Cove Mountain Cabin

Zak was sent home a few hours early from work last Friday, so I asked if he wanted to take a spontaneous camping trip and show me his grandparents' rustic cabin.  He used to go there every year or so, staying in a tent or a hammock nearby if they had a big reunion.

He showed me some of the forts the male cousins built around the forest.  His brother, Cohen, also started a stone bridge.  They worked quite a bit for recreation it seems.

We had fun on the forest trails with rocks and puddles in Beefy.

I met Grandpa Porter's brother, Gary.

We wondered about the property, which is split between the Chritiansens and Porters.  Dad told us that they homesteaded the 300 acre property three generations ago (or so) to use for timber, herding, and recreation.  So I don't think they ever paid for the land, it just became theirs.  Grandpa, Dad, and Zak's uncles built the cabin around the early 1980s.

Several family members have left marks on nearby trees.

Zak watercoloring at Deep Lake

We got to use our Camp Chef for the first time, and eat s'mores! (Ok, I ate the s'mores).

Because he knew I would appreciate it, Zak took me to the Richfield City Cemetery to visit his Grandma, Aunt, and Cousin.  I found out, while still a young boy, he'd drawn the hands for his Grandma's headstone, and the rose for his Aunt's headstone.

Zak's Grandma Porter

Zak's Aunt Jamie*

Zak's cousin, Jordan*

After we married, I heard Zak and I got married on the anniversary of Jordan's death.  I found out from the headstone we actually weren't.  Their family went through quite a bit in ten years.

*To protect those still living, I blocked out some names and dates.

WC in Switzerland

The variety of the waterclosets in Switzerland amazed me.  My first surprise came as a Turkish toilet in Montreux.

Yes, this is a ladies' room.  Hold on to the railings and lean back.

The strategy when travelling is to always use the restroom on the train, where you've already paid.  The charge in most major train stations is around 2.00 CHF (about $2.40 right now).

On double-decker trains you often have a regular flushing toilet, which they clean out later like an airplane, but on many Swiss trains, 2nd class WCs look like this.  When you flush, the flap on the bottom opens up and releases the contents onto the train tracks below.  I got stuck in the bathroom twice waiting to pull away from the station, because of course you are not allowed to flush while at the stations.

The bathroom inside of Germany's Vitrahaus was beautiful.  Black walls, with red stalls.

Some of the stalls had their own light switch, often it was timed.  This is the light switch and outlet.

I didn't notice the girls' restroom at first at Cailler's Maison.  I'm just glad I recognized the words for men, as the picture has somewhat of a unisex bob for a hairstyle.

I liked the turn-of-the-century look outside of Gstaad's public WC.

The new all-wood exterior bathrooms near William Tell's historic Rütli Meadow surprised me inside by giving my first experience with a Dyson Airblade in the middle of a forest.

In a land of many languages, pictures are king.

After attending a Medieval Fest, complete with villagers performing assigned medieval tasks, I stopped in the cheese factory across the street and discovered the self-cleaning toilet.  After flushing, the blue part of the tank comes forward, grips the toilet seat, and cleans it as the toilet seat circles around.  The soap-filled container then unclasps the toilet seat and retracts into the back.

As a joke, Zak explained that the grand structure (below) on the hill above Vienna, Austria's gorgeous Schönbrunn Palace (above) was the royal outhouse.

Boys.

I'm not sure why, but many of the WCs have the tank high up on the wall, such as the women's common bathroom at our hotel.  I liked the nice wooden building decoration at the end of the flushing chain.

At the Chateau de Chillon, we discovered that when a castle is on a lake, medieval toilets were just holes in a bench at the edge of the castle, with a straight shot down to the water.  They've actually had to close some of those areas off from tours, because tourists sometimes tried to use the hole toilets.  P.S. This is a bench, not a toilet-hole bench.

While the Funiculaire isn't technically a WC, it involved sewage.  In Fribourg, the sewage is moved downhill, and the weight of it pulls a train car down, as well as pulling the empty train car back up the hill.  Very clever of them, I say.  Here's to you, "Poo-Choo."  

When it comes down to it, and you can't afford the train station toilets:

Mudac in Lausanne, where Stefan Sagmeister exhibit showed

Church in Bern

Zak, Jess, and I went to church in Bern so we could visit a German-speaking congregation.  They welcomed us in, and pulled out a head set for Zak to use while a man a few rows over translated for all of the English-speakers into a microphone to the headsets.  I loved talking to the little elderly women and finding all of the people who came to be there.  That is one thing about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no matter where you go, the meetings are in the same format, and you just feel at home.

A few weeks later, Zak and I went to the Bern LDS Temple.  I started crying when I saw the familiar angelic statue amid the trees.  One more little miracle occurred, when we ended up inside with a woman and her son who had actually invited me into their home in Freiburg, Germany in 2006 when I did a language program there.  I introduced myself, and she remembered me.  They were actually there in remembrance of her daughter who had passed away, and I am honored that I was able to be there for it.

Obviously is was overcast when we went inside, and sunny by the time we came outside, but I smiled the whole time.  I love the Temple.