Potters Two: Happenings of the last six months

It has been some time since I posted a blog. So here goes. John and I have really been traveling a lot the last few months. I was in Idaho shortly after John’s surgery, to help out with Scott. Then John was sent to Switzerland on business (nasty job but someone's got to do it). So I just had to go along so he wouldn’t get bored. It was a fantastic, beautiful 3 weeks there. We were there in September so we were able to spend our anniversary there. We were able to see the Matterhorn, the Eiger, Eidelsten Abby, we went up Mt. Pilatus, and I was able to take a cog wheel train to the top of Mt. Rigi and then hike down which took about three and a half hours. I was also able to take the boat or ferry around Lake Luzern. Luzern is the city we stayed in. We also got to see the Bern Switzerland Temple. We went on a Sunday to just see the out side because John worked during the week and then I took the train and went back on a Tuesday and was able to do a session. The session was done in Italian. It was so neat, and then I took the train back to Luzern. I was able to get out and do just about anything that I felt like I wanted to do because a lot of people spoke English. I could use many different modes of transportation because they had them all. I road the bus system, the ferry’s on the lake, cog wheel trains, gondolas, and the regular rail system. John’s favorite place was the Eiger mountain, we went back twice. It was a beautiful place and it still had snow quite deep even in September. The second time we went we hiked out across the glazier. It was about 2 and 1/2 miles to the little cabin that the rock climbers stay at when they climb the north face. There is so much history in this little town that dates back to the 11th century. We stayed at a beautiful old hotel called the Monopol. I really got hooked on there Starbucks caramel hot chocolate. We also attended the baptism of our granddaughter Shae (Jim and Teri’s third child), in October. In November Jim and Teri and their children came out to California to go to Disneyland, and we spent three days there. We had such great fun. Then business called again and we were on our way back to Switzerland at the first of December. This time it was so cold that being out side for very long was impossible. This time we decided to go see castles instead of mountains. We visited six of them and three were in the same town, just up the hill one from the other. This castle is in Bellanzona (this is where there are three) this is the largest of the three castles. We also visited the Chaetae de Chillon. This one was real fun because we visited it on a national holiday and they had a street fair going and it was all from the period of the castle with the knights and town folk and everything. It is a beautiful castle right on the water. It was a rush to get back home on the 19th of December to be able to get ready for Christmas. Then it became a nightmare. Our flight into the states through Dulis in Washington D.C was cancelled (all of the United flights into the US were cancelled) So we had to be put up in a hotel in Zurich for the night to catch a flight out the next day on Swiss air routed through Dublin Ireland,(on El Lingus) then we caught a flight from Dublin to Shannon, which we almost missed because the lady booking our flight put us arriving after the other flight had left 15 minutes prior. We ran from one end of the airport to the other only to be told that that flight was closed. We told them that we had to catch that one because we had a connecting one to Boston and that our bags were already on the flight. They checked the computer and yes we were to be on it. So they called the red jackets (the guys who close the doors on the aircraft) he was told that the door was still open if we ran we might make it. So two guys grabbed John’s carry on bags and away we ran. They put us up through security and then we ran again all the way to the end of the corridor and we just made it before they shut the doors. I was shaking like a leaf and was so out of breath. The good point about all this is that John ask them if they would allow me to set next to him in first class (because I was flying coach) so he could watch me and make sure I was okay. I hit the seat we took off, I laid the seat all the way back and I just slept. We got into Boston and we needed to claim our bags and go through customs and catch an American Airlines flight to Los Angeles. So we ran down to get our bags and we waited and we waited and we waited, NO BAGS, they lost our luggage. So we needed to put in a lost luggage report . Go through customs, catch a shuttle bus to another terminal and then catch our flight to Los Angeles. That plane was delayed two hours. We get into Los Angeles finally and discover the keys to the car are in John’s check in bag NO CAR. We then need to get a rental car and try to figure out how to get into the house when we get home. But all is well we have a hide a key. The joys of international travel in the winter time. We did finally get our bags back 6 days later. They never left Zurich. I know that this has been a long blog but it gets you all up to date with the latest with us. We hope that you all had a real good Christmas. We did because we were home and had some family with us.