We put the Fun in Funicular

 The kids say our title is "cringey," but Ammon and I are fans of it and since I write the blog we are going with it. It's good to have ultimate control.

As I was dreaming last night, my throat kept coming up in the dreams. It was strange and I don't remember many particulars. At one point I think I dreamed that the lack of humidity had dried out my throat so much that it was gravel. Anyway, when I woke the first thing I noticed was how sore my throat was. Then I noticed how yucky I felt in general. So that was neat. 

When I got out of bed the next thing I noticed was how much it was raining. It was really coming down. When we were all up and had breakfasted we decided to alter our plans for the day a little. We had planned to ride the funicular up to Harder Kulm and then hike around, maybe even hike down. Between the rain and my throat, however, we decided it made more sense to take it a little easy today.

We packed up our rain jackets and our umbrellas and headed to the train station.

It was just sprinkling a little by the time we parked and started walking to the Harderbahn train that would take us up the mountain.

The funicular is pretty cool. The car going down pulls the car going up so they act as counter weights to each other. Ammon explained it all to us during lunch. It was extremely steep. Not feeling well has possibly made me a bit morbid. I kept thinking, well, if it breaks at least we will all die together. Anyway, that obviously didn't happen.

We arrived at the top and the storm had broken up. While it was still overcast, we actually had a pretty decent view of the valley and most of the mountains beyond.

The kids enjoyed the playground for a bit, and we got to see where the paragliders took off from. We found a picnic table and enjoyed a few snacks we had brought. We hung out until it started to sprinkle again and then headed back to the funicular.

By the time we had gotten back down the mountain it was dumping buckets of rain again. We got under our umbrellas and set off in search of a restaurant. We finally found something that wasn't outrageously priced and had some amazing pizza and pasta. 

Across the street the girls had spotted a shop they wanted to visit, so we went and checked it out. We had walked a good long distance from our car and I was starting to feel pretty miserable by this time. Ammon set off to bring the car to us. We shopped then started meandering toward where we had parked to meet up with Ammon. We had to stop for a picture of the Kermits.

If you don't know, Cormac's water polo team calls him Kermit. In fact, some of the parents have only ever known him as Kermit and at least 1 dad we know of was convinced that was his name until very recently. 

We were about halfway back to the parking when Azure realized she didn't have her phone. She was pretty sure she had left it at the restaurant. I was able to call Ammon and let him know we were heading back. We haven't been using our phones to call or text while out of the country, but I got lucky and it actually worked. He picked us up and took us the rest of the way. 

The poor server didn't speak much English, but when I pulled out my phone he realized we were looking for Azy's phone and pulled it out of his back pocket. You would have thought us showing back up would prompt him to realize why we were back, but maybe he forgot where we were sitting. Anyway, Azy was hugely relieved and the waiter gently stroked her cheek then gave her a huge hug which she returned, but then also said she thought it was a bit weird. We Americans just aren't used to physical touch with our servers I guess.

We stopped and got some more groceries, found a pharmacy for me, and then returned to our Air BnB. We had thought to return much earlier today, but that all took longer than expected. The girls played for a bit at the playground, but the rain picked back up and they were forced to retreat back inside. The kids and I watched "What About Bob?" while Ammon worked. They had never seen it before, but Ammon and I  quote it often enough that they wanted to see it.

Each evening before bed the kids and I have started a tradition where I read them the blog post from the previous day and they tell me what memories and things they want added. It has become a fun tradition, but if you read the blog the day it is published you may miss out on some of the kid's additions. It is a fun little ritual we have started though and I am really loving having this time with these kids. They will be off having adventures without their old parents far too soon. I'm so thankful to have this time with them and to make new memories together.

I didn't need to work tonight and we have a very early morning tomorrow, so I'll sign off now and hope to get some sleep. We simply don't have time to be sick on this adventure; far too much to do.