Hiking Norway

A lot of the time that I spent in Norway was outside.  I somehow hit the one week a year when it is sunny and warm.  I managed to show up just as summer was both arriving and leaving.  Norwegians have a great theory that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.  A theory that needs to be adapted when most of your days are spend in a light drizzle to heavy rain. Without that theory, you would never do anything.  However, when the weather is nice, it makes it a lot easier to want to get out and explore.  Straightaway from the airplane, Chelsea and I took off for a hiking adventure.  And we didn't stop hiking, biking, or adventuring for the next four days.  With the exception of stopping to cook elaborate meals nightly, of course.

Below are a few picture from hiking mountains.  The first, Preikestolen, the second a mountain with a name I can't remember and a trail that we did not follow.

No. 5: Friends

I stood and mourned as I watched the best one slip away once again.

Once upon a time, I started this brief and rough series.  Recently remembered of it, I decided to continue to work on it.  [image taken in Stavanger, Norway]

Stavanger Residences

Stavanger is a fantastic interesting blend of a small fishing town and a tourist destination.  There are all the quaint homes with beautiful flowers on the door steps just blocks away from where the big cruise ships dock for day long expeditions.  While going out on an expedition of our own, we were waiting for the ferry to take off when a new apartment building seemed to have risen up over-night.  Looking twice at the cityscape, we realized it was not a new building, but a temporary one.  A cruise ship.  Taller than the surrounding homes, yet still somehow blending in as if it were nothing new or strange.

Garden dweller, Stavanger

Norwegians love trolls.  They are their garden gnomes, bringing good luck to the house.  This boy is not a garden gnome nor a troll, but also a garden dweller.   Just hanging out, maybe also bringing good luck, but with the look on his messy face, I doubt that very much.

Scandinavian Church

Coming to Norway, I am reminded about how much I love Scandinavian architecture.  The modern elements that they perfectly capture seem to sum up the culture of being simple and conservative.  The strong and sure lines creating the solid blocks create such a clean composition.  One that I just cannot get enough of.  This picture does not sum it up at all, or may not even seem directly connected to my love for the architecture, but, this little church is still so beautiful to me with the unattached steeple, found at the base of the mountains in western Norway.