Brian and Amy

Left Edge and Ecco in the care of Anita, our wonderful Petsitter, and headed to Dulles to start our trip to France. No problems with the flight and we must have had a good tailwind as we arrived an hour earlier than planned. We both tried to sleep and managed a few hours. Arriving in the early morning will still feel like the middle of the night to us but we'll try and stay awake to get in sync with Paris time. Looking forward to a great trip!... read more

Today was supposed to be the big day that we were going to do the well-known “Norway in a Nutshell” tour route. You take several trains, a bus, and a ferry through the higher fjords but it takes about 12 hours round trip. The thought of another long day of planes, trains, and automobiles right before we fly home was suddenly not appealing. And, the forecast was calling for afternoon rain. We called an audible and swapped to a half-day fjord cruise that left from the harbor right by our hotel. It circled up into a closer fjord that may not be quite as majestic but it fit the bill. We had a lovely cruise and even had bright sun in the morning. On the way out of the Bergen Harbor, a whole family came out ... read more

In the small world category, while walking through the Pulpit Rock mountain lodge, we saw the woman from Michigan who picked her Volvo up the same day we did. She’s having a great trip and has driven and hiked all over Southern Norway and Sweden. What are the odds we’d happen to be at the same spot on the same day and bump into each other? We picked the right day to hike yesterday as today was very rainy. A good day to sit in a bus, hear the rain pitter patter and nap. The transport dance was required - bus back to ferry at Tau, ferry back to Stavanger to catch a 5.5 hour “Express Bus” to Bergen, where we spend our last 3 nights. This last bus takes you on two car-ferries so we ... read more

Today was going to be about exploring the area around Harstad….umm…..until we walked outside and noticed one of the rental car back tires was very low. Brian inspected and sure enough, there was a screw. Screwed seems to be the operative word. We called the closest rental outlet at the airport who gave us the “It’s not our problem, call the guys you rented from” so we tried that. They were far away and told us to use the Fix-a-Flat and the portable compressor. We learned all about how that little gem of a kit works and we were on the road in a few minutes. However, you shouldn't drive fast or far with a screw still in your tire so we didn’t want to go as far as we planned. We explored just an hour ... read more

It was our first full night in the land of the midnight sun. It's daylight 24/7. After a light breakfast of eggs, bacon, muesli, bread, and cheese, we hit the open road. We visited one of several white beaches that look very much like the Caribbean. It's still only about 50 deg F, so we weren't fooled too much. Next stop, the government liqueur store. Success after several failed attempts! We loaded up on wine for future wine-thirties and Amy got her much-loved pistachio ice cream with a new bonus - dipped in dark chocolate. (Brian likes it too!). After a 3 hour ride through the snow-capped mountains of Bardu, we arrived at the Polar Park. It's a combination wildlife preserve and zoo. The enclosures are huge wooded areas (acres and acres) fenced in but house ... read more