Chamonix!

There are two things that everyone does when they come to Chamonix. First, they all take the cable car to Aiguille du Midi ("Needle at Noon"). You actually take two aerial lifts and you end up at an elevation of 3842m (12605 ft) -- the highest access point by cable car anywhere. From there you can see basically the world, and specifically -- Mt Blanc up close and personal. This I did when I was in my twenties and I never want to do it again. My head does funny things at sudden shifts in elevations (don't even ask how many nose bleeds I get in the mountains, and even in the valleys of mountains!) and the last thing I want to do is ride in a packed cable car (Covid!) to then stand at heights that trigger every instinct in me to get out and get down. Funny that I love the mountains so much given that great heights inspire in me holy terror. [I was only a little tempted to do it anyway, because you can, since 2015, take another cable car from up there to Courmayeur in Italy. I love that small town and haven't been there since I was a very young solo traveler. So -- tiny flickers of temptation, but not enough to push me to do this trip.]

The second must-do in Chamonix is to get up close to the Mer de Glace glacier. It's by far the largest glacier in France (7 km) and the ride to it is just as beautiful as the view once you get there: you take a 20 minute cog rail car (funicular) to Montenvers and from there, you ride a brief telecabine, and finally you take some 500-plus steps down, and that puts you not only face to face with the glacier but actually right inside the glacier.

This I plan to do today.

After I greet the mountains.

They will be under cloud cover later, but at daybreak, I can still see them and feel humbled. Chamonix is such a complicated and touristed place and yet, the mountains are always there to remind you that they rule here. You are just a mere passerby.

Breakfast? I finally figured out (took me a while) that I do not need a large morning meal if I'm going to eat lunch a few hours later. Yes, I know breakfast is included in my room price, but still, "free" is not an invitation to wolf down more than you can handle. So, let's get back to fruit, yogurt and a croissant. Fine, and a stick of tomme de Savoie for protein!

I'm still unnerved by the whole skiing-Russians thing but perhaps this merely shows our utter isolation back on the other side of the ocean. Hearing Russian in the U.S. merely means that you've come across a community of immigrants. Not tourists, visiting while we're exchanging missiles over the Ukraine. Europe is different. Russians have bought up real estate here, parked their boats here, and routinely have played on Europe's playgrounds. In the past, I never gave this an ounce of thought. People travel, power to them. But of course, this year, it's different. In my mind, you can't party in Europe and wage war against its member state. Maybe it's just me. Poles have a deeply ingrained belief that Russia is always on the brink of destroying borders. Today it's Ukraine -- that's miserable enough -- tomorrow it's Poland.

Alright: do an about face -- away from the breakfast room and onto the cog rail station. The train itself is not new -- it was completed in 1909, though at first it was powered by a locomotive. (It was electrified the year I was born -- 1953). I purchased a ticket online to avoid a wait (totally unnecessary as the ticket windows were without lines), then worried a little as there was a line forming to get on the first train out (at 10:05). In the end they send two little red trains, one right after the other and all those who waited got on and found a seat.

teach your children well...

We spill out at Montenvers, having climbed some 1000m up the mountain.

And immediately I walk over to get on the small telecabine that takes us down, way down to the glacier. 

the glacier

Well, this is what it did when the telecabine was constructed in 1988: you got out of the little cabin and the glacier was before you. Over the years, the glacier has melted and receded so much, that steps have had to be constructed further down to take you to it. Each year, more steps are added. From zero just a few decades ago, to 520 today. That's how fast it is melting.

From a physical stamina standpoint, that is one hefty descent, and of course, an ascent coming back. Pregnant women and seniors are warned: take it easy, take pauses. 

I smile a little at these warnings. Some fifty years ago, I would have been sure to sprint down fast, passing anyone I could. As I am nearly 70, I don't race. Though it's not the lack of stamina that holds me back, it is, of course, the knee that's supposed to be replaced this spring. But, I've given it a workout in Chamonix and it's been more or less cooperating. 

Down I go.

Those in Chamonix have long figured out that visitors love to go inside the glacier and so they have excavated caves and short tunnels for you to do just that: walk into a field of blue ice (why blue? as I understand it, water, both liquid and solid, doesn't absorb the white light of the sun in the same way that air does; the bigger the brick of ice, or the body of water, the more blue it will appear). I don't think they realized that these caves have to be dug out anew each year as the glacier recedes. 

It's quite beautiful inside a glacier. Who knew!!

