Last week I took an unplanned trip to the USA to visit my Auntie Shell in Montana. To say she is one tough cookie is an understatement. She has been battling f-ing lung cancer for 5 years and had surgery to remove a new mass in her stomach. Spending the week with her was good for both of our souls. When I was a child and my mom needed a break from her 5 kids, she would drop us off at Auntie Shell’s house where we would do all sorts of fun things. Swimming, shopping, baking cookies, listening to the NYE Casey Kasum countdown, staying up way too late, playing with my hair. All the best things. I got to go on several road trips to Wyoming with her in her green Intrepid, music cranked, windows down, writing Pete the Penguin stories, stopping at tourist places along the way. She was who I wanted to be like when I grew up. When I was with her at the rest home, she kept getting stronger every day. The day before I left she was able to walk up and down a few steps. Incredible progress, especially considering what her body has gone through.

I left Montana and flew to Zurich, Switzerland, where we had plans with Kovar’s to spend a long holiday weekend on Lake Lucerne. We had found this amazing rental home in Sisikon, Switzerland. Whenever I am asked to draw a picture (I am a horrible artist), I draw snow-capped mountains with a lake at the base. That was what I got to look at from the couch. Gorgeous. The town was small, but the location was good for being able to do things around the lake. We ate at 2 restaurants in town, both were delicious. And you cannot find a better view…
Saturday afternoon I needed to fight off the jet lag so the girls went into Lucerne to explore a bit. This picture was taken on the Chapel Bridge, which connects the Lucerne Theater with St Peter’s Chapel, crossing the River Reuss.
There were many paintings on the roof of the bridge that caught my eye. I googled them. Renward Cysat either painted them or had them painted in 1611 (that is not a typo). Before a major fire in 1993, 147 of the original 158 panels were still in tact. Unfortunately 110 of them were affected by a fire that had destroyed most of the bridge.
The Water Tower was built around 1290-1300!!!!!
On Sunday the boys went fishing. No surprise, there are a TON of laws regulating what you can and cannot do while fishing in Switzerland. They had a great guide, Rolf, that took care of all of that for them. While most of the day they only caught little fish, it was good for all of them to be out on the water.
While I would love to be able to say that Ty caught the one and only big fish, I cannot. 🙂 The guide snagged it and reeled it in. Ty did help bring it in the boat with the net, though, so we will give him credit.
The girls spent the day exploring Mount Pilatus. We took a gondola all the way up to the top – stopping twice to switch carriages along the way. There are a few different tourist companies in the region. We used Pilatus. Without having anything to compare to, it was great. https://www.pilatus.ch/en/discover/lucerne (no, I don’t get paid to say that)
At the summit – around 7,000 feet above sea level. It was pretty cloudy that day so we couldn’t see very far, but it felt like we were on top of the world.
The views were incredible. I was thankful to have a ride up the mountain. We saw lots of hikers making the climb. No thanks….
Lily was the only one brave enough to get into the lake. The water was pretty chilly.
Here’s the info for the house rental if anyone is interested in booking directly with the owner. Highly recommend!
On the 4.5 hour drive home, we passed by the John Deere Bruchsal factory. Nice to see some green and yellow paint on the way!

We played a lot of Would You Rather while in the car. Would You Rather live in the mountains or on a beach. I choose mountains.