Sondagstur (Sunday's Trip)

It’s fairly common these days that Norwegians take a trip up into the mountains on Sundays, rather than go to church.  We did both AND attended a Bible Study, so we had a full day.

Agape Church is now back on their regular schedule of an 11am service, and the place was packed out.  It was nice to see so many smiling faces we recognize and to hear a sermon that was speaking right to some things I’ve been dealing with this past week.  Pastor Mark is truly a gifted speaker and the worship music there is always incredible.  Sadly, we couldn’t stick around and yack with folks afterwards though because we’d arranged a trip with my friend, Tina, to go up to a mountaintop right after church.

The mountain we wanted to go to is on an island right out next to the sea and a place I’ve always wanted to hike. I’ve seen a lake up on top, when we’ve flown over it, but I’ve wanted to see it up close and personal for many years now.  As luck would have it, just as church was getting out, a huge fog bank came rolling in off the ocean and blanketed that mountain, so there was no point in climbing it.  I was so bummed.

Tina, not letting anything stop her from ascending a nearby peak, suggested another hike inland that we’d be able to make before the fog arrived.  So we met up with her and drove like bandits escaping some caper. It was a hike I’d been on before.  There’s no view at the top, but we do go through the farm where Kory’s great-grandmother (and several generations before her), grew up.  So it’s kinda cool in that way. (The photo below is of hay, drying on a wire - it's "old style" farming.)

Strangely enough, we had blue sky and sunshine the whole afternoon on the side of the mountain we were on, but just on the other side, it was totally greyed out by fog, so we got lucky.  I swear, we live in some weird convergence zone as everything to the south today was clear, and everything to the north was gray – and it stayed like that all day.  But a week ago when we climbed Sula Fjell, it was exactly the opposite. 

It was an easy hike today, but Amanda and I were sweating pretty good.  There wasn’t much shade and that sun felt pretty hot.  We stopped to pick blueberries on the way up, but didn’t venture far from the path because there are venomous snakes in that area we were hoping to avoid.  We never saw any, but we did see sheep and cows wandering in the meadows.  We also saw a Norwegian Fjord horse on the trail.  They are something special.  I’m glad we didn’t encounter snakes or ticks, but the “klegg” (biting horse flies) were getting the best of us and Tina’s kids got eaten alive. 

We got back home just in time for a quick snack and to drive out to Vigra again to attend the Bible study at the B&B.  I was excited for Amanda to go with us, since Carol and Clive are from England, where she now lives.  There were two other people from the community there also, so that was nice.  We sang some great old hymns and listened to Clive talk about the rapture, then had coffee and cookies.  It was time well spent.

I made tacos for dinner and afterwards started planning what we should do tomorrow since Amanda’s time here is so short.  I want to show her two family farms that we have in common – as it’s the farms where our ancestors left from to move to America in the 1800s.  It’s about a five-hour drive south of where we live so we planned to get up early, drive down and back in one day.  I have done it once before as a daytrip, but it was earlier in the summer when it never gets darks, so it makes for an easy drive.  But now, it’s getting dark by 11pm, so that puts a little pressure on the day as the roads are quite dangerous – one lane, windy and lots of animals both wild and domestic on them.  (When we got here three weeks ago, it was still light at one in the morning, so the daylight is fading fast this time of year.)

As I was looking at the map, I remembered Kory has a cousin that moved down in that area a few years ago, so I sent him a quick message to see if he’d be home tomorrow so we could stop in and say HI on our way through his town.  He called me immediately and invited us to come down and spend the night so we could take our time on the trip. My world just changed dramatically in an instant - not having to plan everything out minute by minute to make it in one day.  We can actually take a road trip in a bit more relaxed fashion than “usual,” so I’m thrilled.

Today may not have turned out exactly as I had planned, but tomorrow will certainly be better than expected.  Hallelujah, for that.