8 july
It seems like everyplace we spend the night is my new favorite. last night we stayed right on the harbor in Kalmar Sweden, in RV parking spots, not an RV park. The view out the back over the harbor was pretty darn good, but tonight we are in a new, and I think better place. We only drove 17 miles across a bridge onto Oland Island and right down to a beach, backed up to it and we have a view of nothing but beach and nature, off to our left about 1/2 mile is a small fishing port. This is where Big sandy meets Cape Cod. Small town rural farmland with mixed with fisherman of the Baltic. You can camp anywhere in
Sweden for free. I love this place and we almost didn't come because it was overcast- what a mistake that would have been. we have done nothing but read, walk and work today. I am doing calculations for the hull of the river boat, dusting off that old Naval Academy Naval Architecture training- actually I never let it get too dusty.
Walking along the beach today we were discussing the trip home and laughing at ourselves, we are living a life of pleasure in paradise and we are excited to get home and back to the grind. That's human nature and a great thing, but the enthusiasm is going to wear off really quickly once we are back.
Will have to send this without much to it- we are heading into Stockholm. We wait outside the city like a ship waiting for the tide outside a harbor. We are parking in a museum parking lot and need to wait until after it closes and clears out. Wish us luck!
20 July Oslo
In the land of the Vikings, and Eric the Red never pushed his Vikings as hard as Stef the Red has done the last couple of days. When she gets us a multi-day, multi-place pass like the “Oslo Card” she got here, she is a slave driver to get as much out of it as possible.
We are glad she did, we couldn’t have afforded the sights any other way. The Swedes warned us that Norway would be expensive and coming from them, we should have been prepared, but it is ridiculous. $18 for a Big Mac meal!
The Oslo card set us back $300 but includes all transportation and admission to an entire book of sights, which we have seen; for Museums- Folk, Maritime, Viking, Technology, Design, Kon-Tiki, Fram, Holocaust, National Art, Vigeland (sculpture) also, Reptile House, Harbor Cruise, Walking tour and metro.
Stef has us going hard, with two more attractions this morning before the cards 72 hour limit expires. We will spend the night here and move on in the morning.
As I said before, we have again found “the perfect spot” from a Lat/Long off google earth in a parking area next to the last metro stop outside the city. What we didn’t realize until we were re-watching the Rick Steves DVD on Oslo, was that we are parked at a
popular lakeside park. In his video he mentions the metro stop to take to get to the park and we realize it is the one we are at. We have had some great evening walks and Charles has a great place to run. These Scandinavian countries could convince one that Socialism is a good system, they pay high taxes but live very well- until you take into account the money from oil Norway gets, and the single ethnic make-up they have here. I do think the world will become more socialist as man evolves, but we are not there yet.
Have to wrap up, we are off to see the Noble Peace Prize building and the old castle.
In the land of the Vikings, and Eric the Red never pushed his Vikings as hard as Stef the Red has done the last couple of days. When she gets us a multi-day, multi-place pass like the “Oslo Card” she got here, she is a slave driver to get as much out of it as possible.
We are glad she did, we couldn’t have afforded the sights any other way. The Swedes warned us that Norway would be expensive and coming from them, we should have been prepared, but it is ridiculous. $18 for a Big Mac meal!
The Oslo card set us back $300 but includes all transportation and admission to an entire book of sights, which we have seen; for Museums- Folk, Maritime, Viking, Technology, Design, Kon-Tiki, Fram, Holocaust, National Art, Vigeland (sculpture) also, Reptile House, Harbor Cruise, Walking tour and metro.
Stef has us going hard, with two more attractions this morning before the cards 72 hour limit expires. We will spend the night here and move on in the morning.
As I said before, we have again found “the perfect spot” from a Lat/Long off google earth in a parking area next to the last metro stop outside the city. What we didn’t realize until we were re-watching the Rick Steves DVD on Oslo, was that we are parked at a
popular lakeside park. In his video he mentions the metro stop to take to get to the park and we realize it is the one we are at. We have had some great evening walks and Charles has a great place to run. These Scandinavian countries could convince one that Socialism is a good system, they pay high taxes but live very well- until you take into account the money from oil Norway gets, and the single ethnic make-up they have here. I do think the world will become more socialist as man evolves, but we are not there yet.
Have to wrap up, we are off to see the Noble Peace Prize building and the old castle.
24 July
I need to drop this in the “post” before we get underway for Stavenger Norway today. No hurry, we have 3 days to cover 200 miles with a stop at the Emigration Research Center in Stavenger. We are going to look up any information on the Williamson we can find- specifically on Albert Williamson or Engelbrekt Vilhelmsen as he was know in Norway.
I know he left Sveio Norway where he lived on Krogskot Farm in 1892, when he was 15 years old. Engelbrekt Vilhelmsen, son of Vilhelm Halvorsen, son of Halvor Ingelbrektsen, son of Engelbrekt; all the way back to 1680, all living on farms that surround the spot we sit at right now, parked behind the high school, using there internet to download movies for the upcoming rainy days. The weather here has been consistently rainy but everyday the sun comes out long enough to charge our batteries full and to let us go for a walk.
