Ancient pharaohs used cheetahs for hunting.  They hooded them and took them out to the bush on the rumps of horses and then released them to chase down game, much like how falconry is done.

And homo sapiens is not the only species that adopt other animals. Koko the gorilla had a cat for a pet, as did Tonda the orangutan. Capuchin monkeys are known to adopt and care for baby marmosets.  A crow raised a stray kitten who couldn’t care for itself without assistance.  Elephants have befriended dogs and at least one goose paired up with a tortoise.  There is something more universal going on here than just the penchant for people to acquire surrogate children by bringing animals into their lives.

Oxytocin is a hormone that is associated with social bonding, stress reduction and feelings of trust and empathy, among other things.  Serum levels increase in both humans and their pets as bonds are formed.  Perhaps the production of oxytocin was an evolutionary development that encouraged people to bond together in groups that in turn improved their ability to survive as a species.  Maybe this trait has spilled over to include the ability to bond closely with other animals as well.  But cheetahs are solitary animals as adults and yet they still can form close loving interactive relationships with people.  Just as close as dogs can.  Maybe something else is going on.

The thing that I enjoy the most about having Waldo in my life is the opportunity to take care of another intelligent being.  This is true even when I’m awakened at three o’clock in the morning by the disgusting odor of watery diarrhea because he couldn’t hold on to it until daylight (I’m sure oxytocin isn’t the only, or even the dominant, hormone flowing through me at those times).  I get something meaningful out of being with Waldo, not just because of an oxytocin rush, or anything else that’s an immediate and direct benefit to me.  Something more spiritual is happening.  Something that is not an expression of what I want, but who I am.  I take care of Waldo because it exercises a part of me that cries out to be nurtured and developed.  It’s much like walking Waldo to keep m

e physically healthy and strong, even when it is tiring and painful.  Perhaps oxytocin doesn’t motivate what I do, rather what I do is mediated by it.  The hormone flowing through my veins certainly does make things easier.

Maybe we should try to understand all relationships more in spiritual terms than simply as a mechanistic, hormonally based, biological imperative.

What’s important is, I am Waldo’s friend.

 

 

We don’t make movies to make more money.  We make money to make more movies.

-Walt Disney

 

The Assabet River Rail Trail is a very pretty walk.  It has a special place in Waldo’s and my heart.  The forest it passes through is thick enough that, in places, you can’t see, hear or smell the surrounding city and all its human hubbub.  It leisurely winds its way through the woods from near downtown Marlborough to downtown Hudson.  Birds sing, insects buzz and chirp, squirrels cavort and, in the winter, deer wander nearby.  It’s a place, in the middle of human habitation, where one can go and feel they are far from the madding crowd.

Yesterday, Waldo and I were just entering the Hudson part of the trail and we came across a cart carrying a movie camera filming a commercial for New Balance running shoes.  Apparently, the crew was trying to create a commercial that appeals to the common recreational runner, as opposed to the worldclass athlete.  In any event, it was nice to see the trail getting some broader exposure.  It deserves it.

Waldo, of course, was oblivious to what was going on, and I was neither too curious, nor very interested.  I’ve seen movie-making up close before.  We just walked past them, said hello, and continued on our way.

Years ago, before I went to medical school, I was living in Sherman Oaks, just over the hill from LA.  I had an apartment and my roommate was the apartment manager – a job that neither required much energy, nor took much time.  One day, a guy came by and asked if they could use our apartment to film an episode of Dragnet, not the original, but the remake with Jeff Osterhage and Bernard White as the detectives.  Of course, we agreed and we hung around to watch them film.

I learned a lot about acting professionalism while watching them do their shtick.  You know how the camera changes perspective when different actors speak?  It’s focused on one actor and then the other.  One person speaks and the camera is focused on them and then the other person speaks and the camera is directed at the other person.  The way they film that is they film the entire scene with the camera directed at just one actor and record the sound at the same time.   Then they refilm the scene with dialogue, but no sound recording (so the already recorded sound can be synced), with the camera directed at the other actor.  That way the scene flows more naturally without having to wait for the camera to reposition.

Because no sound was recorded on the retake, the people off camera didn’t have to be quiet.  And they weren’t.  Some of the crew found a bodice-ripper novel on my roommate’s bookshelf and they read some very sexually suggestive passages out loud while the actor in view of the camera was redoing the scene.  And this was Dragnet.  Even though it was a remake of the series, the deadpan acting was still the tone of the piece.  The actor being filmed kept the most placid expression on his face and his body language exuded what you might expect from a Dragnet detective while everyone else in the room was giggling and carrying on.  I was impressed.