I turn around and head back up those many many stairs, sometimes dragging my wounded knee, but mostly managing just fine. And I do pause to admire the sunshine trying hard to push through the hazy skies, and, too, I study the visitors -- families with small children, small groups of friends, not many seniors and no pregnant women!

And after making it up to the train station, I feel I deserve a reward. There is a sweet little gift shop. How about a wee sized Mont Blanc crystal? Maybe a magnet? My needs are small.

Teresa, my Chamonix walking companion, had suggested I eat lunch up here, at the old Refuge de Montenvers. It was built in 1880 for mountain climbers and visitors to the Mer de Glace. Granite on the outside, knotty pine on the inside -- it exudes a strong and warm protection against mountain fury. 

I booked a lunch on the veranda and I was delighted to see little wisps of sunlight coming in from all sides in the big dining space. Happy chatter abounds. The views are, of course, fabulous. 

I would have been happy with even a hiker's meal of bread and cheese, but these people put together a small menu of local favorites that is unusually good, beyond expectation. I didn't hesitate: I choose the one important Savoyard dish I hadn't had -- the tartiflette, which has potatoes with a few onions and ham bits, smothered with strips of melted Reblechon cheese from the Chamonix valley. 

I love Reblechon and used to sneak it into my suitcase way back when, because it was impossible to get it in the U.S. Now of course we are flooded with cheese choices at home and so it's silly to take anything back at all. Still, I wont forget this lunch for a long time.

Oh, and yes, I did opt for dessert: a "blueberry finger" with pieces of meringue "snow." I will always think of wild blueberries as being a very Alpine fruit.

Outside again, I see that some people just like to eat lunch on the edge!

And now it's time to go back down to Chamonix. With a bunch of skiers!

I ask them -- where the heck do you ski here? They tell me they go up to Aiguille du Midi by cable car and from there, they ski off piste to the glacier. Steep incline, varying snow conditions and 23 kilometers of skiing. Now that's nerve! I tell them they are my definition of adventurous. The young guy retorts -- oh but I am sure you are adventurous as well! My age must have lead him to think that. But am I? At home, I was taught to be cautious. That danger lurks. Much as I wanted to plunge into adventurous stuff, I couldn't. Someone always put a hand out to stop me. And eventually, my sense of adventure fizzled. Sure, one would argue that moving to a different country when you're young and have no money is adventurous. That agreeing to teach law to Japanese students in Kyoto for a month is adventurous. That moonlighting in a restaurant after your day job is adventurous. As is kayaking with Ed and hitchhiking in Sicily, and doing a bunch of naughty things that hadn't quite made it to Ocean (yet). But at a deeper level, I know I could never have skied down off piste for 26 kilometers like these young people do routinely. And yes, in snowy years some get buried in avalanches (they all had avalanche equipment, I noticed), but most don't. As Ed would say -- you're more likely to crash in a car coming up here.

So, I admire their spirit and smile at their enthusiasm. And notice their utter tiredness.

(note the sticker on his ski... Is he a cheesemaker?)

In Chamonix again I do some light shopping for the kids. Very light. So light it doesn't even count.

And then I have someone knead my back one last time and I take out my suitcase to begin the chore of packing, while outside, the clouds roll in.

Evening. It's my last dinner in Chamonix. I leave very early tomorrow (very early!), so you could say it's my last full meal, period. I chose La Maison Carrier for it. This is a sister restaurant (well, more like the poor cousin) to the only Michelin starred place in Chamonix -- Albert 1er. Both are run by I think the fourth generation of the same family and both are part of this town's luxurious hotel. All this is irrelevant. The thing is, La Maison Carrier may be a second fiddle of the bunch, but its food reputation is stellar. And its prices are in line with those of other dining establishments around town (which honestly are up there in Paris territory: my fixed price 3 course meals, service charge included, tend to be between 40 and 50 Euros here, which is currently right around $40 - $50; in Paris I often eat below that price point).

This is the only restaurant that requires me to walk to another corner of town. And it is the first and only time for me to feel the wetness of a light rain. I didn't take an umbrella -- I have a hood on my jacket, but it does make me wonder: what would have I done had it rained the whole time I was here? (Actually, I guess I know: I would have stayed in my hotel and read a lot of books!)

The restaurant is very farm-like in decor.

