2022-06-16 again this morning we decided to get up early because we like sit down breakfast and it's over at 8:30. But last night we were starving at midnight and had to go for a pizza run at 1 am. So we drug ourselves out of our beds early, but also we had an excursion and we had to be in the lounge at 8:00 for the excursion. So after a quick breakfast, we headed to the lounge to get ready for our bus ride to Nordfjord.
Kay and I have a system when it comes to bus rides. I'm not quite as fast as she is, so she hurries when they call our excursion, and she gets a great seat on the bus. Then I get there :-) and she's so nice to give me the window to take pictures. We are such a good team lol! The ride today was long but was very easy. The most amazing thing was all of the beautiful sights that we saw. I couldn't stop taking pictures, and I have over 500 pictures between my Sony and my pixel phone. I use the Sony for the distance, and the pixel takes amazing pictures of anything else. Honestly it takes great distance pictures too, but I have that zoom lens that does so good on my Sony.
As we rode the Panorama highway, everywhere we loved was something amazing! There were boulders, mountain ranges, ice capped mountains, valleys and fjords, thatched roof houses, sod shanties, beautiful homes, waterfalls and creeks running along the water, and of course the tunnels. In Norway, as they tell us, they have three choices when they come to a mountain: go around it, go over it, or go through it. Most of the time they go through it! We went through 11 tunnels in the mountain on this trip today. Yesterday was the longest one I've ever been in in my life. We were in the mountain about 5 minutes. But there were a lot of them today! And of course every so often we stopped at some scenic view to take pictures. Kay and I are becoming masters at selfies, even with our little short arms. Now if I could just figure out how to look up, smile, keep the double chin off and get a great background all at the same time. I'm working on it.
At one point when we stopped, someone got back on the bus with a picture of a snake she had just seen. I used my Google lens to take a picture of her phone picture, and we discovered it was an Eastern viper, an adder, which is poisonous. The bus driver said it wouldn't kill us but it would make us a little sick. Great! I just got through with two weeks in Yellowstone looking at all the wildlife. This was not exactly the wildlife that I wanted to see in Norway haha.
We stopped for tea and cookies at a little hotel in one of the towns. I'm not quite at the 'loving tea' stage yet but I'm working on it. I was really hoping that the cookies would be Norwegian waffles (vaffels), which I have come to love dearly! I am buying a vaffel iron when I get home that makes these!
We saw a fjord pony in this town too. They have apparently stayed very true to their DNA from thousands of years ago, and they are strong and have excellent genes for the mountains and the fjord area. Queen Elizabeth herself comes to this town to get her ponies. From the way the lady described them, they sound sort of like the Chincoteague ponies on the East Coast, with a true heritage and lineage going back thousands of years. I have a picture of one of them here. They are cute :-)
I'm sorry about all the pictures. I just fell in love with this area and I couldn't pick between all of the pictures with so many of them. So I cut the size way down and they are not good quality at all, but at least you can see the images and you can get the idea of how beautiful this area is.
Our tablemate at dinner, Megan, is traveling alone. Her mother got covid on the cruise 6 weeks ago that they did on the Spirit from Florida to Alaska. She was doing very well, the mom was, and was just about back up on her feet. She insisted that Megan go on the cruise without her, and while Megan didn't want to, she did at her mother's insistence. Yesterday evening she came to dinner about 30 minutes late. She found out her mother had just passed away. She was sitting up in her chair doing fine and had a heart attack. This was so sad, and we have worried about her today. We saw her at dinner tonight and she still was not looking good. I just can't imagine! Say a little prayer for Megan please. She's such a nice person and she is wracked with guilt feelings right now that she doesn't deserve. She was doing what her mother wanted, the way her mother wanted her to.
We had a chance to shop just a little. The big thing here is trolls. I found several troll items as gifts, and got something special for Hannah. I'm still looking for that special something for Kevin, Payton and the boys. I also found something nice for Kelly and Micki Jo here. One last day in Norway tomorrow, then a sea day on Saturday and back to Dover on Sunday. Sunday is a special day for my family... Logan has a birthday! I've already given him his present but I sure do hate to miss his birthday. So be sure when Sunday rolls along to wish him a happy birthday!
One last set of Norway adventures tomorrow, then a few 'boring' sea days , then we're off to the Baltic! I hope you enjoyed today's pictures.