I slept well last night as I love the rocking motion on boats. I woke up before we arrived in Trondheim at 6am and felt the boat go through all the motions of docking. Kory and I headed out for coffee at 7am when the dining hall opened. Kaleb was sound asleep in the room. I left him a note on the toilet seat that he should join us for breakfast, but I still kept coming back to the room every 20 minutes to check on him. At 8am I went back to the room again only to discover him sitting on the bed, crying. He saw out the window that we had docked and he was sure we had gotten off the boat as planned and left him behind. Where in the world he comes up with these “desertion” scenarios I’ll never know, but he was quite upset with me one more time. I showed him the note and he said, “Oh.” He didn’t need to use the bathroom, so he never saw it. He’d been sitting alone in the room crying for nearly 20 minutes. Okay, so I won’t ever get “Mother of the Year,” but I kind of already knew that - even before this happened.
We had a nice breakfast – a buffet – Kaleb’s favorite, and we stuffed ourselves but good. The boat wasn’t leaving Trondheim until noon so we had several hours available to go explore the city. As we were getting ready to leave, I turned too quickly in the room and slammed my kneecap against the door jam in the bathroom. I thought I may never walk again. It certainly ruined all plans to go “explore” as I was horizontal for quite some time, and even when I could stand up, I was in much pain (and still am.) Kaleb was a bit relieved (and probably felt there was some cosmic payback in it all, as well), because he didn’t want to go out exploring in the rain. It was a bit rainy and windy, but nothing serious and Kory and I were set to face the challenge – but not Kaleb. So we stayed on board the whole time and played Yahtzee and I beat them both on a six round game. That’ll show ‘em.
The rain washed away the “T” in “great” – so it was a very “grea” day today (get it?). I thought of that myself… that’s what happens when I spend all day on a boat – and look out at gray skies. The rain did stop after lunch though, so it was smooth sailing into the night. Kaleb read and played games on the computer when he got bored of the scenery. At one point he said, “You made me miss two days of school for THIS?” He really was upset about not going to school, and watching an endless stream of crumpled up rocks sticking out of the water wasn’t his idea of a good time. (I tried not to have him miss school but we could only get tickets if we left on the 1st – all the other dates were sold out as next week is the fall break from school in all of Norway.) I’ve been trying to think of what this coast line reminds me of and all I could come with is what the dining room table looked like after Kaleb got done playing with Play-Doh in his early years. There would always be some formed rounded things, a few almost flat pieces and lots of scattered bits everywhere – and that about sums it up here as well. There is no rhyme or reason for the shaping of things, it’s just all huge chunks of rock with no trees, all clumped together, mostly smooth topped from the glacial action, in a mish-mash of shapes and divots and erosion. It’s incredible, really (see photo and look closely for the farms on the green field below the behemoth mountain.) Kory thinks it looks like cold oatmeal that’s been dished out of a pan, or the many folds on the body of those Chinese dogs with all the wrinkles. My only complaint is that it goes by too fast, which Kaleb discovered when he had to go to the bathroom and he missed the only thing he was looking forward to all day – the boat going under a bridge.
The scenery today was amazing so I knew not to take a break to go pee because I didn’t want to miss a thing (I took 229 photos today!). Every once in a while some nook or cranny along this coastline has some cool building on it, whether it’s a cabin, boat house, farm or lighthouse – there was never a lack of things to photograph. And once the rain stopped, the fall colors just popped out. There are over 30,000 named islands along the coast of Norway, and over 100,000 smaller “rocks” that stick up out of the water – and even some of those have cabins or houses on them. How and why people live in such remote, primitive places, I have no idea. Maybe because they can. Norwegians are notorious for doing the impossible. There is a big poster on board the ferry showing the plans in place to build a tunnel along the coast – just for these huge ferry boats (think cruise ship). The world’s first boat tunnel – right through a mountain. Apparently they say, going around the mountain is too dangerous (although they have done it for decades and no boat has ever gone down), but I think they are doing it just because no one has ever done it before and they want the bragging rights. It’s so Norsk – find out something that seems impossible or has yet to be achieved, and go for it. (I guess that’s how Kory ended up with me.)
We had a nice breakfast – a buffet – Kaleb’s favorite, and we stuffed ourselves but good. The boat wasn’t leaving Trondheim until noon so we had several hours available to go explore the city. As we were getting ready to leave, I turned too quickly in the room and slammed my kneecap against the door jam in the bathroom. I thought I may never walk again. It certainly ruined all plans to go “explore” as I was horizontal for quite some time, and even when I could stand up, I was in much pain (and still am.) Kaleb was a bit relieved (and probably felt there was some cosmic payback in it all, as well), because he didn’t want to go out exploring in the rain. It was a bit rainy and windy, but nothing serious and Kory and I were set to face the challenge – but not Kaleb. So we stayed on board the whole time and played Yahtzee and I beat them both on a six round game. That’ll show ‘em.
The rain washed away the “T” in “great” – so it was a very “grea” day today (get it?). I thought of that myself… that’s what happens when I spend all day on a boat – and look out at gray skies. The rain did stop after lunch though, so it was smooth sailing into the night. Kaleb read and played games on the computer when he got bored of the scenery. At one point he said, “You made me miss two days of school for THIS?” He really was upset about not going to school, and watching an endless stream of crumpled up rocks sticking out of the water wasn’t his idea of a good time. (I tried not to have him miss school but we could only get tickets if we left on the 1st – all the other dates were sold out as next week is the fall break from school in all of Norway.) I’ve been trying to think of what this coast line reminds me of and all I could come with is what the dining room table looked like after Kaleb got done playing with Play-Doh in his early years. There would always be some formed rounded things, a few almost flat pieces and lots of scattered bits everywhere – and that about sums it up here as well. There is no rhyme or reason for the shaping of things, it’s just all huge chunks of rock with no trees, all clumped together, mostly smooth topped from the glacial action, in a mish-mash of shapes and divots and erosion. It’s incredible, really (see photo and look closely for the farms on the green field below the behemoth mountain.) Kory thinks it looks like cold oatmeal that’s been dished out of a pan, or the many folds on the body of those Chinese dogs with all the wrinkles. My only complaint is that it goes by too fast, which Kaleb discovered when he had to go to the bathroom and he missed the only thing he was looking forward to all day – the boat going under a bridge.
The scenery today was amazing so I knew not to take a break to go pee because I didn’t want to miss a thing (I took 229 photos today!). Every once in a while some nook or cranny along this coastline has some cool building on it, whether it’s a cabin, boat house, farm or lighthouse – there was never a lack of things to photograph. And once the rain stopped, the fall colors just popped out. There are over 30,000 named islands along the coast of Norway, and over 100,000 smaller “rocks” that stick up out of the water – and even some of those have cabins or houses on them. How and why people live in such remote, primitive places, I have no idea. Maybe because they can. Norwegians are notorious for doing the impossible. There is a big poster on board the ferry showing the plans in place to build a tunnel along the coast – just for these huge ferry boats (think cruise ship). The world’s first boat tunnel – right through a mountain. Apparently they say, going around the mountain is too dangerous (although they have done it for decades and no boat has ever gone down), but I think they are doing it just because no one has ever done it before and they want the bragging rights. It’s so Norsk – find out something that seems impossible or has yet to be achieved, and go for it. (I guess that’s how Kory ended up with me.)
