Driving to Lillehammer

We are now on our way to Sweden. It takes about 12 hours to drive straight through from our town of Aalesund into the capital city of Stockholm.  We opted to make it in two days of driving but we won’t be there for three.  I believe the journey, is the destination.

There is a “club card” we bought years ago that gives us good discounts on a big grocery store chain in Norway.  As a club member, we also get hotel discounts and rebates on our food and gas we buy at certain gas stations.  The hotel discount is incredible, since we are able to get a room for three, including a full breakfast at a 3-4 star hotel for only a hundred bucks a night.  Most hotel rooms in Norway start at $300.  Even if we were camping, we’d easily spend a hundred a night on a camping spot, so this is a sweet deal.  The only catch is, we must stay 2 nights in the same hotel and no more than 3 nights, before we have to move on.  It’s perfect for road trips since we drive one day to get somewhere, spend the night, see the town the next day, spend another night then move on to the next town the following day.  I like to keep moving anyway, so I love everything about this deal.

When I booked the two nights for our first leg of this journey, I assumed that an amusement park in Lillehammer would be open in August, but I was sorely mistaken.  I was trying to treat Kaleb to a day of fun when all other kids were starting school.  I was more than bummed when I checked the park information AFTER I made the hotel reservations, but there was no going back.  So what we will do all day tomorrow, I have no idea, but I did notice there are a few thrift stores in town.

We passed a lot of kids going to and coming from their first day of school on our way to Lillehammer.  Norwegians only get about seven weeks off in summer, so it goes pretty quickly.  It’s hard to hear the locals taking about “fall” being here already when I’m still hoping to catch a few more days of summer before the leaves start turning.  Even in July there was a big storm and they said it was the first “fall storm.”  Yikes.

It’s only a five-hour drive from our town to Lillehammer, but we took eight, since we stopped in every city we passed through to look for thrift stores.  Many cities had them, but they were all closed on Mondays, except one.  Whew.  I got to satisfy my itch, so we stopped and I found some treasures I’d previously not seen before – mostly in the Norsk pewter arena but also old canning jars and cool kitchen things.  I didn’t spend much money, either, as everything was just a dollar or two, so that made the stop all the sweeter.  I’m so thankful we have a big cargo area in the back of our van because something tells me it will be full by the time we get home.

Kory’s hand is still on “sick leave” so I had to do all the driving.  It was challenging to also take photos along the way.  Kory hasn't yet perfected his "drive by shooting skills," and he's only one handed, so most of the photos I took while driving at least 40mph, which is average driving speed in Norway. (Some of the photos today, Kory took, however.)  

Driving wasn’t bad for the first four hours, but the last hour was a killer since I decided to take “the road less traveled” and make the trip a bit more memorable. 

We’ve been on the main road to Lillehammer numerous times and I read on the internet last night that the “Peer Gynt Road” (above) is very historic in that it’s the pilgrimage path taken for centuries by many Scandinavians and other Europeans on their trek up north to Nidarosdomen in Trondheim – a massive cathedral where people believed miracles happened. So it’s a highly touted road, open only in summer, that’s supposed to be a worthwhile side trip.  Well, it certainly wasn’t today.

Not a drop of rain fell all day until we hit that road.  From looking at the map I couldn’t tell it was up and over a mountain, and on a dirt road with chuck-holes, no less.  As we ascended up into the heavens, we entered a very dark, thick cloud that made four in the afternoon seem like midnight.  It was freaky.  The road was also one lane, but fortunately, I only passed one car the whole way.  I thought I was on it for hours, but it was only the longest thirty minutes of my life.  And we couldn’t see a darn thing because of the thick clouds.   We were pretty high up and I’m sure on a sunny day, there would have been a view and my opinion of it would be different, but I couldn’t have been more thankful to be off of it – so desolate and spooky (above). 

At one point, after driving quite a ways, we encountered a pay station with a gate-arm across the road.  My bankcard didn’t work so there was no way to go on.  All I could think of was having to drive all the way back down and losing at least an hour in the day because of it.  I was more than peeved.  I turned around and went back into the a little grocery store and asked if the toll road was open.  Turns out, it just needed coins to operate and not a credit card, so I got the coins and tried it again and it opened.  I kinda wished it hadn’t.  Even if we’d seen reindeer or moose or something other than sheep and wandering cows, it would have been worth it.  Oi. (The photo below gives you some idea of what I was driving in - up in those hills!)

So when we hit pavement near Lillehammer I shouted a loud Hallelujah and thanked God for getting us through that nightmare and into the safety of our hotel for the night – which is pretty cool.  It’s a 150-year old gristmill (2nd photo below) that’s been converted into a hotel.  A bundle of wheat sitting on our pillows, awaited us in our room.  We can see the ski jump from the 1994 Olympics out our window. 

The restaurant attached to the hotel is down in the “engine room” of the mill and it still has many implements used in year’s past (last photo).  It’s kinda like a museum and thrift store all in one.  I love it.  And Kory was able to order dinner tonight that was fairly fat free.  He had a vegan fajita and by request, they cooked his veggies in water, not oil, and substituted a dry baked potato with salsa for the buttered rice, so he was a happy camper – to have a full meal in his belly without a lot of fat.  Kaleb and I ate the pizza/salad bar all-you-can-eat buffet for less than $20 each, so that was a bargain by Norwegian standards.

We didn’t break the bank today, nor the car, nor ourselves - so it was a great day and we’re all looking forward to what tomorrow will bring, especially since it’s a day there are no plans!