I'm looking at the scene above and trying to envision what it would be like standing there, where Annie snapped the shot this morning while leaving Switzerland and moving on to Germany.
She's headed to Freiburg, Germany, where tomorrow she may go geocaching in the Black Forest. Along the way, she meets with geocaching volunteers and staff.
Sunday she'll attend a geocaching event in Munich at the bier garten. Hey, I even know what that is without looking it up.
Annie thinks her mom and dad need to see Switzerland because, as she says, some spots are even prettier than the first time she saw them two years ago.
She also thinks that if we visit Switzerland and see all the bovines grazing in lush, beautiful pastures, we'll for sure come back home and purchase a Jersey cow for that Swiss cow bell she gave us from her last trip.
Now, I look at this equation, thinking that we have a hard time right now getting away on trips because of all the animals. If we went to Switzerland, came home and purchased a Jersey milk cow, we'd never go anywhere again.
I guess it deals with choices. The cows, admittedly, are charming as heck, but I'll stick to admiring those in the field on North Kootenai Road. As far as visiting Switzerland, it does sound tantalizing----'cept for that crazy train ride.
My mind is doing a lot of traveling right now. I'm mentally traveling with folks working in North Dakota.
One said this morning he had reached Glacier on his trip home from the oil fields, and I know he's excited to step inside a barn and play with some horses when he gets home.
Another is getting prepared to board the Amtrak headed east in the middle of the night. He's been home a week and will go back to his job as a mechanic.
As I write my story, I do a lot of visualizing, and that's what I love about writing. The interviews provide me the images and then my job is to put the images and the events into words as efficiently as possible.
I love that aspect of writing. It's very challenging, but oh so satisfying, when the perfect words or phrases for each situation flash into my mind.
Of course, some times people express the perfect string of words, and I jump on that while interviewing. While interviewing the dozen or so people associated with the North Dakota migration, I've latched on to some wonderful descriptive information. That's what's making this story fun.
I must share one anecdote about the interviews. In my freelance career I've done a lot of telephone interviewing with people from all over the country.
Yesterday I once again met my match. I'll call it a dramatic dialect dilemma.
This happened once before and it did not quite match the interview I did with a man in North Carolina who kept talking about this "heel" and that "heel" in between my "Huh's?"
I was getting pretty embarrassed, constantly asking, "Would you repeat that please?"
Finally when he attached a "Chapel" in front of "heel," I knew what a North Carolina "heel" was and I didn't have to grunt out "huh" nearly so often.
Well, yesterday the "huh's" returned. I was interviewing a New Yawwwrk City native. There's a distinct challenge in being polite but somewhat rude immediately after someone has given you vital information.
"Could you repeat that first part of your sentence," I would ask my interviewee. It began to get uncomfortable and I still had at least a dozen questions to ask.
Finally, out of desperation, I just ran those remaining together and said "thank you for your time."
Later, while visiting with him in person, I joked with the nice man and told him he had been the second hardest person I'd ever interviewed over the telephone.
To which he told me that if I were to visit his work setting in North Dakota where a lot of folks come from the South, I wouldn't understand a thing.
That made me feel better.
Nonetheless, this morning I must share one example of my dialect deficit during yesterday's interview. My interviewee told me over the phone that he had studied at Jostin Wells University in Rhode Island.
I asked him to repeat that. He said "Jostin Wells," or so I thought.
Well, fortunately, I've learned to google things which I don't understand, so this morning I googled "Jostin Wells University" and could find nothing.
Then, I Googled Jostin Wells University in Rhode Island. Still, nothing.
So, I went a different route, googling universities in Rhode Island. I found a list, scrolled down and, to my relief, solved the dialect mystery.
This gentleman more than likely attended Johnson and Wales University, which appeared on the list. It has a culinary school, and he is a chef.
My mind travels continue to take me to some interesting places, as do my ears some times.
So whether it's Switzerland to see the cows or to Johnson and Wales to see how the chefs learn their trade, life will always be interesting.
Happy Friday.
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