Driving Rain

It was all day in the car today to make it to Stockholm before dark.  I was hoping we’d leave by seven this morning, but I’m not the only body that has to get up and going, so we didn’t leave til 8:30.  With eight full hours of driving to our destination, it was one long day.  I had to do all the driving and the constant heavy rain and lightening didn’t help my stress level. (I took all the photos today - while driving!  That is one black cloud above we had just exited.)

Kaleb sat in the back seat and did school work for several hours.  We brought along a math program, a writing program and he’s reading this hefty science book so he kept busy and we didn’t hear a peep out of him.  Talk about utilizing drive time.  Kory called him our “Road Scholar,” which I thought as pretty funny.

Kory just sat with his I-pad in his lap and played checkers or some darn thing all day.  He isn’t the best co-pilot as his dyslexic brain mixes things up a lot.  I had the GPS but I knew better than to count on that so I wrote down all the directions on paper before we left this morning, and as it turned out – it’s what actually got us to our destination.  So much for technology.  The last few miles into the city of Stockholm was underground, so the GPS couldn’t get a signal.  I didn’t know that, but God did, and if I hadn’t written down those directions, we’d have never found the place. 

I had a death grip on the wheel most of the day, as the rain was intense at times, and the trucks were big, with major road spray.  Oi.  Driving in Sweden is so much easier than driving in Norway, though.  The roads are actually real roads, sometimes even four lanes!  The speed limit at times was up to 70mph on the freeways (which they actually have.)  It was a treat – just like driving in America. (Swedish border sign below.)

The landscape in Sweden was noticeable different as soon as we crossed the border.  It reminded me a lot of the area south of Olympia in Washington State – driving through that farmland down by Centralia.  Not much but wheat fields for miles and miles.  The farms aren’t nearly as cute and cozy as Norwegian ones, however.  The countryside here doesn’t look nearly as “foreign” as Norwegian countrysides.     

One thing that’s different is Sweden is the huge shopping centers everywhere.  It’s so much like a border down in America – like Bellingham catering to all the Canadians.  So many Norwegians go to Sweden to go shopping.  I heard the prices in Sweden were like America, but so far, I haven’t seen that.  They are maybe 10 or 20 percent cheaper than in Norway, because the exchange rate is more favorable, but that’s about it.  Even the gas is about the same price, so I was more than bummed about that. (The above photo shows another impending storm cloud we drove into.)

We stopped at a grocery store to see if food was cheaper, and even though it wasn’t by much, but we bought some things we need anyway because even a little savings helps. 

The rain kept us from stopping in many places (especially at all the thrift stores we passed) as it was one of those drenching rain days, so the safest place was in the car, trying to get to our destination as soon as possible.  We pulled into our hotel at 6:30, right on schedule, ate dinner, and crashed for the night. (That's the fastest I've ever driven our van!  It's actually about 70mph.)

It’s a brand new hotel near the metro line – for only about eighty bucks a night – so I’m happy about that and that we have a safe place to park the car for a few days, while we explore a city we’ve never seen.  Adventures await.