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kareinaNow that Thorvald has returned to Avacal I suppose I should try to record some of the adventures we had while he was here…
He arrived on Thursday the 7th of June. I worked that morning getting training on the SEM (Scanning electron microscope), and then picked him up at the airport. We took it easy the first night, as he hadn’t gotten much sleep during the flight, and I had stayed up too late Wednesday evening trying to accomplish everything that I thought needed doing before he arrived. Friday morning he and I walked to the university, where I did an acroyoga session with Johan, and Thorvald tried a couple of the easiest poses. Then we walked home and enjoyed a relaxed evening. Saturday we drove out to Storforsen (beautiful, as always, and quite high water levels, since it was such a good snow year). Sunday he joined us for the folk dance session, and on Monday we hopped into the car (borrowed David’s blue car, since there were no rental cars available anywhere in Luleå on such short notice) and drove to Lofoten. Ten or eleven hours later we were at Rachel’s house in Kabelvåg. We sat up talking till nearly midnight, and got up on time to have breakfast with her before she went to work.
Tuesday’s adventure started with a visit to Aalan Gård, a goat farm and local cheese shop. I had enjoyed their cheese back in 2012, when I bought some at the gift shop of the Viking Museum, so this time I decided to go straight to the farm and buy from them directly. We arrived shortly after their 10:00 opening time, and were the first visitors of the day. We were greeted (in English), but the daughter of the house, who gave us a tour that included looking into the cheese making rooms, seeing the herb drying room, the herb garden, pointed out the goats about to head up the side of the mountain for the day’s grazing (they are taken out each morning by a person, but come home in the evening on their own), etc.
Our next stop of the day was at Lofotr, the Viking museum. We enjoyed wandering around the museum, the long house, looking at the depression in the ground where the original long house had been, walking down to the lake to look at the viking ship (not sailing that day). We also stopped by the archery range, where the ladies on duty (in viking costumes, of course) invited us to try shooting at the target. Thorvald, of course, said yes to that (he has always loved archery, and even has his pelican for encouraging combat archery in An Tir back in the early days of combat archery). He did quite ok shooting at the target, despite the fact that the bow and arrows they have out for visitors aren’t the best, and he hadn’t tried that particular combination before. Therefore the lady said “now hit the bottle”, so he turned a little, took aim at the empty plastic bottle hanging from a string near the target, released, and the arrow bounced off the bottle before falling to the ground. Satisfied that he had complied with the lady’s request, he loosed the final arrow at the normal target again.
We spent most of the day at Lofotr, and then drove home the long way, around the far side of the island (stopping for photos along the way, of course), and spent a lovely evening hanging out with Rachel and working on sewing projects.
Wednesday we climbed Kjeldbergting, a small mountain not from from Rachel’s house. This is a view from the top:
Thursday we did the long drive back to Luleå, taking a detour to see if we could find the soapstone deposit at Lautakoski. Before the trip I had used the lantmateriet web page to look at the area in terrängskuggning ( literally “terrain shadows”, but actually LIDAR images), where I could see two depressions that could be quarrying—one on the east side of the river, one on the west. The western was the larger of the two, so we told the GPS to take us there. However, when we were 4.5 km from the destination we came to where we should turn off of the paved road and onto a dirt one, which had a locked gate. We considered walking in. However, it was nine hours since leaving Rachel’s that morning, and three more hours of driving before we could be home, so we opted to just get back in the car and head back to Luleå and get some sleep before Spelmansstämman (folk music festival) started on Friday.
The rest of our adventures will have to wait till another time, as it is already after 22:00, and I still need to do yoga and get some sleep, since I have to work tomorrow.
He arrived on Thursday the 7th of June. I worked that morning getting training on the SEM (Scanning electron microscope), and then picked him up at the airport. We took it easy the first night, as he hadn’t gotten much sleep during the flight, and I had stayed up too late Wednesday evening trying to accomplish everything that I thought needed doing before he arrived. Friday morning he and I walked to the university, where I did an acroyoga session with Johan, and Thorvald tried a couple of the easiest poses. Then we walked home and enjoyed a relaxed evening. Saturday we drove out to Storforsen (beautiful, as always, and quite high water levels, since it was such a good snow year). Sunday he joined us for the folk dance session, and on Monday we hopped into the car (borrowed David’s blue car, since there were no rental cars available anywhere in Luleå on such short notice) and drove to Lofoten. Ten or eleven hours later we were at Rachel’s house in Kabelvåg. We sat up talking till nearly midnight, and got up on time to have breakfast with her before she went to work.
Tuesday’s adventure started with a visit to Aalan Gård, a goat farm and local cheese shop. I had enjoyed their cheese back in 2012, when I bought some at the gift shop of the Viking Museum, so this time I decided to go straight to the farm and buy from them directly. We arrived shortly after their 10:00 opening time, and were the first visitors of the day. We were greeted (in English), but the daughter of the house, who gave us a tour that included looking into the cheese making rooms, seeing the herb drying room, the herb garden, pointed out the goats about to head up the side of the mountain for the day’s grazing (they are taken out each morning by a person, but come home in the evening on their own), etc.
Our next stop of the day was at Lofotr, the Viking museum. We enjoyed wandering around the museum, the long house, looking at the depression in the ground where the original long house had been, walking down to the lake to look at the viking ship (not sailing that day). We also stopped by the archery range, where the ladies on duty (in viking costumes, of course) invited us to try shooting at the target. Thorvald, of course, said yes to that (he has always loved archery, and even has his pelican for encouraging combat archery in An Tir back in the early days of combat archery). He did quite ok shooting at the target, despite the fact that the bow and arrows they have out for visitors aren’t the best, and he hadn’t tried that particular combination before. Therefore the lady said “now hit the bottle”, so he turned a little, took aim at the empty plastic bottle hanging from a string near the target, released, and the arrow bounced off the bottle before falling to the ground. Satisfied that he had complied with the lady’s request, he loosed the final arrow at the normal target again.
We spent most of the day at Lofotr, and then drove home the long way, around the far side of the island (stopping for photos along the way, of course), and spent a lovely evening hanging out with Rachel and working on sewing projects.
Wednesday we climbed Kjeldbergting, a small mountain not from from Rachel’s house. This is a view from the top:
Thursday we did the long drive back to Luleå, taking a detour to see if we could find the soapstone deposit at Lautakoski. Before the trip I had used the lantmateriet web page to look at the area in terrängskuggning ( literally “terrain shadows”, but actually LIDAR images), where I could see two depressions that could be quarrying—one on the east side of the river, one on the west. The western was the larger of the two, so we told the GPS to take us there. However, when we were 4.5 km from the destination we came to where we should turn off of the paved road and onto a dirt one, which had a locked gate. We considered walking in. However, it was nine hours since leaving Rachel’s that morning, and three more hours of driving before we could be home, so we opted to just get back in the car and head back to Luleå and get some sleep before Spelmansstämman (folk music festival) started on Friday.
The rest of our adventures will have to wait till another time, as it is already after 22:00, and I still need to do yoga and get some sleep, since I have to work tomorrow.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-25 08:30 pm (UTC)