There was nothing like that going on while we were walking the rail-trail.  I don’t even think there was any sound being recorded at all.  They were probably going to do a sound-over in the studio after the filming was done.  So, in a moment of mischief, I suggested that what they needed was some footage of an old fart out walking his dog.  They could focus on my worn-out boots and suggest that I would be better off with some New Balance shoes.  They smiled and ignored me.  Waldo and I went on our way and they finished doing what they needed to do.

It is so interesting being exposed to what happens out here in the woods.  You never know what’s coming next.  Yesterday, it was a commercial being filmed; in the past, it’s been running into all kinds of interesting people at opportune times.  Tomorrow, who knows.  But one thing is nearly for sure.

Waldo and I will be there.

 

 

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

-Bertrand Russell

 

It’s late summer now and the hottest of the dog days have passed for the year.  The kinds of plants I see this year are somewhat different than last year.  There is no blanket of moss and liver wort next to the trail, the Japanese clover is not easy to find and the Japanese knotweed doesn’t seem to be as tall or as prolific.  But many of the other plants are unchanged.  The leaves on the oaks, black walnuts and maples are still green and the sides of our rail-trail are still densely overgrown with weeds.

Now, I don’t have any problem with weeds.  They’re a part of nature and have at least as much right to be out here as I do.  I suppose the Japanese knotweed and the orange jewelweed, for example, even though they’re invasive species, have their place in the local ecology and their presence needs to be respected.  There is one weed, though, that I take exception to: the common burdock.

Common burdock is a plant that stands about 3 feet tall.  Its stems, roots and leaves can be eaten.  Called “gobo” in Japanese, it can be added to stews, stir-fried and pickled.  For centuries, it has been used medicinally to treat eczema, acne and psoriasis.  It has been used as an anti-inflammatory, to aid digestion and in weight management.  I have no idea how effective any of that is, but, supposedly, there is research that says it’s not all bunk.  In North America, burdock is mostly seen as a nuisance plant and I wholly subscribe to that.

There’s not a lot of it along our trail; it appears in only about seven places along our 6 mile route.  But where it does appear, like most of the weeds that grow there, it’s right next to the trail where it can get direct sunlight not blocked by the taller trees.  Most of the year, this is not a problem.  But in late summer to early fall, the plant forms these jawbreaker-sized spikey spheres that stick like super glue to whatever touches them.  These things grow in clumps at the end of the plant’s stems, protruding out toward the tarmac.  For me, that’s no big deal, I usually stick to the blacktop and don’t get near them.  But Waldo?  That’s a different story.

For reasons I don’t at all understand, Waldo likes to walk underneath the overhanging weeds as he saunters on his way, sometimes almost disappearing under their leaves.  He lifts his leg in there and even squats in the bushes, where I have to bushwhack to pick up what he leaves behind.  I can live with all that, but if he gets anywhere near a burdock plant, their damn burrs stick in his long hair and are really hard to get out.  Clumps of four or more of the damned things cling to him in as many different places.  Behind his ears, on his back, in his tail and on his chest, they intimately cling to him like leeches.  Worse than leeches.  They wad up his fur into tangled mats that I have to pull apart in order to get them out and it hurts him.  He puts up with my ridding him of his scourge, but he lets me know he doesn’t like his hair being pulled like that.

Since there are only a small number of places where the plant grows, you might think I can just guide him away from them and avoid the whole problem.  But I’m not watching him every second.  He’s off doing his Waldo thing while my mind is, often, in a different universe, learning French or something.  Invariably, day after day, he picks the damn things up and we go to battle.  So, I declared war on the burdock – the burr wars have begun.

I have no interest in eradicating the entire species.  Like the other weeds, they probably have their place in the world.  Those that grow far enough away that Waldo doesn’t touch them, I let them be.  But in the seven or so places where they grow right next to the trail, well, they’re coming up by the roots.  I put a two-fisted death grip on their stems and lean back with all my weight.  With only one exception, the plant comes up, root and all.  The one exception broke down near the ground and I left the remnant be.  I then throw the plants as far away from the trail as I can and make sure they are laying parallel to the ground where they can’t reach out and touch someone.  I end up wearing a few of the burrs on my shirt and pants in the process, but compared to what happens to Waldo, they are easily removed.

