Icebound in Norway

TO ALL

This is travelogue #23. The number of actual excursions covered is probably more like 30. Logic would dictate that at some point there has to be a dud, right? Well, Christmas in Norway was a dud. So the question is, “Can Nancy write an interesting travelogue, even if the trip was a dud?” I’ll leave it to you to make that determination.

As we were discussing the possibility of going skiing in Norway at Christmas time, it crossed my mind that sometimes the ski season doesn’t really get started in Colorado until after Christmas. Also, as I perused the internet for information about where in Norway to go, I got some hints that that might be true in Norway also. So . . . . I e-mailed my cousin Anne who lives in Lillehammer, Norway and asked her what she thought. The answer was “there is always snow in the mountains north of Oslo at Christmastime.” That seemed to answer the question pretty clearly, so I bought plane tickets and moved ahead with the plan. Around the 1^st of Dec, Mike started telling me that all the web-cams on line showed NO snow at all around Lillehammer. But even that didn’t worry me too much. After all I had it from the horse’s mouth: “there is always snow in the mountains north of Oslo at Christmastime.” Besides there was still time for ole man winter to do his thing. By the week before Christmas reality began to sink in. There was still no snow in Lillehammer according to the web-cams. Nonetheless we decided to carry through with our plans. In fact, we were in high spirits as we got on the plane for Oslo at O-dark-thirty on Dec 23^rd. We had heard that there was some snow in Rondane Nat’l Park (which was where we were headed) and, if there wasn’t enough snow to ski, we would just have fun making snow angels outside our cabin and doing some day trips in the car. Little did we know that even making snow angels outside our cabin and doing day trips in the car would be out of the question due to a very slick layer of ice all over everything.

Ryanair’s definition of “Oslo” is a town about 120 km south of Oslo called Sandefjord. (One of Ryanair’s secrets to success is that they always fly out of airfields that are near enough to a major city that they can claim to be flying to a major city but far enough away from the actual city to keep their costs at a minimum. With Ryanair, it pays to investigate exactly where you are landing before you buy a ticket – you could land out in the boonies and end up spending most of what you saved in airfare on ground transportation.)We arrived at Oslo-Torp, as it is called, about 8:30 in the morning and by 9:30 we were in a rent car headed north -- blue skies and no snow in sight. Within an hour we had verified something that we suspected at the airport: the car we had rented was too small for 5 adults (4 Strohms plus friend Marion) to endure with any degree of comfort. So -- back to the airport we went. By noon, we were on the road again in a slightly (very slightly) bigger car. About 2:30 we stopped for lunch. We debated whether to buy groceries at this point, while they were handy, or whether to make a bee-line for our cabin and hope to find something in the little town nearby. Both the owner of our cabin and the guy renting us the cross-country skis were expecting us at a certain time and we were behind schedule. Nevertheless, we decided to buy groceries before heading on and that was, hands down, the best decision of the entire trip. As it turned out, the next opportunity we had to buy groceries was about 48 hours later. We would have had to resort to begging in the interim. By the time we got groceries and got going again it was about 4:00 and it was pitch dark. You read that right – pitch dark at 4:00PM.

With the darkness, came sleepiness. We had been up since about 2:30 AM (in fact, I had never really gone to sleep the night before) and lack of sleep was starting to get to us. Amy would love to have driven, but her driver’s license expired on her birthday, Dec 1^st, and she didn’t tumbled to that fact until after she arrived in Germany. Without a valid driver’s license, there was no way to put her on the rent car policy as a driver. So Mike and I switched off driving rather frequently and somehow we managed to keep moving. From Lillehammer north there was a fair amount of snow along the road. The road itself wasn’t snowy but it was wet and it seemed to have the potential of being slippery. We turned off the main road at a little town called Otta and headed uphill into the park. Within a few kilometers the road turned into a sheet of ice (Mike was driving) and before we knew it we spun out on a slight incline and come to a stop.

