A bright sunshiny day

Today it's once again rainy and chilly, but yesterday was one of those beautiful spring days (perhaps due to a Föhn?) that absolutely must be taken advantage of. So we decided to take Grady over to Lange Erlen, a park in Basel featuring a rather half-assed zoo (where Grady almost tried to get into it with the goats, tough guy that he thinks he is, and where we saw the storks mentioned in the previous post). The main reason we wanted to go there was to have a nice walk along the Wiese River. Dozens of dogs were scampering and swimming, and while Grady snapped at a few of them, overall he did really well. Best of all, he actually walked into the water up to his ankles. You'd think that wouldn't be a big deal, but since he's the only lab on the planet who doesn't like water, we were pretty happy.



Since we were in the neighborhood, we then decided to visit a Basel landmark I had never seen: the Dreiländereck. This is a sculpture marking the point where, in principle at least, Switzerland, France and Germany meet. It's quite underwhelming: it's in an ugly, industrial part of Basel on a rather unattractive stretch of the Rhine, and if I never see it again my life will be no less complete. On the other hand, it did give me an opportunity to do my best Titanic impersonation. (Although, never having actually seen the movie--despite my fondness for Kate Winslet--I think I said "I'm on top of the world!" instead of "I'm the king of the world!" So sue me.)



After a couple hours of walking around, we were in dire need of sustenance (a common theme with a wife who is 7 months pregnant), so we found an outdoor cafe in nearby Riehen where they had strawberry cake--and few things in this world make Gretchen happier than cake.



Alas, all good things must end: after going downtown on a still-sunny evening to meet friends for dinner, we left the restaurant to find that was raining once again (and naturally, half of us were wearing leather jackets and none of us had umbrellas)...