I’m not completely sure what was going on last night. We were parked on the beautiful Lago d’Idro shores, where we had spent the day walking from coffee bar to bakery to coffee bar, and ended with a swim. It was a good day. My son Rafa seemed to have lost his appetite over the past couple of days, but yesterday, it was all back. He ate lake a monster, and fell asleep the moment he touched his pillow. Great. Usually that means a quiet night. But this night was different. We share the roof bed in our Ford Nugget, and he was very restless. Kept on wiggling towards me, until he had me all cornered. Then, when I switched sides with him, he repeated the same process in the other direction. He’s a sleep hugger, this one. Anyway, somewhere in the middle of the night he wakes up, sits upright and starts a conversation in toddler gibberish about bananas, with every time he pronounced the word, he followed up with a deep cry. No clue. Bananas? (He usually doesn’t even like the bananas in his muesli.) This happened a couple of times, but eventually he decided he preferred sleep over bananas. Great. When we woke up it was 8.45am… I don’t think I have slept past 7.30am even once since he was born. It was a weird night.
After our breakfast – muesli with the aforementioned bananas – we packed up, dumped our waste at the appropriate location, emptied our piss bucket, and go, off we went!
As usual, we had no real plan. The direction had to be home. A detour out of necessity. My plants and animals need me – briefly – as I was stupid enough not to leave the keys with the person who offered to care for them. We will make sure that all get the care they need – hand over our spare keys this time – and continue our trip, this time to France. I initially wanted to go to France anyway, I wanted a coastal trip, but the weather was horrible there, so we decided instead to follow the sun. Anyway, I digress. We had no plans this morning, and just drove North. God, I love driving through Northern Italy. We passed the wine region around Trento, which has its own charm, and a very distinct type of mountains lining it. Further north, after Bozen, the Eastern mountains of the Dolomites show themselves in the background, whereas on the foreground there are high but rather bluntly shaped mountains. I just love the mountains. For sake of time, we took the Brenner Pass into Austria. I would have preferred some silly mini pass instead, but maybe another day with more time. Just after Brenner, you will find the Stubaital. This place is a gorgeous valley, and we have been here before to hike. It’s conveniently located, easy to reach, has everything that you could ever need, all placed between two beautiful mountain ridges. That’s where we are now parked for the night. One additional reason is that this valley is also dotted with probably a dozen cable carts going up to about 3000m. I love mountain hikes, but it’s tougher with kids, and with a cable cart we can at least skip the way up and walk with a view. I specifically want to do this now, because I think my son starts to understand what mountains and views are, and he somehow seemed to find it quite enjoyable. He was also very interested in the cable carts (and probably doesn’t remember the many times he’s been in one as a baby). So, tomorrow morning: cable carts, quick hike, lunch in the mountains, cable carts and off to Freising.
On Friday we continue!
Robin Heinen 