When Mike got out to survey the situation, it was so slippery that it was hard to walk without holding onto the car for stability. After determining that the “drop off” to our left wasn’t really a cliff but a slope and that it was a little ways from the road so we had some margin of error between us and total disaster, Mike decided to try to back down the road to a level spot and make another “go” at the incline. But . . . . when he started backing up, the car slid around broadside to the road. Thinking that he might as well turn around the rest of the way, Mike put the car in 1^st gear and gingerly continued turning in the direction he had just been sliding. For a moment we thought we were going to be allowed to complete our U-turn and head back downhill, but then one of our front wheels found its way into a ditch and that was all she wrote.

So now here we are stuck in the middle of no where. It’s pitch dark, very cold, very windy, very icy and there are no houses or other lights within sight. On the good side . . . . we do have food in the car and warm clothes and . . . . . . . . . . . a CELL PHONE!!!!! We called Hans, the owner of our cabin. When Mike mentioned that there was a snow plow parked along the side of the road a few yards behind us, Hans knew exactly where we were. He said (in English) “No problem. I will come and get you in my truck and take you to your cabin. Tomorrow I have to sand the road anyway because I have a bus load of Germans arriving and once I have sanded the road I will pull your car out.” And he was true to his word. Within minutes Hans arrived in a huge truck, transferred us and our stuff into it, and sped off over the ice to our cabin.

Of course “morning” didn’t arrive until after 9:00AM so it was at least noon before Hans got the road sanded and was ready to take Mike to retrieve our car. Mike showed us later how Hans went about pulling him out. Apparently all cars marketed in Norway have a large metal eye bolt with a screw on the end stored somewhere in the trunk or under the hood (the place varies from car to car). And every car has a couple of open screw holes -- one on the front bumper and one on the back bumper -- where the eye bolt can be screwed directly into the frame. This allows one to attach a towing cable to the car in a spot that is actually built to handle that amount of stress. Very simple but ingenious.

When Mike got back with the car we all picked our way very gingerly and carefully across the icy parking lot to where it was parked and piled in, intending to head into town and rent some cross-country skis. NOT. We were stuck again. Getting out of the parking lot required going slightly uphill. Mike had driven into the parking lot easily enough but Hans hadn’t sanded the entrance quite thoroughly enough for us to get out again.

So we retired to our cabin for another night – Christmas Eve -- praising the Lord again for the groceries we had bought the day before. Also for a couple of DVD’s that we have rented in Germany and brought with us to watch on our laptop computer and a bunch of games – playing cards, Catch Phrase, Password, etc.

We had brought our stockings with us and amazingly enough Santa Claus managed to slip-slide his way to our cabin. Christmas morning was a lot of fun. Marion got the prize for being the best shopper. She somehow was able to call to mind all kinds of stray comments and conversations from the preceding year about likes and wishes and then follow up on them and turn them into stocking-sized presents. Amazing. Actually I think everybody did a good job of coming up with neat stocking stuffers especially considering they had to be carted all the way from Germany, and that without violating Ryanair’s very severe luggage restrictions (basically one checked bag per person, 35 lbs max).

On Christmas Day we did actually manage to get out of our cabin for an extended period of time. We drove around Rondane Nat’l Park for a couple of hours with Mike sputtering “I don’t like this” all the while. We even found a little grocery store from which to supplement our meager supply of groceries. We also bought some ice cream – that was the treat of the trip. The little kitchenette in our cabin had only a refrigerator – no freezer – but that was not a problem. We had the whole outdoors at our disposal for keeping things frozen. We were sort of hoping that we might see some reindeer as we were driving around – large herds had actually been spotted in the area in recent weeks – but no such luck. The scenery was beautiful however: high wind-swept tundra, very little vegetation, and snow everywhere as far as the eye could see.

We ended up down on the main highway at one point on our little excursion and the rock walls on the sides of the road were one long continuous frozen waterfall.

