kareina

This year's Norway vacation started on Saturday--we got on the road shortly around 08:20 in the morning, but we had been up since 04:00 doing last minute packing and organizing and stuff. Therefor, while our goal was to head all the way to Lofoten, but we decided that it would be smarter to just go to the campground at Narvik instead, since it was only a 8 hour drive, and neither of us had been to Narvik before.

While I am not keen on cities, I think Narvik is in a beautiful location. The campground is just outside of town, so we didn't even have to enter the city upon arrival. The view from the campground is lovely (I really should get photos off of the phone, but no time/energy for that today), and after we set up the tent we made time for a short walk. Before we even got out of the campground I noticed a couple of huge boulders, so had to go look. They turned out to be a lovely garnet-bearing schist, with quite a few garnets in the 0.5 to 2 mm range, which made me realize that I really ought to be carrying my phone so that I could take photos, so I hurried back to the tent, and noticed a smaller boulder closer to the tent which had garnets in the 5 to 7 mm range. Needless to say, photos were taken and I looked forward to finding an outcrop of rocks that were actually in place, so that I could find out if they were local rock, or if they had been dropped here by some glacier and came from a long way away. We didn't go that far, but I am pleased to report that the outcrops we did find were, in fact, garnet bearing schists, and I even brought home a small sample (which is unusual for me--I normally only bring home rock samples if they are in my field area and I want to do analyses on them--who can afford to ship rocks when they move?).

After our walk and my yoga we went to sleep so that we could get up at a reasonable hour to continue our journey. Six hours and 15 minutes after leaving Narvik we arrived at the Viking Museum, where they have a replica of the largest Viking Long house ever excavated. I recommend this park--they have done a lovely job with it. We got to be part of the crew rowing the Viking ship (replica of the Gotstad ship) for a pretty 30 min spin around the lake. We took turns playing with throwing axes and shooting long bows at a target. We only watched the smith making something for a brief time, since we have a good smith at home who also uses period techniques. For the first time in my life I actually used an audio guide. Why? Because instead of using their headsets I was able to plug their controller into my bluetooth thingy and listen to the sound in my hearing aids.

They have the main tourist building set up for them--one room with a bunch of different videos running on loop tape--you point your control stick at the button next to the video and you get sound for that one in your ears. Tired of listening? Go point your controller at another button. They also have a big screen movie that plays into the headsets when you synch your controller with the button at the door to the theater, and then there is a room full of display cases to show off many of the small artifacts they found during the excavation, each with a button to get sound. Honestly, I would have rather read text about the artifacts and instead of the videos explaining the history of the park and what is known about the people who lived in the longhouse, because it is *much* faster for me to read a paragraph than to listen to someone speaking the exact same words, but the technology amused me (and they had a variety of languages available).

After leaving the museum we headed on to a campground, initially chosen because it happens to be the nearest to the museum. However, having stayed there I strongly recommend Unstad Campground. They are actually set up as a surfing campground, and I suspect that is the biggest reason for the difference between them and the campground in Narvik we had stayed at the previous night. What were the differences? Both are located in very beautiful settings with stunning views, but the one in Narvik obviously gets way more people passing through. The person on duty there was behind the desk when we arrived, checked us in quickly and efficiently, made pleasant small talk, but it was clearly a business transaction for her. When we arrived in Unstad and got out of the car we were met by a man leaving the main building who welcomed us warmly, chatted a bit in a very friendly manner, and suggested that we set up our tent first, anywhere we liked, and then go inside to pay, since he needed to go talk to the girls who were taking off their wet suits just then.

So we did, and when we went inside we were greeted by a very friendly, motherly lady who treated us like guests in her home and old friends she simply hadn't met yet, rather than as customers (even though she did take cash for our camping there). Both of the hosts were much fun to visit with, and the setting was lovely. The guy encouraged us to take surfing lessons in the morning, or to climb the ridge above the campground. She told us about a beautiful walk along the coast towards the next village, and said that they often go out to the lighthouse 45 minutes walk away just to relax and enjoy the view. She said that since the German group had ordered the sauna heated for 21:00 we might want to go relax in it when they were done, and when I wondered aloud if I should do yoga first, and then sauna, or sauna first and then yoga, she suggested I do hot yoga in the sauna. (They also have an outdoor hottub which would have been great, but it takes three hours to fill and heat and we didn't get there till 19:00, so it wasn't worth ordering this time).