The food? Oh, it is very very good, but it doesn't cut through to the top three, or even four. The execution is great, the setting -- lovely, and they have a dessert table where you could help yourself to anything and everything you wanted. But the menu is otherwise (in my view) uninspired and if you want something not terribly heavy, you are stuck with lightly cured salmon for starters and a Lake Geneva fish for a main course. I order both and they are really fine, but what is missing is some excitement! 

(Salmon in a delicious lentil puree)

(Dessert? you pick your own from a round table!)

... Or is it that I am feeling the drag of having to then go back to the hotel, in the rain, and start packing? Knowing that I have to send my suitcase through, because of those creams and kid trinkets. It's just too heavy to take on the flight with me. And knowing, too, that we are having an ice storm back in Madison right now. The airport is officially closed. The weather probably wont affect my travel, but there may well be staggering delays as airlines try to catch up. 

But that's not what I was thinking about as I walked into the hotel Mont Blanc at night. I was thinking instead about how special this place is, with its 40 rooms spread over a five floors. Indeed, as I closed the door behind me in my room and faced my suitcase, there was a knock on the door. One of the staff brought a handwritten message thanking me for my stay and along with it, a beautiful bound notebook, as a small gift. They do such stuff here. Earlier, the person who was stomping on my back asked me if I liked taking pictures in Chamonix. How did she know that I took pictures here? Somehow, they know.

As usual, it's late. I don't mind being tired tomorrow. All I have to do is sit, all day long. And catch my connections. And write some words here, for you.

with love...

Chamonix!

I have two days left in the mountains of southeast France. I feel that if I had any goals for my week here, they ought to be attended to today, because tomorrow, the weather pattern in the Alps shifts. Their much needed precipitation will descend on the mountains (though not in a blizzard fashion) and, too, on those huddling in the valleys. So today is it! 

What pressure!

I feel like I have not wasted my time here thus far. Indeed, I packed a punch. Perhaps even a wallop. The days were a bit too long and I was too tired at night. Posting was an effort. If you want to tell me that I could, in the future, take a vacation from posting, I'll retort -- how little you know me! Still, each day has been full and long and memorable.

So what to do today? So many competing interests. Teresa, my local walking partner here, noted that one reason why staying in Chamonix (she wasn't born here) appealed to her many decades ago, when she made that decision, was because there is so much variety in the valley. This is true. You come to Chamonix with a book full of options! (Though I have to say, the absence of heavy snows here this year worked in my favor: I would not have been able to do half the walks I did, had there been abundant snow. Too many avalanche threats kick in. Less snow is a skier's loss, but Nina's win.) For a visitor, deciding where to go and what to do is tough. Will I be filled with regrets if I don't do the valley walk? If I don't hop over to the Swiss side of the mountain? And what about a day of not doing much -- that has its charms as well. Should I just do nothing?

I thought about all this as I looked out on the mountains this morning (my usual routine upon waking up).

And I thought about it some more at breakfast. 

I thought how yesterday was sportive. Maybe today should be restorative?

(More thinking, in a corner of the hotel's vast living room.)

I thought about how I could always come back next year. But, but, what if there's snow and the mountain trails are cut off for walkers? Would I come here anyway? You cant decide this kind of a trip at the last minute. Too, I love the hotel. I love how it's perfectly acceptable for people to walk around in the white bathrobes and slippers. And how the young staff is always smiling up at you. It's all great. But it has, along with perhaps all of Chamonix, and maybe the entire French Alps... dare I say it -- too many Russians. Here we are, about to commemorate with sadness and not a small amount of fury the start of their war, and the families and the blond trophy wives (fake blondes, every one of them) of the powerful (because who else from Russia has the means to travel right now, with frozen assets and tightened restrictions) are vacationing in the French Alps. 

It gets to you. 

So here's my day, the earliest part of it preset by segment two of my face rub, scheduled for this morning. So, I start out with a twist of the neck and a squeeze here and a pat there (the goal is to improve circulation) and now I am ready to set out. (With a bag full of creams to take home, because EU creams and cosmetics are heavily regulated whereas ours back home allow for every toxin and carcinogen on the planet to be stuffed inside. You can read about it here. The article explains how you should read the labels and not buy stuff that contains excessive amounts of like a million unpronounceable words -- a ridiculous and impossible to implement suggestion! Easier just to buy those that are made in countries that don't equate regulation with an intrusion on personal freedom.)

