Not quite ready to see winter go, we headed to the Refuge Giacomini in the Alps with the Goodwins.  On the way there, we stopped at the salt mines in Bex, to see where our table salt comes from.  As you can see from the smiles, mining is not the grungy job you might think.

Then it was off up the hill.  Its not really that much of a walk.  Something like an hour and a half in "Swiss Standard".  For those of you not familiar with the terminology, "Swiss Standard" is the time it takes an ordinary Swiss grandmother to hike a given trail.  It took us more than 4 hours.

But we did make it.  There was quite a bit of snow for the end of May, and the refuge was quite nice. 

On the way back down the next day, we stopped for a Swiss moment.  We sang "Sound of Music" while the Goodwins got their Christmas photo taken.  I mean really - its not going to get much better than this, is it? 

Well, unless you have a jewel beetle on your nose.  Lyell and Mason collected easily 50 of them and wanted to bring them home.  I think TT negotiated them down to about a dozen, and only a few of the dozen got loose in the car on the way home.