We were very lucky yesterday when we stopped at the Church, Sveio Kirk, where young Vilhelm, Grandfather of Sis, Great Great Great Grandfather of Grace was married at 32 to Marta Serina 26 June 1863. We saw the marriage chairs that the church has used since it opened in 1858, where the bride and groom sit during the ceremony. The church is a beauty, very tastefully done, simple and well made. It sits over 700. After we had seen the church and retired to the RV for lunch, the caretaker came over and knocked on our
door to see if we wanted to come in and light a candle which we did. Good day of genealogy. This area is so beautiful it makes me wonder why anyone would leave it for the unknown, but as I stood on a hill looking at the beautiful landscape, with mountains and lakes, the one thing I saw very little of was farmland. To get a flat spot for the high school soccer field they have to dump enough rocks in a dip to make it flat, its too rocky to level with a bulldozer. Cold and barren trump beauty when you don’t have oil fields offshore buying your food for you.
Yesterday was as relaxing a day as we have had. The only stressful moment was paying for the tunnel that dips under the North Sea for a bit along the coast road. $50 fee and it is one of two tunnels and two ferries. This stretch of rod will end up costing us $400. It is an amazing road, the truck becomes part mole, part duck, through mountains, over water by boat and bridge, and under water by tunnel. We drove through a 15 mile tunnel, it had colorfully lit pull off every 5 miles of so to keep you from getting mesmerized. It was weird. We spent the night on Stord Island which is on the western coastal road that runs down Norway, we are definitely on our way south with 1500 miles left until we drop off the RV. The neat thing about the night was that we just stayed right off the side of the road but didn’t hear a thing, once the ferry stopped, all traffic on the Island stopped.
We took the opportunity to run on the track next to us for some time trials. Charles started running last week, a bit late for someone who may go out for cross country in 3 weeks, but he ran a 5:27 mile- that’s great for an off season time, my all time best was 5:07. Grace ran a 7:24, an all time high.
We are off to stavenger, two Bond movies and 3 podcasts for the road are downloaded thanks to Sveio Skole.
I need to drop this in the “post” before we get underway for Stavenger Norway today. No hurry, we have 3 days to cover 200 miles with a stop at the Emigration Research Center in Stavenger. We are going to look up any information on the Williamson we can find- specifically on Albert Williamson or Engelbrekt Vilhelmsen as he was know in Norway.
I know he left Sveio Norway where he lived on Krogskot Farm in 1892, when he was 15 years old. Engelbrekt Vilhelmsen, son of Vilhelm Halvorsen, son of Halvor Ingelbrektsen, son of Engelbrekt; all the way back to 1680, all living on farms that surround the spot we sit at right now, parked behind the high school, using there internet to download movies for the upcoming rainy days. The weather here has been consistently rainy but everyday the sun comes out long enough to charge our batteries full and to let us go for a walk.
We were very lucky yesterday when we stopped at the Church, Sveio Kirk, where young Vilhelm, Grandfather of Sis, Great Great Great Grandfather of Grace was married at 32 to Marta Serina 26 June 1863. We saw the marriage chairs that the church has used since it opened in 1858, where the bride and groom sit during the ceremony. The church is a beauty, very tastefully done, simple and well made. It sits over 700. After we had seen the church and retired to the RV for lunch, the caretaker came over and knocked on our
door to see if we wanted to come in and light a candle which we did. Good day of genealogy. This area is so beautiful it makes me wonder why anyone would leave it for the unknown, but as I stood on a hill looking at the beautiful landscape, with mountains and lakes, the one thing I saw very little of was farmland. To get a flat spot for the high school soccer field they have to dump enough rocks in a dip to make it flat, its too rocky to level with a bulldozer. Cold and barren trump beauty when you don’t have oil fields offshore buying your food for you.
Yesterday was as relaxing a day as we have had. The only stressful moment was paying for the tunnel that dips under the North Sea for a bit along the coast road. $50 fee and it is one of two tunnels and two ferries. This stretch of rod will end up costing us $400. It is an amazing road, the truck becomes part mole, part duck, through mountains, over water by boat and bridge, and under water by tunnel. We drove through a 15 mile tunnel, it had colorfully lit pull off every 5 miles of so to keep you from getting mesmerized. It was weird. We spent the night on Stord Island which is on the western coastal road that runs down Norway, we are definitely on our way south with 1500 miles left until we drop off the RV. The neat thing about the night was that we just stayed right off the side of the road but didn’t hear a thing, once the ferry stopped, all traffic on the Island stopped.
We took the opportunity to run on the track next to us for some time trials. Charles started running last week, a bit late for someone who may go out for cross country in 3 weeks, but he ran a 5:27 mile- that’s great for an off season time, my all time best was 5:07. Grace ran a 7:24, an all time high.
We are off to stavenger, two Bond movies and 3 podcasts for the road are downloaded thanks to Sveio Skole.