I suppose I’ll have to deal with those same plants next year.  Even if they don’t resprout from whatever roots are left behind, the burrs are still there, providing seeds for next years crop.  But for the rest of this year, I’m not going to have to torture my dog to get them out of his fur.

You don’t mess with my Waldo.

 

 

Sometimes the things you’ve lost can be found again in unexpected places.

-Lemony Snicket

 

I can remember, when I was a kid, driving across Nevada on a two-lane highway, back before I-80 was completed.  It was endless and the scenery was quite bleak – just miles and miles of semi-arid desert dust and sage brush.  In between tiny clumps of civilization, there were no houses, no fences, no livestock and no trees.  Just a whole lot of nothing.  The road was, for the most part, straight as a rifle barrel, with only a few curves here and there.

There was, however, something that broke up the monotony a little – Burma-Shave signs.  On the side of the road were a series of signs, spaced about 100 feet apart, that bore poetry of a sort.  The signs would be maybe a foot wide and four feet long, placed low, about three feet above the ground.  Each sign had a line of poetry, except for the last sign that said, in an artistic logo, Burma-Shave.  For example:

HER CHARIOT RACED

AT EIGHTY PER

THEY HAULED AWAY

WHAT HAD BEN HUR

BURMA-SHAVE

Or:

SLOW DOWN, PA

SAKES ALIVE

MA MISSED

SIGNS FOUR AND FIVE

BURMA-SHAVE

Or:

SUBSTITUTES

ARE LIKE A GIRDLE

THEY FIND SOME JOBS

THEY JUST CAN’T HURDLE

BURMA-SHAVE

They were quite entertaining and served well to break up the seeming endlessness of the trip.

At one time, there were some 7,000 signs in 45 states, mostly touting the product, a shaving cream.  But, like those above, some referred to safe driving and even romance.  Their history goes back to the 1920s, when a guy by the name of Alan Odell got the idea of posting a series of signs (usually four or five) advertising his father’s product.  In 1963, the

company was sold to Phillip Morris and the signs were taken down on advice of counsel.

I haven’t thought about those signs much, over the years.  Then, I saw a movie, “The Fastest Indian in the World” and there was a scene where a driver and passenger read the signs as they went past them.  I remembered the built up of anticipation, driving along and only being able to read one sign at a time, and waiting for the final punchline.  It was fun.  So many nice things have been lost as time marches on.

I have had the idea of leaving little markers, circular and about 3.5 inches in diameter, on the sides of the trails that Waldo and I wander down.  On the sign would be a sketch of Waldo with his head and paws above and hanging over a sign that says, “WALDO WAS HERE.”  I would design it so it was reminiscent of the “KILROY WAS HERE” sketches that the GIs left all over Europe during WWII.  Wouldn’t it be fun to leave other little signs along the way as well, like the Burma-Shave signs?  Well, I may be willing to try to leave the “WALDO WAS HERE” signs as we explore the world and people might even leave some of them up for a while.  But, I

fear, there are too many people out there who would take exception to a series of signs like that and make it even more likely for them all to be taken down.  Sigh.  Still, wouldn’t it be amusing to be hiking somewhere and come across a collection of signs, with silly poetry, that lead you on your way, and end with “WALDO WAS HERE”?  Something like:

ALMOST EVERYTHING

HAS A SMELL

SINCE I’M A DOG

I SNIFF THEM WELL

WALDO WAS HERE

Waldo and I are back to walking the rail-trail near our home and looking for other trails to explore.  There is no dearth of trails to choose from, they are everywhere, and we’re sure to be wandering down more.  Who knows, maybe we will even be able to venture down some not so well-worn paths in some other part of the world someday.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful for people to go hiking all over the world and see “WALDO WAS HERE” signs, along with some “poetry?”

If only I thought of this when I was younger…

 

 

 

Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

-ibn Battuta

 

Two days after getting back to Marlborough, my back went into incredibly painful spasms.  We were in the midst of a heat wave, so our walking would have been limited anyway, but now it’s all I can do to walk around the property for pee and poo.  Waldo takes it in stride and waits it out with me.  After all, this isn’t the first time our walks have been curtailed by circumstances beyond our control.  It’s going to be a while before I can see my physiatrist and get some cortisone shots, so we make do as best we can.  In the interim, I try to come up with ways to play with Waldo, that don’t require much back-bending, and rest my back as much as possible.

