What we like most about traveling is the constant thought, discussion, comparison and even research (thanks to instant access usually nightly to the Internet via iPad) that we involve ourselves in. The cultural, economic, infrastructural, construction style and method, domestic and commercial ways that are different as well as those that are the same.

Almost every construction site is a place to pause and ponder, “what would McKenney think about this…?” Half timber construction is everywhere in the mountains, scaffold techniques and requirements that would warm the hearts of TSA-emboldened OSHA inspectors, copper rain gutters on the steep snow- and ice-prone roofs, not to mention 300-year-old buildings serving contemporary needs.

Public transportation we know surpasses ours, but we spend continued hours realizing, or better speculating, why the Swiss have theirs working like their renowned clocks. Trains that depart shortly after regional buses arrive, even buses that leave minutes after gondolas descend. It all makes perfect logical sense but to see and experience it work is not only convenient but inspiring. Just the stable of bus sizes ranging from intracity 3-car articulated buses to the 3 or more sizes of ubiquitous Post buses deployed in rural and mountain communities. There just isn’t a need for a car, and when there is one the size of a Rav4 is large.

Construction and transportation are easy comparisons but we get challenged by population distribution, GDP, percent tourism provides to the ecomomy, ethnic diversity, ownership of the alps and fascination with why mountain bikers strap their helmets on their handlebars riding the tortuous uphills trails, how it is that families are still farming right within towns, even to the point of mowing and raking the grasses down those steep slopes around their homes. Or even why public restrooms have blue lights.

What’s finally occurred to me is that even if Switzerland and Colorado were equal sizes in population, GDP and geography (which they aren’t quite), the difference is that Switzerland’s federal taxes go directly into funding infrastructure within it’s borders while Colorado’s federal tax contributions go to a much broader national budget. If Colorado had that 15 or 20% of it’s Income as tax to spend on infrastructure we might afford trains, eduction and roads like Switzerland. Or we might see more soccer fields downtown with parking underneath for the adjacent stores.

There are still plenty of things I like better in the states. It’s just fun to think how two western cultures do things differently and yet how many of the things are the same, just with different logos or labels.