Desaples 2008: Mind the Poo

Desalpes starts, as usual, with lovely displays of Swiss pride in mountain villages.

Let's begin with yummy .....
creamy warm milk and
bubbling hot caramel a la crème.


Then the villagers lead the cows down from the mountains,


people and cows in their desaples finery.


And this year, bopping, fluffy sheep too!
Then the party begins!

music, music, music.

Even the bell ringers get to relax.

The vendors display their handmade Desalpes goods,
in the magical, mountain villages all over Switzerland.

And check out this interesting video we took of some boys playing music from another mountainous place, Colorado!

Supercars!!

We have been accumulating photos of Supercars during our adventure in Switzerland. There are a LOT of them--too many to put into this blog directly.

So I direct you to our Picassa web album of Supercars, here.

A stroll at La Dôle

La Dôle is a peak in the Jura mountain range which borders France and Swizerland. It has an altitude of 1677.2 meters. The northwest face provides skiing in the winter.


And in the spring and summer, it is full of grazing cows.

There is a fence, but it is to keep the cows out of the parking lot and that is all. Walkers and cows share the same meadows and paths!

In the far background is Lake Geneva and a hint of the surrounding city. Beyond are the Alps.

Sterling enjoyed the enormity of the place,
and the vistas are spectacular!

Sailing

Nyon is right on Lake Geneva and has a lovely nautical school which Sterling and Alex enjoyed.


They enjoyed the sailing and learning how to do it together.

CERN CMS Visit!!!!!!

Hey, want to see CERN and the new, super duper large, hadron colidger? First you gotta get past the super duper eye scanning technolgy....


unless it is "open doors to the public days" in which case, come on in, put on a silly hat and smile for the camera!


PS - there are no secrets at CERN. The security protocols are for safety to make sure eveyone who goes in also signs out.

Summer in Nyon

Our beautiful village castle under a royal blue sky.



The swimming pool has a fantastic setting. That's Sterling and Alex - first ones in.


Driving home frm France, I saw this lovely field of sunflowers.


So I stopped to have a closer look.


I saw something through my lens......


what a happy surprise!
Sometimes little fingers know just what to do to put a smile on everyone's and anything's face!

And sometimes grown-ups also beautify our surroundings.

Yummy spring

Being from Chicago, where a few years back they had a painted cow festival throughout the city, we really didn't think this to be so strange, until we thought about it. But then, it got our attention which was good, because figuring out exactly how to translate "pick your own" was proving difficult and this solved all our problems.