Now that I’m home, I can’t help but ask myself if the trip was worth all the expense, angst and bother that it caused both Waldo and me.  I can’t speak for Waldo, but for me, the answer is clearly yes.  Even the mishaps, long delays, uncertainties about making connections, and prolonged travel times were well worth the effort they required.  For me, that all just adds to the adventure and makes the narrative more interesting to tell to others.  In retrospect, it now seems amusing.  After all, Phyllis and I were never in any danger.  And isn’t adventure the whole point of the thing anyway?  It is for me.  But that begs the question as to why I feel the desire, nay, the need, to travel?

Quite a few years ago, coming home from taking the kids to a Six Flags amusement park, I wondered at why parks like that exist.  They serve no clear purpose, other than entertainment, that I could see.  And why are the rides that cause people to empty their lungs in wide-eyed screams, their hearts to race in uncontrolled fear and, on occasion, empty their stomachs, so enjoyed?  I came to the conclusion that many would say that it all made them feel alive.  It’s as if we spend so much time and effort to build ourselves safe havens, that we tend to overdo it and make our lives kind of boring.  Those amusement parks, like Six Flags, with their scary rides, provide people the opportunity to get scared, but in an environment they know is relatively safe.  To feel fear is to be unavoidably thrust into the present moment where your life is in your face and not at all theoretical.  It’s real.  You pay attention.

For me, traveling is something like that.  The desire to travel is multifactorial, for sure, but part of its allure is that it causes me to be placed in circumstances where I can’t react habitually, as if I were on autopilot.  Those circumstances may not be frightening, like in an amusement park, but they are unusual and potentially risky, causing me to have to deal with what’s happening in the moment.  I often don’t have habit patterns that will allow me to get through the day without living it more consciously and completely.  The adventure is in exposing myself to unusual, not fully prepared for, but tractable, risk.  It makes me feel more alive.

I’m pretty sure that Waldo feels something similar, at least on occasion.  He is so much more focused and energized when we walk in places where we haven’t been before.  His tail is up and wagging, he’s pulling at the leash, going this way and that, sniffing everywhere as if he doesn’t want to miss a thing.  There’s no “Oh, yeah, been there, done that,” coming from him at those times.

I can only imagine how much Waldo would enjoy going for a walk along a bisse in Switzerland.  Or along Hadrian’s wall in Britain.  Or along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.  The problem is getting him there.  It’s possible to put him in a crate that’s stowed with the luggage in a plane, but it would be traumatic for him.  The luggage bays are pressurized and heated, but they’re noisy and very different from what he’s used to.  He wouldn’t understand what was going on or why.  He would only have to deal with it for seven or eight hours as we flew across the Atlantic and he is used to spending that much time in his crate at home with a thunderstorm noise-maker, so maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad.  Once in Europe, we could go together by train.  Europeans take their dogs everywhere.   And the benefits…

Imagine what it would be like to World Wander While Walking With Waldo!

 

 

Although I love travelling and I’ve been to some wonderful places, I always appreciate coming home.

-Tom Hadley

 

During the days we had left in Switzerland, I worked through a few items I still had on my to-do list.  One of the first things Phyllis, Bill and I did was to go to CERN.  The river went down enough that we could go back to Geneva by train without having to take any ersatzbuses.  Once in Geneva, we took a streetcar to the CERN facility.  It took us about three hours just to get there, so the entire day was used up in the excursion.

My brother is a geophysicist and I have a PhD in Relativistic Astrophysics, so our interest in the place is obvious (see previous blogs for a description of what happens at CERN).  Phyllis was less intrigued about what happens there and I tried to explain it in simple terms.

Suppose you have a box that you think might contain something and you want to know what’s in it.  Suppose, too, that it has no obvious opening and no apparent way to get into it.  What would you do?  One possible answer is to find a big enough hammer and smash the thing open.  In the early part of the twentieth century, physicists new, by experiment, that various particles had some sort structure to them, but they didn’t know much else.  They wanted to “see” inside the particles to discover that structure.  So, they decided to “smash” them open to “see” what was there.

The problem is, the force that holds particles together, the strong nuclear force, is the strongest force in the universe.  In order to break into a particle, one would therefore need a hammer with an incredible amount of energy.  What physicists came up with was a way to accelerate particles, like protons, to speeds very close to the speed of light, then smash them into each other.  This is done with particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Accelerator (LHC) at CERN.  It is the largest accelerator in the world and the only one that can produce the energy required to find much of the fine structure of elementary particles.  It turns out, when you ram particles, like two protons, into each other, you get a shower of other particles, that are the constituents of the original particles.  By looking at those showers, you can determine a lot about what fundamental particles are made of.