After all that thinking, I decide to go back down to Les Houches, this time by train, and to pick up the telecabine from there up to Prarion. I've been told by Teresa, by the Tourist Office, by everyone, that there is great walking/snowshoeing/cross country skiing up there.

I board the train. 

I love this line that goes up and down the long Chamonix-Mt Blanc valley. In the late morning it hasn't the skiers and so I settle in to do some serious people watching. Some kids traveling independently, some families, some couples, some older people moving around the valley in this very convenient, calm way.

I get off at a station a demande. Meaning it's small and it's only on request. How small is it? Take a look: there isn't much beyond a platform. No streets leading to it, just a path to follow up the hill.

You have to climb up to get to the main road (through a forest, past a farm smelling deliciously of farm animals)...

... and I note that there's a lot of ice on the path. The way they deal with ice is to sprinkle it with gravel. No salt. At all. Anywhere. Sure, you have to walk carefully. (Or you can just move around by bus and avoid this station altogether.) But it's manageable.

The telecabine is much like the other two little gondolas I used to get up mountains here: about a ten minute ride up about 1000 m (3280ft) above the valley. (To remind you -- the Chamonix-Mt Blanc valley is already 1042m above sea level. Not high, but not low either.) 

Once up on the Prarion plateau, I quickly find the itinerarie raquette -- that's what they call a snowshoe trail. Unlike the one I tried yesterday, this one is quite reasonable (and it is shared by some cross country folks, though I saw no more than one on Nordic skis the whole time I was up there). So, it still has its ascents and descents, but it is wide and well groomed. It's really a civilized winter walk on a mountain. Good exercise, splendid views, and pockets of quiet, when you are not crossing the ski runs. (Though the ski runs here are not very crowded. I don't know why. Perhaps they aren's as challenging as some of the others?) And here's the thing: because it's so safe here (you're not going to slip down the mountain and break every bone in your body, like on yesterday's snowshoe trail), and because my cleats on my shoes are so perfect for packed snow, I can not think about managing the difficult terrain and instead, I can focus on the view, the air, and on what's inside my head. Meditative walk indeed!

I do have plenty of photos from it even as I understand you are probably tired of mountain photos. Still, it's a beautiful spot on this planet of ours and I want to give it its due. So, maybe twenty pics, okay? Fine, I agree that's excessive. You probably can do with fewer than ten! Well then here are nine!

(to the valley below)

(undulating terrain of the plateau...)

(well groomed and well marked snowshoe trail!)

(another solitary walker...)

(two on snowshoes: it is not that warm!)

(in winter, this is a skiing mountain; in the summer -- it's a pasture)

(occasionally you come across ski lifts and ski trails)

(a snow-shoer, taking it in...)

(hikers taking a pause: five friends and two dogs)

I stop at the mountaintop restaurant before going down on the telecabine. Just long enough so that I can time my return and catch the 2:51 train back to Chamonix. As usual in these places, the restaurant is mostly self service. There are a ton of chairs that people arrange for themselves on the snow. Even if you are not buying anything, you're free to sit down. Eventually one will open up. 

You find it, you plop yourself down, you exhale. And you take a selfie!

A few minutes later I ride down to the Les Houches town, and then walk down some more, to my station a demande. 

(icy but manageable)

(station a demande)

The little red train arrives on time and some 15 minutes later I am in Chamonix.

I had been told I must get myself over to the Chalet 4810 Salon du The (so named because that is the height of Mt Blanc). It sits on top of a bakery (Aux Petits Gourmands) which some would argue is just as good if not better than Richards. And, it has a collection of crystals that you can admire. [Crystals in Chamonix are a big deal. Fluorite and twisted quartz are found only on the Mont Blanc massif and in the Polar Urals in Russia. Crystal exploration and trade -- for jewelry, for high end decoration -- was well documented in this valley even back in the 17th century and it became an important part of Geneva's trade at the time. There still are crystal hunters in Chamonix today. They hunt and excavate using only traditional methods. Skills are passed on from one generation to the next. So, a big deal here!]

Yes, just looking at the pastries in the window makes me want to go in.

(inside: a French family where the grandfather did 99% of the talking)

I try to be sensible: how bout starting off with what they call a salade d'hiver? It's a salad composed of beets and lots of endive and walnuts. And for dessert? I'm sorry, I just can't help myself!

And the afternoon sun sets and soon we have a winter evening take hold. Cool and crisp.

