Today being a domestic day, I have nothing even remotely exciting to report. Well, maybe one thing: dog washing day.

This may not seem like a big deal to most of you, but in our lives, it’s a major event.

It started with me taking the dogs for a nice, long walk to a deliciously muddy spot where both dogs jumped in – mostly Abby though, rolling around in the black muck and changing from a yellow to a black lab in 10 seconds flat.

So – time to wash dogs – with beer soap in hopes they would get intoxicated afterwards and like the smell so much they wouldn’t object. Simon did the scrubbing while I did the holding. Remarkably, the dogs got wetter than we did – therefore, we declared the operation a success.

But it didn’t stop there. Next: peeling all their towels and blankets out of various vehicles and off various beds and then taking the covers off their dog beds and washing everything, not with my usual mild, eco-friendly soap either. I used hot water and toxic chemicals that have the basement smelling very dangerous indeed.

It was necessary.

Then, while waiting for everything to come out of the washer and dryer, I took myself to my computer where I goggled (not Googled) at pics and posts my friends had put up on Facebook describing their latest backpacking adventures on Flower Ridge in Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island. Once again, I thought, “Yeah – I want to do the Augerpoint Traverse!”

And then, for some reason I thought, “What about hiking from one end of Switzerland to the other?” And I found The Alpine Pass Route.

Yup – one end to the other and can be done in 15 or 16 days and goes over all the major passes and through my favourite  Bernese Oberland and – well – why not?

The plotting has begun.

See what happens when I have a day off and time to think?