Matterhorn Camping - Day 1

So it was actually an official, written-down family goal to go to Zermatt and see the Matterhorn.  I think we talked about it the second year we lived here, and wrote it down in our New Year's resolutions last year--because if you live in Switzerland, you really should make the effort to go see "the iconic emblem of the Alps."  We didn't make it.

So when Brett said, "Should we go camp by Zermatt this weekend?" I said "YES!" and started packing.  Then Brett started thinking it over some more, and since that very Friday was the last day of school for the kids for three weeks of Fall Break, he said, "Why don't we go next weekend and I'll take ALL of Friday off instead of leaving after the kids get home (at noon) and have more time?"  But I said no way Jose, because the weather prediction was sun, and you NEVER know if you'll get sun!  Somebody told me that the Matterhorn is cloud-covered 80% of the time.  I just looked online but couldn't find anything to back that up, but either way, I wasn't about to take a gamble.

The drive was very pretty.  We passed beautiful Lac Léman, or in English, Lake Geneva.  (Or in German, Genfersee.)  We saw Chateau Chillon, which we have visited before with my mom and dad.

 

So we arrived at our campground in Täsch and set up our tents.

 

The kids were fascinated with catching grasshoppers.

The "campground" was just a lame little place and we couldn't even make a fire, so we took a walk down the road to a place with a firepit.  It was already getting darkish and cold.

 

There was lots of wood, but it was all really wet, so it took quite some time to get a fire going and then we had to wait for it to get big enough to make coals for cooking our tin foil dinners.  And then we had to wait for them to cook.  We were all having a good time, but man were we excited to eat them when they were finally ready!  I loooooove tin foil dinners!

 

Then we went back to our tents for bed.  What is it about sleeping in a tent that makes kids absolutely giddy?  Anyway, all the kids liked it, except Orrin wouldn't stay in his sleeping bag so he woke up in the night cold, and Brett zipped him in again.  And I?  I had to try to share a mummy sleeping bag with a little baby who wakes up many times a night to eat.  Not fun, my friends.  Not fun at all.  But we did survive.

In the morning it was freezing, we kind of wanted to hang out in the bathrooms--at least I did.  :)

 

We walked back to the fire pit place and Brett started a fire and we tried to get our frozen toes warmed up and ate breakfast.

So Talmage doesn't have a coat on because we told the children (at least four times, in all seriousness) to get their backpacks and put their coats and extra socks and hat in them.  Talmage arrived with no coat (although he did bring his backpack).  So I wonder... does that make us good parents, because he had to learn from the consequences of his not following instructions, or bad parents because we didn't make sure he had a coat?  Oh well, he survived, probably not that much colder than any of the rest of us--he had a few layers of shirts, and Ethne lent him her raincoat.

 

And then we took a short little train ride to Zermatt!  To be continued...