Road Trip

For the month of September A'lil Hoohaa's assignment is to take a Road Trip - and while on the road, to take five pictures. Happy to oblige!

Monday morning, my son's class met at the train station to ride to the Bernese Alps for school camp. It was the first time since March 2020 that they're going away as a group. Actually his entire department was off for a week of sports and fun at different locations in the mountains, which must be about 200 kids!

Since I could not join them, I decided to enjoy my own miniature field trip. I had googled  two Alpaca Farms within a 50 miles radius. Both websites sounded great. 

One said "the alpaca field is open for visitors at any time! You can open the gate and get to the pasture. The hammock and the comfortable deck chairs in the alpaca pasture invite you to chill!"

As I arrived I was shocked to discover that the three alpacas were fenced inside the small pasture on an estimated 5 square meters = 6 square yards. The animals looked reasonably happy though. One was acitvely checking me out and making cute sounds as if to say hello and welcome.

I moved on to my next destination, the pumpkin patch. 

As I was saying it was Monday morning. It is a super popular spot for families with small children, and I  would never go there on a weekend. Although it was Monday, the parking lot was already full at 10:30, and not only that -  a dozen cars were waiting in line. 

I was bummed. It had been quite a drive, and I had been looking forward to visiting the Jucker Farm, that's what it's called. I was, however, not ready to wait for an indefinite period of time. We were approaching lunch time, and I didn't think many cars were going to leave before noon.

The farm has a second - smaller and less popular - site, about half an hour away, where visitors are allowed to park at a nearby sports facility. That's where I was off to!

Every year both farms do a great job setting up a themed pumpkin exhibition. One year it was all about music or sea life, another year the pumpkins were set up to look like movie characters or animals,... In 2022 the subject is "Fire".

Pokémon, a fire truck and a fireman were expecting me. Plus lots and lots of individual pumpkins for sale. The restaurant and farm store offer a wide range of agricultural products to eat in or take away.

On my way back I made a detour to check out the other Alpaca place I had researched. Their angle is "relaxed yoga or guided painting amid alpacas in the pasture", and again - even though it was bigger than the one in the morning - I expected a larger terrain. The animals were still super cute. Especially the one who thought the grass was greener beyond the fence.

My fifth picture was taken on a different day. Colin and his team played a day-tournament at a Grisons mountain village. They did very well and won the cup. On our way back we were rewarded even more with this vibrant double rainbow!

I hope you had fun with my photos. Now will you please head over to A'lil Hoohaa's to check out my blogger buddies' contributions.