It’s only 7:30pm but we’re supposed to be a sleep on our way to Zurich in air travel time, but me I am wide awake.

I was thinking I had never been to Zurich before and maybe this will be my first time traveling to Europe to somewhere new, but not quite. I looked back in a journal I had kept from my first excursion in 1972, and I see (in my fine little scrawl that I can barely read at this age) turns out I had been there briefly, and for just one-night ages ago… it was in the fall 52 years ago. Apparently, I was feeling ill with an earache. I would get them on occasion as a child and here I was hunkered down in a youth hostel at 18 years old wishing I were at home for a moment with a warm cloth covering my ear to sooth the pain. The next day I was able to make my way to my cousin Jack’s house in Basel. Thanks to he and his wife I had a refuge to convalesce before continuing on my journey to Italy and Greece.

Nixon was running for president and politics seemed like a dreary AM radio song I never really wanted to listen to yet blared on my car radio… this before God made CDs, USB cords, Wi-Fi, and podcasts. And now even with all of that stuff, I still feel nauseous digesting the incoming barrage of manufactured messages targeted to parts of the country I’m not sure I can even relate to – but who are apparently now in control of the dial to our destiny as a nation.

But wow how I digress, it seems like the sun is setting into oncoming darkness, but it is not that bleak, it is only dusk as this plane rips through the sky toward our destination.

Dusk Not Doom by the Mystic Seamen:

I am listening to a song that melts me away like the ice in my drink “…took my watch out of my pocket and threw it into the waves”. Funny saying this in a town full of Swiss watch stores, dozens and dozens. Oh well, it’s really about the letting go after much intensity, a break from the daily grind and a brief time-out to bring things into focus. “…you think your life is over but its dusk not doom.”

Headed on another journey unfolding and discovering what we do not yet know. And on our mind is healthy little grand babies and a growing family in a country seemingly in knots. But for now we’ll settle for a little visit to Lake Luzern and its beautiful surrounding mountains.

In our historic hotel visited by the likes of Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and even Queen Elizabeth back in the day. And like us, likely all seeking some solace in the Swiss Alps and their endless lakes and expansive skies.