vacation Sunday (June 14) part 3: boat

We got on the boat next!  It was going from Gudvangen to Flam.  So many waterfalls!!  There are a ton of waterfall pictures and I had to stop myself from adding more.

Since we were near the end getting on, it was pretty crowded inside and we decided to go outside for a bit.  It was cool.  I probably should have brought a sweatshirt instead of a cardigan, but didn't think about it.  It was fine (ish) while we were outside and then it was nice inside when we finally went in.

Someone was feeding a seagull behind us and our family all grumbled about it.  Don't feed the wildlife.  Tons of people were taking a video though, so it encouraged the guy even more.

While not shown in this picture, there were a few roads and cars, a small village or two, some sheep, etc.  They were always near the bottom of the fjord because it got steep rather quickly.

Joshua was a bit cold too, so we snuggled a bit.  Oh!  Look!  A village with a waterfall.

We made a stop at Lægdafossen.  It was obviously a popular tourist destination, as there was a short line of boats waiting for their turn to back up and get close to the falls.

At this stop I managed to get good photos of the waterfall and good photos of people, but not together.

Soon after this we hit our highest point in the trip with 60.99 deg north latitude, at Beitelen where three fjords meet.  Isaac and I went inside after this.  The rest of the family had found a place to sit, and there was mostly enough room for us too.  I think Isaac found a place a few rows away, but he was reading his book.

While it was nice and refreshing to be outside, it was nice and warm inside.  Also, they had great tour information on the monitors!

Flam was our destination.  We had originally thought about driving and or doing the tour from Bergen to Oslo, but Ben did some reading and said Flam was mostly a tourist trap.  From the little bit that we saw, and it was just a little bit, it seemed accurate.  While I'm sure different plans would have been great, I'm glad we made a home base in Bergen.

I have no doubt Joshua stood behind the pole on purpose. :(

Next up, train back home!

Sunday: marble olympics

 A month or two ago we stumbled on a Youtube channel that had marble Olympics.  It was amazing.  Each marble had a name, there were stats, and there were captains.  It was not the first time this has happened, so there were stats from previous years.  There was a sports announcer and they said things like, "Oh, Snowflake should have practiced more."  and "Blueberry really improved!  Last time she only got .35m down the track."

Anyway, with that backstory, Joshua made his own marble Olympics.  It included a marble race, sumo wrestling, bowling, a distance roll, and a long jump.  Isaac's Sunflowers came in first place, my Sea Bubbles came in fourth place, and Joshua came in last.  He made a nice award stand with a sunflower that rotated up when the winner was announced.

Friday: what a day

I had a beautiful walk with Natalie and Meredith this morning.  We went to Mt. Pisgah, which involves a lot of stairs.  It was a lovely day to be outside and there was a lot to talk about.

I continue to work on getting the seaweed out of the lake.  Great news: the seaweed in the yard waste bin shrank considerably and so I had plenty of room for today's seaweed and there will be room for the next batch too.  There are still two patches of seaweed near the shore, so we'll see what happens with the wind over the next little bit.

We got Crumbl Cookie tonight.  It was buy six for the price of four, so we got way too many cookies.  We were all careful with how much we ate though.

vacation Sunday (June 14) part 2: fjord tour - bus

 We got off the train in Voss and had a little bit of time to look around before catching our bus.  We found the bus stop, then took some pictures.  The boys and I took a very short walk and found Voss Church, which has been standing for 750years.  We also found a playground!  

There were so many kids in soccer gear walking around, and that's because the weekend was Vosskirk: a soccer tournament.  Ok, it was time to go to the bus stop and it was chaos.  All the tour groups were already lined up.  (Side note: I was glad I wasn't in a tour group because it seemed like they were herded from one thing directly to another and would stand in line waiting for the next mode of transportation.)  There was no way we would all fit on a single bus.  Turns out there were three buses for everyone, and I assume that everyone fit on.  We got probably the last five seats together in the second bus, at the very back.  In some ways being in the back was really nice because you could turn around and see out the back window too!  This is where we started to see waterfalls.  It turns out I love waterfalls.  Big ones, small ones, it really doesn't matter.  I love them all.

The first waterfalls!

It was rather fortuitus that the bus stopped where it did, because we heard there was an accident in a tunnel in front of us and the traffic was just backing up.  We were able to bypass all the traffic and were let out in Gudvangen.  I'm going to assume that there is a little more than what we saw to this city, because all that was there was a restaurant, a store, some bathrooms, and a dock.  It seemed like it should have a little more based on its location, but perhaps I just couldn't see what was on the other side of the mountain.  Or maybe it really was that small and remote.

There was a waterfall that we explored a little bit.  It naturally came off the mountain, but a bunch of infrastructure was added at the bottom.  That's actually how most waterfalls near the road looked.  It was a good place to grab a rock, so I said the kids they could each grab one but to try and not be conspicuous about it.  So they climbed up a little bit, got some pictures, and then I look up a minute later and there is Isaac, on his stomach, leaning out to get "the perfect" rock.  So much for being inconspicuous.  

Ben had done his homework and told us that it would be best to bring our own lunch, so we did.  We had a very nice picnic lunch before getting on the boat. It was 100% the right choice.  The little restaurant had a line out the door, and then the boat wouldn't let outside food on the boat.  We were some of the last people on, but looking at the waterfall and eating lunch was much better than just waiting in line that whole time, as we would have done if we were with a tour.

I got a few pictures of us eating lunch in a beautiful location, but none were flattering, so instead you can see Isaac at our picnic table with rocks.

Our boat!

 

Thursday: book

 I finished my book today.  Luckily, it is only the first in a rather long series!  The work day was back to a normal busy - I had time to read a for a few minutes during lunch.  There was also a lot of running around this evening, so I had a bunch of short spurts to read.

Wednesday: groceries, seaweed

Ah, Wednesday.  Boring chore day...although there were a few other chores that found their way in today too.

It started with groceries.  The store was all out of butternut squash.  Can you believe it?  Who wants that much butternut squash?  My meal plan is derailed.  (Also, I didn't realize we were out of frozen sausages, which also derails my meal plan but not quite as much.)

This afternoon I continued to deal with the seaweed that is washing up on our shore.  I think this is the worst year so far.  I remember one other bad year, but so far our yard waste bin is 3/4 full of seaweed, the last quarter is drying on the grass, and there is a whole bunch more still coming in.  Luckily the year hasn't been too bad until now.

I fixed one of our soffits!  It was significantly easier than I was expecting.  One of the boards had come loose and I took the tiny nails out and used a screw to attach it back up.  There was even a pilot hole because of the nails.  Once I got the end attached the rest of the board popped back into place...I wasn't sure that was going to happen and it was just going to be good enough.  But now it's better than good enough.

After a few "fine" books I'm finally reading one that has grabbed my attention well, so that has been nice.  It's nice to want to pick up the book instead of phone games when I have a few minutes.

Tuesday: trolled

 Ben, text: 🪿❤️🦒🦒
Amanda, in the car: oh, the car doesn't say emojis.
Ben: it has done so in the past
Joshua: Hahaha.  Isaac just wrote the words out when we were testing it: "giraffe emoji, heart emoji"
Ben: oh, that's right

I was cracking up.