August 14, 2013

Well, I woke up in Sogndal, Norway on Tuesday, August 13th and it was rainy and overcast. So, I got on the ole iPad and checked the hourly weather forecast for Sogndal. Not good I am afraid.  70% chance of rain. We had just driven 3 days and 1200 miles to see sunny, snow capped mountains surrounding Norway’s beautiful fjords.  So, I pondered our options as I listened to Rita snore, (oh and BTW… she only snores in the very early morning, when I’m awake and trying to go back to sleep or gather my thoughts).  We could stay longer and try to wait out the rain or head south to Stockholm.   I was impatient (imagine that!), bored and depressed with the weather and lack of snow capped mountains.  I knew what my decision would be.  So, I gently woke up Rita and bribed her with a promise of breakfast to get her out of bed early.  At breakfast, after I knew she had eaten her favorite waffles, I told her I thought we should turn Betsy around and head south after only one day in the rainy, snowless land of the trolls.  She caught on to my devious scheme immediately, (smart girl!) but agreed to my plan for reasons of her own.  Our hotel room in Sogndal was located next to the elevator, and the noise kept us awake all night!  So, we threw, literally, our stuff in the car and headed south at 1:00 PM.  We headed south not knowing how far we would be able to drive, but hoped to make Oslo, which was about 6 hours away.   We took a ferry from Kaupanger to Fodnes.  Then, we began our drive through long tunnels, across streams, rivers, and lakes and by farms, waterfalls, and moose, elk, deer and sheep crossing signs.  We made Oslo, by 7:30 PM, and decided to push on toward Stockholm.  We soon crossed over from Norway into Sweden and drove until we were both almost asleep.  When we got to that point it was midnight.  We had somehow managed to drive 12 hours, almost 600 miles!!!  Maybe it was the Chinese diner I found for Rita around 9:30 PM at our last stop in Norway, yeah, that’s right, we had Chinese for dinner in Norway, crazy,  or maybe it wasn’t, but whatever it was, we had made good time and traveled a great distance on our trip to Stockholm.  We stopped in Karlstad, Sweden for the night at a very pleasant hotel, nevertheless, on Wednesday I was awake at 5:00AM and I made enough noise to wake Rita up early.  Heh! Heh!   Really, Rita is fine once her eyes are opened.  (It just takes a lot of commotion to get her to open her eyes!).  We were in the car in an hour and drove into Stockholm in bright sunshine, the depression gone, and my spirits lifted.  We are staying at the Grand Hotel on the harbor until Saturday.   Enough time to re-group, catch up on photos and blogging, (as you will all notice from the many posts Rita got published already) do laundry, nails, hair, and get ready to fly to Helsinki on Saturday.

We love you and miss you all!  Norm & Rita

These little buggers wanted our food.

This one was Norm’s favorite. He started coming towards our car.

Then we had a road block!

Guess the little guy was hungry!

Finally they decided to get off the road.