Susan and John Ruff, Fantasy Authors

As a fantasy author, I love to write sweeping adventure stories full of danger and perilous magic. When I am a traveler in real life, however, I prefer my adventures a lot more safe and sedate. As Bilbo Baggins once said about adventures: “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” Of course, Bilbo then promptly embarked on a dangerous adventure, but he was in a fantasy story, after all.

The one type of adventure that I do enjoy (both in my fiction writing and in real life) is the wrong turn that leads to an unexpected discovery. If you’re not in a hurry, taking “the scenic route” can be a lot of fun.

During my recent trip to Switzerland, I decided to hike up part of the Matterhorn Trail to the place where I could catch the gondola ride back down to town. Leaving from Zermatt with my little guidebook map, I quickly learned that the trails were extensive, well-maintained, and marked with excellent signs to tell where the various routes led. The only thing lacking from some of the signs was the distance to each of the listed destinations.

At one point, I came to a place where the path forked, and both signs listed my destination among the places along their routes. Without distances, however, I could not tell which way was more direct.

So (with apologies to Robert Frost): two roads diverged on a Swiss mountainside…and I had no idea which one to travel.

I finally made my decision based on altitude. The left path headed steeply down through the woods, and the right path went up along the mountainside. At the time, I thought my destination was higher up the mountain than my current location, so if I took the left fork, I might have to regain all the altitude I lost, essentially climbing up parts of the mountain twice. Because the right-hand path continued to slope upward, it would not require any extra downs and ups to get to my destination.

Apparently, the “high road” was the scenic route. I ended up walking well out of my way, both in distance and altitude. (Once I returned to the more direct route, I walked downhill all the way to my destination.)

It turned out to be a wonderful detour, because I got to walk through Zmutt, a charming little hamlet nestled along the mountainside, with great views of the surroundings. I felt very fortunate to have found it.

John and I had a similar adventure during our trip to Germany in the 1990’s (which I talked about in one of my earlier blog posts, but it was a while ago, so I hope you don’t mind hearing the story again).

We were driving through the Black Forest on our way to Triberg. When we stopped for lunch at a restaurant, we learned that there was construction on the main road. The helpful restaurant owner gave us directions for how to reach our destination via backroads over the mountains.

The directions were in German. John can sometimes understand German.

Sometimes.

After driving for a while along the back roads, we realized two things: first, we were the only car we had seen for a long time, and second, we had no idea where we were. (This was back in the days before cell phones and GPS.)

Our unexpected detour led us through a beautiful section of the forest, with snow drifting down from the tree branches. (The faded photo scanned from my photo album doesn’t even begin to capture the loveliness of the scene.) When we eventually arrived safely at our destination, the unexpected excursion became one of the highlights of the trip. We still talk about it, even 30 years later.

Before I end today’s blog post, I should mention that I also enjoy culinary adventures while traveling. But that is a topic for another day.

Talk to you in October!

Susan 9/1/2023