First things: we are in America. Yesterday, we survived four flights and traveled for over 24 hours. With five checked bags and two heavy carry-ons, I think we qualify for some traveling record. I'd like to nominate us for Eyes-Most-Dry-From-Flying and Most-Bags-of-Delta-Pretzels-Eaten-in-One-Day.

But, before it slides too deep into the past, I wanted to talk about Switzerland.

I wrote this on Friday, June 17 (shame, Alie), but here it is now. Let me just say that when I stepped out of bed today, I was walking like I’d just had a manicure. S-t-i-f-f calves, baby. But shooey (as my Tennessee girls taught me to say), that rewardingly good sore from hiking the Alps. As we walked around our Swiss town for the last time today, and I told him about being read Johanna Spyri books as a child, Walker concluded that I had long been destined for Switzerland. There’s no way I can tell you how much I love this country. Big love.

Today, we are sliding out of Switzerland to France, and behind us stand (how could anything that huge be sitting?) the most spectacular vistas, the most pristine air, and the most awe-inspiring spots our feet have ever found. I feel small. I feel like this is a pile of puzzle pieces that try to re-create what we saw, and even with the over 1500 photos we took, something is missing. I want to fill that in with words, but at the same time, I feel so unable that I want to give up. It’s way is harder to blog about something so grand than about a mouse in our flat. I cannot process it, or make it neat. This is what the Alps did best: they made us feel both miniscule and special. This beauty was made for us, for small, small us.

I want you to see this world, this quiet world, as we did. Whiter than white in the sun. So silent and yet so large that when I yelled to Walker 30 feet away, he never heard me. So green that Scotland seemed yellow. Empty, and yet radiant. I flung the doors of our hotel room open each morning to breathe the damp, dewy, purified air. That exuberance to see. . . I hope that is what comes through. I hope you are as quieted as we have been. Quieted and renewed.

The alpine flowers looked just like alpine flowers should: thin and buzzing, bright and sturdy in the rushing winds.

The views everywhere made me actually want to hold onto something or sit down.

We took the trains everywhere in Switzerland, the cogs cranking up and down the hills. Some of the best views were through the big windows of these brave pieces of nostalgia.

He makes even study days and cleaning together a blast, but being with Walk here, sharing the power of this place, was the best.

Falls rushed hundreds of feet down across the gorge from our hotel, and the azure ponds and teal lakes made me swoon for their saturation. Switzerland was a clean winner in the Best-Looking Water category.

Log cabins, lodges, and chalets rank highest on my list of dream vacation spots---from the streaked wood to the welcoming paths, I can only imagine being happy inside.

We took exactly 1334 photos in Switzerland, so more should be coming soon. In short, Switzerland was bliss, and likely our favorite European trip together. This utopian country is clean, beautiful, and serene, and even after the intensity of 10 flights and 12 country changes in the past month, it is still completely refreshing to recall. We are grateful (thanks, amazing in-laws!) to have seen what we have seen, and walked through such splendor.

Grateful, and awed.