Slaatthaugen

21 May 2013

After a relaxed morning with Reidunn, we hit the road again and stopped at every thrift store we could find along the way.  To say we bought treasures would be an understatement.  We even got a treasure chest – an old hand painted trunk from 1904 for about $40.  How is that even possible?  (I’ll post a photo of it when we get back home.)  I was in heaven and my cup runneth over, literally.  I have no idea where I’m going to put all the stuff we bought today, but Kory was no help in holding me back as he kept putting more and more things in the cart.  He likes old Norwegian stuff as much as I do.  Good thing for him that I do – so I don’t trade him in on a younger model.

Kaleb did school work in the car when he wasn’t playing his DS.  He doesn’t even bother getting out of the car when we head into a thrift store – he couldn’t care less.  He was in the car plenty with a lot of stops, wrong turns and bad GPS directions. 

We made it to Slaatthaugen (old house above is where Kory's dad grew up) just before dinner, so I made food for Kory’s cousin, Halvard, since he’s now living alone on the old home place (he’s younger than me.)  Kory loves visiting this farm, and it hasn’t changed much since he was here in the 60s.  Halvard is an impressive man, keeping the farm up, keeping the house clean and forever upgraded and organized, making all his own food and even baking his own bread in an outdoor stone oven he built himself.  I don’t know why he hasn’t been snatched up by someone, as he’s quite the catch.  He’s also, ironically, a teacher of carpentry at the same trade school where Kory’s dad learned how to be a carpenter in the 1930s.  Things don’t change much around here.

This evening was spent with Kory telling the same stories we’ve heard over and over again to all the different relatives we’ve visited, so it’s easy for me to tune out and not track with all the Norwegian flying back and forth.  At least tonight I had my laptop with me so I got a photo album nearly finished while I sat and tuned out the conversation.  This is so Kory’s kind of vacation and if it weren’t for the thrift stores along the way, I’d be as restless as Kaleb, but it is important to keep tabs on family and with all the invitations that have gone out for them to come visit us in the next year or two, I think I’ll be plenty busy back home repaying all the hospitality we’ve received.