Monday, May 10, 2010

Auf Wiedersehen St. Martin bei Lofer

By Claire
Today was a lazy day; a bike ride into town for some food shopping, a load of laundry in the washer and dryer and some cleanup in Homer. We planned a hike for later and decided to spend the rest of the morning reading outside in the sunshine.



We enjoyed watching the lawn being shorn as the expert mower driver made his rounds throughout the campground but it was sad to see the flowers go.



Notice how he mowed just the outside edges, leaving the wildflowers in place. We think this area is left as an open field.



But the hike was not to be. The rain that's been predicted every day for the entire time we've been here finally came with a vengeance. We even had thunder and lightning. Not so bad--we pulled out our National Trust map for England along with 3 other maps of the UK and planned our route through England, up to Scotland and into Northern Ireland, hoping to stop at some of the fabulous sites included in our NT membership along the way. It's a big job, but someone's got to do it. It was nice being inside with the rain pouring down.

We are heading to another beautiful spot in Austria tomorrow and will stay there for a couple of nights en route to our destination in Switzerland. In the meantime, we are already missing this fantastic, quiet, non-mass tourism area of Austria and recommend it to everyone. If you like to bike, hike, canoe, kayak, walk, look at flowers, or just sit and stare off into space, this is the place for you.

This is our front yard and what greets me every morning.



We have so enjoyed our stay here and hope to come back. This campground in particular is just lovely. It is even organized into separate fields for families, campers without children, and dog owners.



Very suddenly, just after dinner, the rain, thunder and lightning stopped, the sun came out and brought with it blue skies and a rainbow. What a send off! Everyone emerged from their campers to take it in.






Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. ~ Yip Harburg

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I can't believe you caught the rainbow! Your photography is brilliant. We have the same camera, but my photos don't compare to yours. We are having a similar spring here--today, in the low 60's, rain, wind, sun, and fluffy clouds. Mother Nature is trying to teach us something I think. I know it will be hard to say good bye to this place.

Napamick said...

Uh...gang. At the risk of seeming picky, the lyricist for Over the Rainbow was Yip Harburg, who also wrote Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

He did not, however, write Edelweiss.

Chuck and Claire said...

Mick,
We had quite a conversation about this, wondering if perhaps that line about the rainbow was in his book and Yip Harburg used it for the song. I found the quote online and, well, you can't believe everything you read on the internet :-) In fact, I found two others listed as the writer. I am correcting the quote. Thanks.
Claire