We saw a number of exhibits and went on a tour that included the control room of the LHC.  The accelerator is constantly running and data is collected and stored on computer 24/7.  Physicists all over the world can then sort through that data at their leisure, accessible through the World Wide Web, and look for evidence that supports, or doesn’t, the various theories they have.  The machine itself is huge, an oval about 17 miles in circumference, and has some very high-tech gadgets, like superconducting magnets.  But the real magic is in the data that it produces.

In the days that followed our trek to CERN, Phyllis and I also went on some hikes in the Alps.  There are a number of trails near where we were that traverse across the mountains, more or less horizontally, although there is always some up and down.  We were in the mountains, you know.  I spent most of my life in the mountains of Utah and Colorado and I miss them, now that I live near the coast.  The snow-covered, majestic thrusts of granite high into the sky is breathtaking and the air is so clean and full of the fresh smell of nature. The refreshing gurgling of rushing mountain streams, unmuddled by the background din and hum of a city, makes it so easy to appreciate and enjoy the magic of the universe we live in.  I only wish I could share it with Waldo…

There were many other things that we did as well.  I gave a copy of my novel, “The Devil’s Vial,” to the bibliothèque in Sion, we watched a couple of soccer championships on a wide screen TV in a local bar, and ate a lot of good food and drank some fine wine.  Finally, it was time to go home and Phyllis and I took the train back to Geneva and our separate flights back to Boston.

Our journeys back were pretty uneventful and ran as planned.  I did have a 16-hour layover in Copenhagen, but I opted for that when I bought the ticket (due to the savings in price).  I spent the time napping as I could (a skill I developed during medical training) and noshing now and then.  For the entire return trip, the only real snag was that the Sumner Tunnel in Boston was closed for construction and I had to wait a very long time at the airport before the shuttle bus came to pick me up and take me to Framingham (where my son-in-law met me and drove me home).

I was a couple of hours late when I got Waldo, but I finally made it.  Sixteen days, we were apart.  He was frenetic and happy to see me, excitedly running and prancing.  Waldo seemed to enjoy the people who were caring for him, but was definitely eager to get in the car.  For a little while, I think he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, not sure just what else was going to happen to him.  But after a couple of days at home and our old routine, he was back to himself.  If anything, I think his experience has made us closer to one another.  I sure know I’m happy to be back with him.  Maybe one day, I can bring him with me.

Then I could call these blogs, “World Wandering While Walking With Waldo.”

 

 

In America, one must be something, but in Italy one can simply be.

-Pietros Maneos

 

Continued from last blog…

 

In the morning, on the day after our arrival in Como, Phyllis and I walk down to the harbor to catch a ferry out onto the lake.  There are many ferries available, and tour boats of various sizes and routes.  We pick the one that goes to Bellagio.  Bellagio is a village in the crotch of the inverted “y” that is the shape of the lake.  It is billed as the “Pearl of Lake Como” and seems like a nice place to explore.  Along the way, the boat stops at many of the other villages that line both sides of the lake.  We could get off and look around in those other towns, but we only have one day and we decide to go straight for Bellagio.

Bellagio is on a hill and, because of its location in the middle of the lake, it’s possible to look out over all three branches of the lake from there.  With its narrow cobblestone streets and old Italian architecture (some buildings are from the 13^th century), it’s even more quaint than Como.  The streets we use have very few cars on them and are filled with pedestrian traffic.  Some are narrowed further by outdoor restaurants that add to the old European atmosphere.  There are many tourists here, but not so many that it feels crowded.  I can’t help but feel like taking a seat at one of the sidewalk cafes, sipping at a macchiato and nibbling on a cannoli while wondering at life and the universe.  But we are here to explore, and, after a lunch of real Italian pizza, we’re off on foot to do just that.

The ambience here is one of the slow-paced life of leisure.  It isn’t hard at all to imagine people, for hundreds of years, coming here to spend the hottest days of the year kicking back in the shade, trying to stay cool without breaking into a sweat.  I could see myself coming here to write a novel — with Waldo, of course.  I’ve seen dogs here in just about every kind of venue you can imagine.  There aren’t many, but they’re everywhere.  I’ve stopped and petted them on trains and buses, in restaurants and bars and on sidewalks.  None of them wear a “Support Animal” harness, they’re just accepted as part of the crowd.  Waldo would fit in well here.

