Monday: Disappointed kids. Because weather.

We had a plan for Monday that involved going up in the Aiguille de Midi gondola to the mid-station. We were in the act of gathering gear and putting on warm clothes, packing backpacks and locating granola bars, when we received information from the top: Not today. Too windy and cloudy up there. They may close the lift.

So. Need to pivot.

I conferred with Mark and we elected to make it a work day instead of a fun day. A certain number of our days here must be work days; Mark doesn’t quite have enough vacation otherwise, at least if we want to travel to be with family at Christmas. So there’s a lot of sense in working when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

However, this is a little sad for the kids. They were expecting a day on the mountain, and instead they must do math and other schoolwork. Literally already have their hats and hiking boots on: Sorry kids, not today. It isn’t safe enough in the weather.

This is a lesson you must learn, though, if you value life and limb, and you want to do any sort of weather-dependent activity that has objective hazards. It could be skiing, ski touring, climbing, and backcountry camping. Or it could be any sort of boating, or hiking at altitude, or road cycling. You must learn to let go of your plan when conditions change.

A lot of metaphors out here under the sky.

Pivoting from one outdoor activity to another can be hard enough. Mark and I did briefly discuss substituting a pretty, low-altitude hike. But pivoting from fun day to school day was pretty hard, even though everyone knows it frees up another day later, maybe one with better weather.

So there was a little more frustration than usual. Things seemed harder to do. One of the kids got through only about half of a day’s work before it was clear he was done. Anyway, we broke for lunch after that and tried to find a good restaurant that also had a cheeseburger and fries.

There’s a place that brews their own mead and has smashburgers and really good, American crispy tavern-style fries. I had mead called “le sang du Viking” and a tarte flambé “la végétarienne.”

Not much to report for the afternoon. Some work, some shopping, a meal of snacks and leftovers. Mark had to take a meeting till 7 pm and another at 10:30 pm, but that was long enough for a pleasant dinner and a bottle of wine. No complaints. Hope for better weather Wednesday.