I eat dinner at Chez Constant. They pride themselves in their use of French and when possible, local products and I am happy to see that this puts a lot of mushrooms on the menu. Again, I find the fixed price meal to be a real deal. What do I get? Well, I start off with scallops (they are from Normandy; it was either that or their foie gras and two days in a row of foie gras is too much) which are with chanterelles, and then go onto local trout over winter root vegetables and, again, with chanterelles. Dessert is part of the deal and the waiter convinces me that a molten cake with raspberry ice cream is tres petit. It's not. I can't finish it. And no, you do not get a photo of the dessert. I'll post one of the trout because it is so classically French and so perfectly prepared. Underneath that skin is a delicate pink meat that falls off the fork. Sublime.

I'm always surprised to see every menu here have cheese fondue on it, and even more surprised to see so many people ordering it. Boiled potatoes, cut up baguette and a pot of cheese. To be sure, the cheese is probably greatly enhanced with wine, possibly garlic. But it is just melted cheese. No better no worse here at Chez Constant than in most other restaurants in Chamonix. And honestly, it's not really a Savoyard dish. Cheese fondue is properly Swiss. But, images of Alpine foods run deep and I suppose when you vacation in the Alps, you want whatever you feel is that quintessential Alpine food. I'm not totally immune: I often pick up a tomme de Savoie chunk of cheese for breakfast. Me, who never ever eats cheese for breakfast back home.

Sleep well all you mountain lovers and city dwellers and ocean people everywhere!

With love...

Chamonix!

When you travel, in your home country or abroad, how open are you to others all around you? Do you notice them? Smile encouragingly? Say hi when you enter, and bye when you leave, and pardon or some such when you bump into them? At the risk of really setting off those who hate country stereotypes, I would say that some nations produce many more people who are outies (my word for those who recognize and acknowledge the presence of others) and other nations -- more innies. Italy, Spain -- outies. Japan and Russia these days -- innies. Try catching the eye of a Russian traveler. Go ahead, just try. You wont succeed. [Where do Americans fall on this continuum? I think we are mostly outies. I find most traveling Americans to be both friendly and curious about their neighbor.]

*     *     *

Good morning to yet another beautiful day in the mountains! Frighteningly so: it will reach 50F (10C) today, under sunny skies. They do say that by the end of the week the cold and the snow showers will return. Or maybe it's that they need to feel that optimism (as do we all)!

Breakfast -- let me just pan the camera over some buffet items that are simply irresistible.

Voila! I could just make a meal of their bread product, but no, I have to add the cheeses and fruits and yogurts and eggs and smoked trout and honey... Hmm, maybe I should have a sportive day?

*     *     *

I go over to the Tourist Office to see if they have additional suggestions for walks in or around Chamonix. I tell them I already did the one to Le Chapeau. She looks at me with a frown on her face:

We don't recommend that one at this time.

Why, what's wrong with it?

We dont know the conditions there. 

I can tell you the conditions there -- they are fine!

Still, we cannot tell for sure...

I have to think it's the presence of an avalanche alley that cuts into the trail: might there still be snow up above that could let loose and tumble down? Or is it simply that the Tourist Office prefers to steer you to groomed places, manicured toward their intended use? 

Okay, let's not discuss what was, but what can still be. What do you recommend? She mentions Le Tour. Done that. Then she suggests a forested walk just up the valley from Les Tines (a village accessible by train). Maybe... And if I want sunshine and glorious views, I should definitely go to Les Praz, from where I can take the telecabine to the first summit. You will need snowshoes for the hike there, but it is very nice.

With good conditions? Enough snow for snowshoes?

She answers in that "isn't it obvious" way that implies the question is silly. Of course there is snow. People ski there. You need snowshoes though. You can rent them in Les Praz.

I opt to take the train further up to Les Tines and do the forested walk today. I only have the morning for it. Tomorrow I'll go all out and do the telecabine in Les Praz up to those snowshoe trails.

I hurry to the train station. 6 minutes? No prob! And as the train pulls away and the sun trickles into the car, an urge takes hold and like a magnet pulls me to the door as we approach the first stop -- Les Praz. A walk up high, in the sunshine! Seems fabulous! For today!

(at Les Praza, passing a house with a beehive... sympathetic to the Ukraine...)

The telecabine lift up the mountain is just a short walk from the station. The gondola-like lift is nearly empty now. Any serious skier would have gone up to the top where there are ski runs a long time ago. The attendant admires my camera, we chat about the virtues of Fuji, the doors shut. One thousand meters later,  I am out, looking around me for the snow shoe trails. I do not have snow shoes, but are they really necessary? I put on my spikes and start the "snowshoe" loop.