In the afternoon, Phyllis and I return to Como and the next morning, we go to the train station to head back to Sion.  Because we don’t expect the floods to have abated in the two days we’ve been gone, we go to the ticket counter and ask them if we’ll have to go back the way we came or can take a more direct route.  They tell us that they have no way of knowing what the conditions are in Switzerland and can’t find out.  They suggest we go to Milano and figure it out from there.  So, that’s what we do and it was a mistake.  We get on a train run by the wrong company going to a place we don’t have a ticket for (originally, we were supposed to go to Chiasso, not Milano).  When asked for our tickets, we can’t provide the right ones.  So, we have to buy tickets on the train which is very expensive.  Don’t get on a train in Europe without the right ticket.

Eventually, we get to Chiasso, go to a Swiss train ticket office and discover that, indeed, we have to retrace our steps through Zurich and Bern, with train changes and bus rides.  We change our tickets and head back into Switzerland.  Once we get to Visp, we have to board a bus to go to Sierre.  I’m amused by a sign in the windshield of the bus.  It says, in French, “bus de remplacement,” which translates from French into English easily enough.  Right below that, in German, it says “ersatzbus,” which I surely hope doesn’t translate the way an English speaker might think it would (in English, “ersatz” means a poor imitation).  Finally, after many hours, we get back to Haute Nendaz and relax.

During this entire trip, I phone the Pooch Hotel to check on Waldo every day to every other day.  In between the times I phone, they send me texts and emails with pictures of him and assure me he is doing fine and having a good time.  I know that’s not the whole story.  After all, he isn’t going on long walks the way we do, he’s not at home and, well, he’s not with me.  I’m sure his life has been turned upside-down with all the changes that have happened and he has no idea why they happened.   But, at least, he’s being cared for, is well fed and exercised.  The American Border Collie Association recommends 3 to 4 hours of exercise a day and that is what the Pooch Hotel tells me he is getting.  Still, I miss my buddy.

And this won’t last too much longer.

 

 

People don’t take trips.  Trips take people.

-John Steinbeck

 

One of the items on my “Things to do in Switzerland” list is to visit Lake Como in Italy.  On the best of days, it’s a roughly 5 hr train ride from Sion, so it’s close enough to include a little jaunt to there from here.  Still, it’s far enough that Phyllis and I decide to stay for two nights to give us a good chance at looking around.  We get on the 7 AM bus to Sion and expect that we’ll get into the city of Como sometime just after 2 PM.  However, today is not one of those “best of days.”

Phyllis and I expected there would be some off-route diversions of one kind or another, because the flooding in Valais (the region of the Rhone River) is still going on.  So, it came as no surprise to find out that our route was going to be a little convoluted.  The more or less direct route would be to go from Sion, to Sierre, to Visp to Brig, take a right turn through the Alps, then go to Domodossola, then to Milan and, finally, to the city of Como.  But we’re told that there is no train from Sierre to Visp and that we’ll have to take a bus instead.  The kicker is that we arrive in Brig at the same time as the train to Domodossola leaves.  We’re assured that, even so, it is still doable and we board the train in Sion for Sierre.

The bus ride from Sierre to Visp was pleasant enough and it isn’t long before we’re getting on the train at Visp and off at Brig.  At Brig, we run over to the track where we’re supposed to catch the train to Domodossola and there’s no train.  We ask when the next train will run and we’re told that there is no train because of the flooding.  Back to the ticket office.

Finally, we get tickets to take the train back to Visp, then board another train that goes all the way up to Bern and Zurich, in north central Switzerland, then switch trains to one that will take us to Lugano and then on to Como.  All in all, this almost doubles the time it takes get to Como.  Ah well, this kind of thing seems to be the theme of this trip and we do our best to grab what we can to eat at the stops on the way and take it all in stride.  I have plenty of time to call and check on Waldo once the afternoon hours roll around and he’s doing well.

We get into the San Giovanni train station in Como around 6 PM and walk over to where we’re staying.  I called earlier and told the woman running things there that we’re running late and we had no trouble getting our room.  Travel ordeal over, we now had time to explore a little and get a good Italian meal for dinner.

