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this weekend's road trip
Feb. 13th, 2011 11:38 pmI spent the day Thursday alternating between cooking food to take with us on the drive, and finishing up slides for my talk in Tromsø on Friday. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
archinonlive got home from work later than he might liked to have done, so it was around 20:00 before we finally started driving. From Luleå to Tromsø is predicted by GoogleMaps to be a 9 to 10 hour drive. However, it is winter, so we rather expected it would take longer than that. The roads were clear, cold (as low as -30 by the car thermometer), and beautiful for much of the drive; it wasn't till we got well into Norway (north of Narvik) that we hit warm, snowy weather. By "snowy" think 10 to 20 cm deep and falling fast in thick, fluffy flakes. By that time it was after 05:00, so there were more lorries on the road than had been earlier in the morning, and, of course, each time one passed us heading the other way visibility disappeared totally unless we slowed waaaaay down. Needless to say, we didn't actually get to Tromsø till after 07:00.
So we went to uni and found a couch in the geology department and took a couple of hour nap (I'd had a bunch of short naps during the drive, but he drove the whole way, so had been up for over 24 hours at that point). We got up on time for my 11:00 meeting, and he came along to the part where I did my talk describing the research I did in Tassie and the research I did in Italy. Then he wandered off for another nap and I spent a couple of hours discussing the research they are doing in the Kalak Nappe Complex and what I could do if I can manage to get funding to join them.
After the meeting we checked into the hotel and got another nap before meeting the geologists at a pub. That pub closed around 18:00, and the others said that the plan was to go from there to another pub for one more drink, and then off to dinner. If plan A had happened I might have been able to join them in food, but instead of one quick drink they happily chatted over several (I, of course, drank only water). Eventuallyarchinonliveand I called it a night and went back to our room, leaving the others happily chatting at the pub. I did yoga and he had a late dinner (it was after 20:00 by then) and we went to sleep by 22:00 so that we'd be able to do the return drive during daylight hours.
Saturday's snowfall in Sweden was no where near as heavy as Friday's had been, and the plows had been out, so the roads were in reasonable shape. As a result we managed to take some photos of mountains on the drive, though many of the peaks were hiding behind clouds. I'll try to find time to upload some of the photos later. We managed the drive in just under 8 hours, so we had plenty of time to unpack and relax before getting to sleep early again.
Sunday we normally do SCA fighter training between 10:00 and 12:00, but this week we opted to sleep in, instead so as to better recover from the road trip. In the afternoon we went out shopping, acquiring useful items like a beard trimmer for him, a popcorn popper for me, and a wake-up light. We could have gone to Swedish folk dancing at a local restaurant this evening, and considered it, since we had so much fun last time. But the lure of a relaxed evening (testing out that popcorn popper!) won out this time. Fortunately, we have folk dance class tomorrow night, so there will be some exercise.
archinonlive got home from work later than he might liked to have done, so it was around 20:00 before we finally started driving. From Luleå to Tromsø is predicted by GoogleMaps to be a 9 to 10 hour drive. However, it is winter, so we rather expected it would take longer than that. The roads were clear, cold (as low as -30 by the car thermometer), and beautiful for much of the drive; it wasn't till we got well into Norway (north of Narvik) that we hit warm, snowy weather. By "snowy" think 10 to 20 cm deep and falling fast in thick, fluffy flakes. By that time it was after 05:00, so there were more lorries on the road than had been earlier in the morning, and, of course, each time one passed us heading the other way visibility disappeared totally unless we slowed waaaaay down. Needless to say, we didn't actually get to Tromsø till after 07:00.So we went to uni and found a couch in the geology department and took a couple of hour nap (I'd had a bunch of short naps during the drive, but he drove the whole way, so had been up for over 24 hours at that point). We got up on time for my 11:00 meeting, and he came along to the part where I did my talk describing the research I did in Tassie and the research I did in Italy. Then he wandered off for another nap and I spent a couple of hours discussing the research they are doing in the Kalak Nappe Complex and what I could do if I can manage to get funding to join them.
After the meeting we checked into the hotel and got another nap before meeting the geologists at a pub. That pub closed around 18:00, and the others said that the plan was to go from there to another pub for one more drink, and then off to dinner. If plan A had happened I might have been able to join them in food, but instead of one quick drink they happily chatted over several (I, of course, drank only water). Eventually
archinonliveand I called it a night and went back to our room, leaving the others happily chatting at the pub. I did yoga and he had a late dinner (it was after 20:00 by then) and we went to sleep by 22:00 so that we'd be able to do the return drive during daylight hours. Saturday's snowfall in Sweden was no where near as heavy as Friday's had been, and the plows had been out, so the roads were in reasonable shape. As a result we managed to take some photos of mountains on the drive, though many of the peaks were hiding behind clouds. I'll try to find time to upload some of the photos later. We managed the drive in just under 8 hours, so we had plenty of time to unpack and relax before getting to sleep early again.
Sunday we normally do SCA fighter training between 10:00 and 12:00, but this week we opted to sleep in, instead so as to better recover from the road trip. In the afternoon we went out shopping, acquiring useful items like a beard trimmer for him, a popcorn popper for me, and a wake-up light. We could have gone to Swedish folk dancing at a local restaurant this evening, and considered it, since we had so much fun last time. But the lure of a relaxed evening (testing out that popcorn popper!) won out this time. Fortunately, we have folk dance class tomorrow night, so there will be some exercise.