Two comments here: the views are just fabulous! Do you see the tele-cabine, passing by?

The glacier Mer de Glace...

With Mont Blanc and all its sister peaks staring right at me. Really grand, all of it!

My second comment is about the snow shoe trail. True, you dont really need snowshoes if you have boot cleats. It's a packed strip of snow. You're not going to sink in. But my oh my is it a work out! Up and down, in a loop, except that it is such a challenge that I cut it in half and retreat before finishing it. I wont have time to catch my targeted train if I do the whole thing. These French people sure expect a lot of sportive effort in their mountains!

Just before the telecabine ride down, I pass an eating place with a few swingback chairs for the weary. Ha, for me! I sit down for a few minutes, then thank my stars that I put on enough sun screen back at the hotel. 

(Always the young and crazy up there on the slopes!)

(my shoes and cleats served me well today...)

And now I am at the train station (along with a few others, except they are going in the opposite direction. No one wants to head back this early to Chamonix).

Me, I'm in a bit of a rush because I have a meeting -- a last one -- with Teresa the walking partner-photographer-Chamonix resident, and I still need to eat a lunch. Well, "need" is a bit of an overstatement. I've been eating plenty here. If I skipped ten meals in a row, I'd still be okay.

I'd asked at the hotel which bakery was their favorite and they all shouted out "Richard!" 

So I stop in there and pick up too many treats that will be my lunch. The important ones: a mushroom quiche and a blueberry tart.

Teresa comes at 1:30. This time she turns the car in the other direction and we drive down toward Les Touches in the southwestern edge of the valley. There she navigates the car up a winding road, reaching hamlets that I think may all fall under the name of Le Coupeau. 

We leave the car behind near the top and head out on foot. 

It's a fascinating corner of the greater Chamonix valley. Many of the chalets, farmhouses, granaries are authentically old. They may not be used for farming these days -- most have abandoned that cause in favor of tourism -- but the houses were once constructed to accommodate a farmer's needs. 

And they are beautiful to see here, at a time when more convenient housing has sprung up closer to town, and these places, so full of character and beauty, have been left to whatever fate the owners bestow on them. Luckily, on this mountain, the owners have vowed to keep their authenticity in place. Sure, they've been updated inside. But on the outside -- they look perhaps as they did several hundred years back.

(By the way, in the afternoon photos, all the ones where I make an appearance, were done by Teresa with my camera, then minimally modified by me.)

There's much to say about this quiet corner of the greater Chamonix area, but I have even more to show with the photos I took. It is a magical place! The chalets, sure -- lovely. But the view is what really brings home to you the power of the Mont Blanc range. It is in your face, surrounding you in its embrace. 

Likely to been one of  the best of great mountain views that I have ben privileged to see.

(Teresa has brought some tea and cakes and we pause here to eat these treats...)

We do a hiking loop, past pastures and bogs, then through a forest (mostly pine, but larch as well -- that wood that was once used in so much of the housing up here)..

Past more farmhouses and granaries, now used by homeowners for storage..

It really is a fabulous walk. 

I feel like today I met the criteria for a sportive day!

*     *     *

I eat dinner at Atmosphere. This is a very lovely little restaurant in the center of town, overlooking the river that runs through Chamonix. It was nearly impossible to get a table, even booking as I did several weeks ago. I can see why -- the food is good and if you take the set menu, the prices are extraordinarily reasonable.

I eat home made foie gras (when in France...) and then duck breast, finished off by a Savoie apple tart on a very thin layer of crust. With salted caramel ice cream. Which do you want to see? Okay! (Everyone always wants to see the dessert!)

The one thing that did happen at dinner is that I lost my love for restaurant lobsters.  I did not order lobster. It would be a ridiculous choice: Canadian lobster in Savoie, France? Totally not right. However, my table was next to the lobster tank. And I saw some pretty unhappy lobsters in it. I know this is a bit nuanced, but I will feel okay about eating seafood that's not tortured before it hits my plate. Eat it when you're near a place where it has been fished, or eat it from someone who does the job of freezing it until it gets to your table. What I can't see myself doing is eating a lobster out of a tank of our local seafood center. Those unhappy lobsters really got to me!

And now I must sleep! Athletes and mountain hikers need their head-on-pillow time.

With love...