Lake Como is a glacial lake that lies in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy.  It has the shape of an inverted “y” and an area of about 56 square miles.  The city of Como lies at the bottom of the lower western most branch.  At some time in my many wanderings through life, I heard, or read (I don’t recall which), that it is and has been for hundreds of years, a popular place to go to get away from the heat of summer that besets points further south, like Rome.  It has long been a special spot for people of wealth and power to go for vacation and has many old large villas and palaces which are now open to the general public.  The lake is bounded by mountains that plunge down into the water at very steep angles and the higher craggy snow-covered peaks of the Alps look down on the lake from not too far away.  Like any beautiful lake anywhere, the shore is studded with towns and houses just about any place where it’s not to steep to build (and in many places that seem like they ought to be).

We explore Como by walking toward the harbor where boats and ferries of various sizes leave to take tourists around the lake.  The streets are narrow, running between buildings of stone, brick and stucco whose architecture is reminiscent of earlier years.  Cars are blocked from driving on some of the streets and traffic is light.  The population of Como is listed at about 489,000, but it has the ambience of something smaller.  There are quite a few people out and strolling through the early evening with us, but it doesn’t feel at all like it’s crowded.  The closer we come to the harbor, the more restaurants and stores we pass and we have no trouble finding a very nice place to eat and I indulge in some superb ossobuco alla milanese.  After dinner, we find a gelateria and I ask for some spumoni ice cream.  They don’t have any, but they promise that tomorrow night, they’ll give me a cup with the chocolate, pistachio and maraschino cherry ice cream that’s in spumoni.  All in all, this has been a very pleasant ending to a long, protracted grueling day of travel.

Tomorrow, we go on a ferry to Bellagio, the so-called “Pearl of Como.”

 

To be continued…

 

 

The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.

-William Blake

 

I have been lucky enough to travel to many places in the world.  Even though I haven’t been everywhere, I’ve visited enough to come to the belief that anywhere you go, there are many places nearby to visit and experience.  That’s certainly true of the Swiss Alps.  I came here with a mental list of things I wanted to do and I’m open to amend and change that list as opportunities arise.  My brother has been coming here, twice a year, for some 40 years and knows the hotspots pretty well.  But even he has not experienced it all.  For one thing, he’s never been to CERN and it is definitely on my list.

CERN, or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Organization for Nuclear Research), has existed since the 1950s.  It has the largest particle accelerators in the world, including the large hadron collider where the Higgs boson (or the “God particle”) was found in 2012.  It is a multinational laboratory located a short tram ride from Geneva.  They have some exhibits and tours open to the public and both my brother and I are scientists and hence interested to go check it out.  Phyllis was game enough to come along and we got up early to catch the 6:56 bus down to Sion where we can catch the train to Geneva and then the tram to CERN.

As seems to be the theme for this trip, though, things did not go as planned.  When we got to the train station, we found out that it has been raining enough that the Rhone River is in flood.  The inondation (I love it how there are so many English/French cognates) was severe enough to stop the trains from running in several places in the valley.  That’s not a show-stopper – there are buses to take to cover the gaps, but we decided that we would put off seeing CERN for a couple of days in the hopes that, in a few days, we wouldn’t have to use them.  Instead, we’ll stay in Sion, walk around and explore.

The history of Sion goes back to the stone age.  The town’s name comes from the Latin word, Sedunum, which was used by the Celtic people who lived in the area in the first century BCE (before current era, or BC).  The Romans built a castle and city here in around 40 CE (current era, or AD), but people have lived here since around 6200 BCE.  In the late 6^th century, Sion became the seat of a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.  In the 13^th century, a castle (now ruins) was built at the top of a steep hill.  This Château (castle) of Tourbillon, and the nearby Château Valère, stand on adjoining hills that dominate the city.  The Château (now Basilica) Valère is a museum and a church (still in use) that houses the oldest still functioning organ in the world.  As we walk along the narrow streets and alleys of Old Sion, these stone buildings look down on us from on high, demanding that we visit.  We decide to comply.

It’s a long steep climb to the top, but we’re rewarded by the walls and history of the Château Tourbillon.  We are gifted with a young woman who serves as guide and fills us in on the long history of the place.  All that’s very interesting, but what I get the most out of visiting these kinds of places is the ambience.  Standing amongst the fallen stones and crumbled walls, it’s not hard to imagine myself being alive and standing in the same spot on the days when all that history took place.  It’s all bathed in fog and shadow, but still, I can pretend, to some extent, that I have traveled through time.

