Ray Porter, the narrator of the audiobook nailed the character voicing – such an absolute delight. Worth way, way more than the free trial of Audible I used to listen to it. (The movie felt like it was based in part on his interpretation.)

Saw Ray Porter at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival many times over the years, and he is a great actor live on stage. But I have to admit that his audiobook narrations are even more awesome. I've listened to books I didn't particularly like just to experience his narrations!

Totally. He was amazing.

Have you considered the Dolemites? Went last June and it was not swamped at all.

My wife who does a lot of hiking says it depends a bit on what you mean by summer - August will be busy everywhere for example. And if you can avoid starting the walk at a weekend that will help because you'll be out of sync with most of the other trips when it comes to booking places to stay.

She's done a couple of walks over recent years which she wrote up on her blog in case they're useful: Picos de Europa, and Dolomites and Venice.

Consider Iceland? Though it's gotten popular lately, hiking in the highlands is otherworldly. I hiked Fimmvörðuháls with my oldest in a day (it was intense—thank goodness for the late summer sunset). The nearby Laugevegur Trail is on my bucket list—a more leisurely hut to hut hike, glaciers, volcanoes, hot springs...

Thanks for all the advice! I think the Dolomites are definitely an option.

I absolutely love Iceland, but my brother is pretty set on mainland Europe.

And Phil, my gosh your wife has been to some amazing places! Makes me feel some real wanderlust looking at her photos.

We hiked across Switzerland 15 years ago, and have been back on some of the hikes since. Eastern Switzerland is quite beautiful and generally not flooded with tourists; we quite enjoyed hiking over passes around Elm and Braunwald. Also, things get a bit quieter if you hike west out of Mürren, up above Lauterbrunnen. There's a nice, relatively short hike up to the Rotstockhütte, where you can stay overnight and head back to Mürren, or a longer hike up and over the pass and then on to the Gspaltenhornhütte (same with food / overnight), which is in a fairly remote but stunning spot. Hikes around Kandersteg (up to the Blüemlisalphütte or the other way towards Adelboden are also beautiful, and a bit of a change from the classic Jungfraujoch / Eiger area. Adelboden is also a lovely little town.

I loved the hiking around in the Walensee area and in the Ticino region around the town of Bellinzona.

It was a long time ago, but this Walking in Switzerland guide was fabulous. My husband and I came to refer to the author (Clem) as the third person on our trip who really had it together. Not once did he let us down! We'd pop out of the mountains in a tiny town and tooot tooot there was the PostBus exactly when Clem told us it would be there. Have a great trip!

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/walking-in-switzerland-lonely-planet-walking-guides_lonely-planet_clem-lindenmayer/9042392/?resultid=35fcef10-04ee-4419-852b-94e29725268b#edition=3283573&idiq=7146360

Norway!!!!
I've hiked a bit in Iceland and Faroe Islands, which are both great for different reasons and having some "Alps" vibes. Faroe has less people and you are hiking in some places where nooooo one ever goes.
But Norway is our favorite. The Alps actually end in the arctic circle, and the hiking there is great. But Fjordal hiking is even better:
1. You're often starting at sea level, which means there's no altitude sickness!
2. You get the mountains *and* the water!
3. Waterfallssssssss!
The Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway is maybe my favorite place in the world, and has some of my all time favorite hikes:

• Reinebringen — This whole area is 10/10
• Henningsvær — The hike takes you to the peak behind the field… but the field is public and you can go play there too!

Geiranger and the Western Fjords, up to Andalnes runs a close second to Lofoten. But pretty much all the hiking is crazy, and we've never dealt with crowds across any of our trips there. Feel free to message if you want more details — we've helped a few friends plans vacations to Norway.

wow @Phil want to second Caroline's comment, your wife's travel blog is really great. bunch of the places in the sidebar are on my list and this is really useful info.

I second Katrei's post about eastern Switzerland and love the nod to Kandersteg/Lauterbrunnen valley area. Having worked in Kandersteg two fabulous summers, they are generally close to main circulation routes yet don't get a ton of pressure.

Depending on the year, there could still be a fair amount of snow in the high alps until July. Note that August 1st is Swiss National Day and can be busier (to avoid or plan for). Bietschhornhütte is a remote gem in this area and Hotel Obersteinberg is closer to the bigger Eiger/Yungfrau draws. If you want remote but similar mountains, second the Italian Dolomites and Dinaric Alps (Slovenia or Albania/Prokletije)

Ooh! That sounds nice. Would you wanna share your favorite ramen spots? There are so many good ones, so I'm always curious if I'm missing any.

We went to Tsujita (which is well-known ramen) and Iki Ramen near Koreatown. The latter had a ramen w/ a smoky/bacony broth that was super good.

Both look great. I'll have to try. Ty!

I am very glad to hear you had those delicious dumplings which are a very few blocks from my home. Would have been fun to accidentally bump into you on the street. 😆

We'd love to produce our own emissions free electricity but don't have an area with sun exposure. The ability to support systems that will allow us to go nearly off-grid (or totally) will be a priority with our next house.

Of course, I meant equinoxes, rather than solstices...

I'd be interested to know, have you calculated/guesstimated when it'll have paid for itself? From your reference to energy independence I'lm assuming that was a motivator. Basically the decision-making process around projects like these is fascinating to me in my day job, which is writing about stuff like this.

We're in the middle of our solar project, and while the payback estimate is part of our decision making, I think a bigger part is as a big FU to PG&E. Our electric rates have gone up by a third in the last 5 years while they've been starting wildfires all over Northern California with their shoddy maintenance. I can't wait to run my dryer knowing that I got the electricity from my own roof and batteries instead of from them.

Disappointed you didn't crowdsource advice for doing it yourself in the comments

Brake fluid isn't a consumable in any way. Engine oil - sure, you'll lose some of that over thousands of miles.
But brake fluid ain't like that; if you lost all your brake fluid (or even just "some"), there's a leak. And that's bad.
bad.bad.bad. (Project Hail Mary inside joke)
Much better to have it happen at home in the driveway than out on the freeway, of course - the parking brake's capabilities are limited.

(Brake fluid is supposed to be flushed out - just push in new stuff to push out the old stuff - every 2-3yrs; probably one of most neglected maintenance items on cars that I see.)

Oh yeah, there's a leak near the right rear tire. Somehow happened when it was parked while I was in CA. 🤷‍♂️

It's gonna take a week to fix, so I've got a loaner until then. And it has brakes that work so that's a plus.

I feel you. Just dropped my car off this morning for what I fear is a transmission problem. Car stress is no fun.

Stunned. Thanks for sharing!

Maintenance is part of good forestry; trees have to come down all the time. So it makes a lot of sense that they have a surplus of redwood to draw on.

Yeah, all the products are marked as sustainably harvested. Still seems weird, like serving lamb chops at the petting zoo cafe.