The Long Road Home

It’s about a six hours drive from Trondheim back home, and we go through Molde, the town of Kory’s birth, on the way back.  We know from experience, there are some great thrift stores in that town, and it was our last chance to find that darn light globe.  We left just after nine this morning, with the sun shining over the coast, so the drive back was gorgeous.  At every turn, a new farm scene appeared with water and mountains framing it all in, so the drive home was pure heaven.  I decided to do the driving just to be sure Kory didn’t have any more problems with his wrist. 

We had a few tense moments on the way back.  For one, before we left I noticed gasoline was dripping out of the gas tank at a fairly regular clip – about a drop a minute.  It was enough that it left quite the slick under the car, so I was worried about that all the way home.  As it turns out, I guess I filled the tank a bit too full, because now that the tank isn’t topped off, the leak has stopped, so there must be a loose gasket somewhere.

The other kinda funny thing that happened, was that we drove past a view point and there was a pound of unopened coffee lying on the ground there.  We talked about whether we should turn around and go back and get it, as coffee isn’t cheap here.  It kind of reminded us of our “roadside pizza miracle” a few years ago when we found a freshly baked warm pizza just outside a Costco in Oregon.  It obviously slid off the hood of someone’s car, but it sure made for a nice dinner for us that night.  We wanted the same enjoyment out of free coffee found on the side of the road in Norway.

I drove a mile or so before we decided we should turn around and go get it – just for the fun of it.  When I pulled off the road to turn around, the car was on a downward slope in front of an old barn (see photo).  It had just rained, so the grass was super slick.  We have front wheel drive and we had too much weight in the back of the van, so we just spun out and couldn’t back up.  I panicked.  The further down the incline I went, the worse we spun-out.

Finally, we all got out of the car and scraped up as many little pebbles as we could find to put behind the front wheels.  It took several attempts and my stress level was going higher with each one, but finally, the car backed up enough to get on the main road.  Whew.  We felt it was a good life lesson for Kaleb so he could see first hand how to get out of a slick spot, but maybe the better lesson is to know how to get out of  a sticky situation… ha.

Once we were in Molde, we stopped at three different stores.  We finally found the lamp we were looking for – or close enough anyway.  I remembered from last year an antique store that had the same light fixture, and it was still there, so our quest is finally over – to the tune of $100 however.  But at least we can take it out of the deposit from the guy that rented from us and broke the thing to begin with.  I’m just glad we can stop looking.

I found a few more old Norwegian canning jars, and some pewter things I hadn’t seen before, so I couldn’t resist buying them.  It was like the dollar store for me, as everything I wanted was 10 kroner (about $1.40).  These are prices I can live with.

When we got home, I was completely exhausted.  I started sniffling and sneezing so I had to take five minutes to just sit down and close my eyes before I started unpacking.  We must have filled six shopping carts with stuff from the back of our van (see photo two below).  I even got a “new” bike on the last stop – for a whopping $28.  It’s really a nice one, too.  Kory bought another painting (below) that I really hate, but somehow it does something for him.  It might end up hanging in the closet as it’s dark and dreary and not very well done.  I can’t imagine why he likes it, but he does.  That was his splurge and it cost way more than anything I’ve ever purchased.

I tried to assemble all the stuff we bought on the coffee table so I could take a photo of it, but I only got about half of it on there before I ran out of room.  Same thing with the food items we got in Sweden… I don’t know what I was thinking.  I have no cupboard space to store all that inventory!  So much for advanced planning.  I was just trying to save a few bucks on stuff that I know costs more here.  There is a bit of room in our storage unit… but I’m using the old canning jars as storage for all the dry goods I bought so that will kill two birds with one stone there.  (My favortie purchase is the box with the handle on it in the top right corner, sitting on a sweater we bought for Kaleb... The box has 1946 written on the top.)

Kaleb is still coughing and blowing his nose and not in the least bit excited that school officially starts tomorrow.  Kory’s body parts seem to be working again so maybe he can tackle more honey-do’s now that we are home.  He’s now got new curtain rods to install.  I guess I’ll be putting the next layer of oil on the deck just to be sure we don’t have a repeat performance of his wrist flare-up.

The ladies home fellowship group I’m part of with Agape Church met tonight so I was home for about two hours before taking off for that.  I didn’t have much energy to go, but I forced myself and I’m glad I did.  We had a great discussion and time of prayer, and that is always time well spent.  It was good to be back with that bunch of women.

Tanta Aslaug greeted us tonight when we came in.  It’s so great having relatives live next door.  We turned our phones off when we were in Sweden so we wouldn’t be charged for international calls.  When we turned them back on again, we had several messages for invites to put on our calendar so it seems our last six weeks here will be full.  Our social life is what we love the most about being here. Oh, and the thrift stores.  I just love those thrift stores.