We spent much of Christmas Day debating as to the best strategy for the remainder of the trip. Mike was on a four day pass and he had a plane ticket back to Germany for the day after Christmas. The rest of us weren’t scheduled to go back until the following day – the 27^th. We had planned to put Mike on the train in Otta and stay at the cabin for an extra day. But I was getting cold feet about the idea of having to get out of the parking lot by our cabin and down to the main road on my own. We knew that Hans would help if we had a problem, but we weren’t sure that there was anything to be gained by staying around another day except that our cabin was really nice and roomy (we each had our own bedroom!) and coming up with another option somewhere else felt like it would require a lot of energy. At this point we had given up on cross-country skiing. There were other people in the cabins around us and occasionally someone would go by our door on a pair of skis, but they were never gone long and it was clear that it was just too icy for skiing to be very practical. We all did manage to go for short walks around dusk on Christmas Day but for the most part even walking was not terribly practical. It was just too icy.We finally decided to move out of the cabin the next morning (Dec 26^th) and head for Oslo. Mike could catch a train there for Oslo-Torp and the rest of us could find someplace in Oslo to spend the night and do a little sightseeing the next day before heading home that evening. We had some trouble finding a place to stay – several of the places we tried were closed for the holidays -- but it all worked out eventually and Mike was able to make connections to Oslo-Torp without any problem.

That night, the four of us women paid an arm and a leg for pizza at a place called Dolly Dimples. A couple of young men at the table next to us, struck up a conversation with us (traveling with two beautiful young ladies always adds an interesting dynamic to things!) and commented that it was absolutely unheard of not to have snow in Oslo at Christmas. Hans also had clearly indicated that the whole situation in Rondane – minimal snow and a formidable layer of ice -- was highly unusual. When you’ve the instigator of a plan and it goes awry, it’s always comforting to know that the unfortunate turn of events wasn’t caused solely by an error in judgment!

The next day we did some sightseeing in Oslo – the harbor area, the Cathedral, the sculpture park, the ski jump, and a museum housing 3 original Viking ships. This last stop was the best in my opinion.

The trip home was basically uneventful.

So . . . . .was there any redeeming value in our trip? Well a few things, maybe. The sunsets in Norway were beautiful.

We didn’t exactly stay up late looking for Northern Lights, but to our knowledge there weren’t any – too early in the winter possibly? It was, however, interesting to experience first hand, just how short the days are in the North this time of year. The sun truly does rise in the south and then set again 6+ hours later just a few degrees to the west of where it rose. Also, Rondane Nat’l Park was beautiful. I would go back in a heart beat. Norwegians are friendly. And Oslo was interesting. It was an adventure to be sure.

On to some Strohm family news. Alan is actually in Zurich, Switzerland. His tasks for the first week were to get a Visa and set up a Swiss bank account. Yikes!!! Is that really true? Surely I don’t have a son with a Swiss bank account!!! Deanna is back at Cedarville University for her 2^nd semester. She REALLY likes it and has made a lot of great friends – so many that she is relatively undisturbed that her best friend decided not to return for the spring semester. WOW! Must be nice. Amy is back at WWU in Bellingham. This quarter she will apply to Huxley College of Environmental Science (part of WWU). Admission looks like a done deal. So next quarter she will actually get to start on her major. I am teaching Philippians this “semester” at PWOC. I ended up writing a lot of my own homework for the last study I did and that went so well that I was been emboldened to think I could continue in that direction. This time I am using Precept materials but planning to do A LOT re-writing. The moment of reality hit last week and I’m wondering what planet I was on when I made THAT decision. We’ll see how it goes

The best news of all is that it looks like Mike and I will be staying in Heidelberg another year – until August of 2008. You don’t want to know how that came about -- it’s too complicated to explain. I’m not a fan of that currently vogue phrase “It’s a God thing” but, if I was, it would be applicable to this situation. Of course, staying in Heidelberg another year means Mike will continue in his same job another year – that job that he absolutely hates. Let’s just say there are some trade-offs that seem to have made that worth enduring. And perhaps 8 months of experience has mellowed his disposition slightly? Anyway, those of you who have been saying you were going to come and visit us while we were in Germany but haven’t actually done it now have a reprieve – you have another year to get your passports in order and make plans.

Nancy

P.S. This travelogue was supposed to be about Ireland. I decided to go on to our most recent trip to Norway because it was a shorter trip and there are A LOT fewer pictures to sort through. Stay tuned for Ireland, however. It IS still coming.