The basilica is impressive as well.  We didn’t know it at the time, but we just missed the organ play during a mass.  Much of the building was closed off to us, but there was enough we could enter that we could get a feeling for the place.  I would like to come back during mass so I can here the old organ play.  Alas, that’s not going to happen this trip.

It’s afternoon before we venture back down the hill.  It’s late enough that I can call the Pooch Hotel and see how Waldo is doing (Sion is six hours later than Boston).  They tell me he’s happy and enjoying the exercise time they provide.  I last talked to them two days ago, but I can’t help but worry about him and wonder how he’s taking his separation from his home.

Besides, I miss the guy…

 

It’s one thing to be part of an organization.  It’s another thing to be part of a community.

-Travis Kelce

 

Nendaz is a village of population around 6,800, high up in the Alps just south of Sion, Switzerland and the Rhone Valley.  Haute Nendaz, or “Upper” Nendaz, lies at the bottom of the Tracouet telecabine, a ski lift, at around 4,600 ft above sea level.  During the winter, Haute Nendaz is a ski resort and the architecture, stores, businesses and ambience reflect that.  France is not far to the west (Mont Blanc is within a stone’s throw) and Italy is just over the mountains to the south (Zermatt, where the Matterhorn sits, is a short train trip to the east and south).

As I get up and walk to our third-floor north-facing balcony, I gaze out and down the green-carpeted steep slopes of the mountains, all the way to the valley below, the Rhone River and Sion.  Tall, majestic craggy tors, poking skyward like a jagged sawblade (the product of the African tectonic plate being thrust up against the Eurasian plate) surround us on all sides.  The peaks are still wearing glacial ice and snow, even tough the year is now well into summer and the temperature is around 70℉.  A light breeze toys with my hair and shirt and brings me a lung full of the cleanest mountain air I’ve inhaled in a long time.

It’s quiet up here, this time of year, with little to no traffic on the streets and only a few local denizens strolling the sidewalks.  There are hardy souls who wander up here for hiking, mountain biking and enjoying the summer outdoor life, but not in the crowds that beset the place during ski season.  It has the air of a small, out-of-the-way, forgotten village, tucked away in the hinterlands, regrouping for the onslaught of the tourists coming a few months from now.

Phyllis and I cross the street from where we’re staying and walk into La Brioche, a boulangerie (bakery)/pâtisserie (pastry shop)/café/tea room for a little continental breakfast.  There are two rooms, one with a glass-fronted counter, showing off fresh baked goods like tarts, croissants, various pastries and quiche.  Behind the counter are shelves bearing artisan-baked boules of bread of different types and sizes and, of course, baguettes.  I opt for a slice of quiche, Phyllis chooses a small loaf of multigrain bread, and we walk into the next room.  Here, there is another counter where I order a latte macchiato and Phyllis gets a macchiato decaf with soy milk.  This room is a little larger than the other.  It has a number of tables and we pick one where we sit, nosh and sip at our coffees.

For most of the time, we’re the only ones in the place and the staff are willing for me to practice my stumbling French with them.  We talk about things like where we’re from, how long we’re staying, how long have they lived in the village and such.  It’s all very friendly, laid back and charming.

From there, we walk downhill past the tourist bureau, then uphill on one of the main drags (this is mountain country – everything is uphill and downhill; it’s unavoidable).  We pass bars and restaurants with a few people sitting outside at tables in the fresh air, real estate and rental agencies, ski schools (closed, of course) and shops of various kinds.  All are small, compared to American standards.  No huge department stores or mega corporations with franchises.  I think we Americans have done ourselves a great disservice by trading small businesses in for large corporate venues in the name of efficiency.  We have gotten the short end of the stick with goods that are cheaper in price, but also cheaper in quality.

Soon, we come to our goal: The Coop (they pronounce it something like “cup”).  It’s a grocery store, again small compared to where I shop at home).  There, we buy fresh fruits and vegetables and other things we need.  Across the street and downhill a bit is Migros, another grocery store.  I don’t know how they managed it, but the two stores complement each other, rather than compete with each other.  They offer different goods, and if you can’t find what you want at one, you go to the other.  The entire place feels like a small community.  Something I feel we have lost in the US, in more ways than one.

We take our newly acquired stuff and walk uphill to my brother’s chalet.  We are to meet everyone there and decide then what to do for the day.  I am anxious to call the Pooch Hotel and check on Waldo, but I have to wait until the afternoon because of the six-hour time difference.

Sigh.  If I could bring him here…