After their suggestions we decided to do the walk to the lighthouse that night, and go up the ridge in the morning. The first part of the trail is actually a road--during the war they started putting one in, but the war ended before they got it done, so the middle bit is just a walking trail, with minor improvements. We walked out till we came to a lovely small ridge which gave the first view of the lighthouse on the next ridge, and decided that it would be a good place to stop and do yoga. However, soon after I started stretching we noticed that the clouds out to sea were thickening and getting lower, and we could no longer see the lighthouse.

Since the last portion of the trail we had come over was rather narrow and required a fair bit of scrambling over rocks we decided that rather than finishing yoga just then it would be smarter to turn back, before the fog closed in and made it hard to see the path. We have no idea if the fog ever did get to that part of the trail, but if it did it did so after we got back to the easy part of the track. Since I didn't get to do my yoga out on the ridge overlooking the ocean I opted instead to follow her other suggestion, and instead did my yoga in a hot sauna, enjoying the view through the window of one of the ridges overlooking the campground. While I am too tired to deal with photos tonight, I can point you to this one, which I uploaded to FB while in camp, using their free wireless (the only time all trip we had internet).

In the morning it was raining, the clouds were sitting on the mountain tops, so we decided not to climb the ridge after all. While I wouldn't have minded hiking in the rain, we didn't see a point if there would have been no visibility when we got there. So instead we drove two hours further out on the highway, to the end of the road in the village of Å (how is that for a nice, long town name?), where we did take a walk in the rain, and enjoyed it immensely.

By then lord_kjar was itching to get home, so we started the long drive--leaving Å at about 14:30. We did a few stops, including one very important one. While at the Viking museum the day before we picked up some cheese from their gift shop, and it tasted so good we had to go back and buy a couple of other packages of it. If anyone else wants to try, it comes from Aalan Gård (a gård is a farm), and it looks like they do mail order, which is good since what we brought back with us won't last all that long. The cheese we got is called Aalander.

Had it not been raining we might have opted to came one more night in the mounatins and do a hike that evening or in the morning, but given the rain, and the list of things we want to accomplish before Medltidsdagar next week, we drove straight through (not counting short stops for fuel, cheese, toilet, and yoga) and arrived home at 03:05. I managed to nap for a couple of hours, but he was awake the whole time. I am not surprised that today has been a bit of a lazy day, with only a few errands and putting away some of what we had taken with us accomplished.

Tomorrow morning I have a dental appointment (booked today during those errands) after which we will head down to Piteå to work on projects with lord_kjar's family. That leaves five days to work at stuff at home for the event.

It was only a short trip, yet still I fell in love over and over--nearly every new valley had a peak that was so beautiful I wanted to move there and admire it forever. So many mountains, so little time available to devote myself to appreciating them!

Friday morning I worked & had a meeting with my boss. Was reasonably happy with what I accomplished, but have tons more I want done ASAP.

Friday afternoon mom and I drove out to Schnals Valley. When I went there at the beginning of Sept for the Textile Forum it took 4 hours on train + 30 more minutes in a car. In a rental car it takes only 4 hours to get all the way into the valley, including a couple of longish stops at a rest area. We arrived at the Archeoparc about 18:15 and met my friend, who is the director of the parc. We enjoyed a drink with her (she and mom had wine, I had water, of course) and made plans to meet the next night for dinner. She was kind enough to tell the hostess at the Pension we were staying at not to expect us for dinner on Saturday as we had other plans (the family speaks German and some Italian).

Saturday morning I walked up the valley while mom enjoyed visiting the Archeoparc and learning about Otzi and the world in which he lived. (Having spent a week at that park last month, I didn't need to look at the displays again so soon.) I walked all the way to the top end of the road, where there is a ski resort and cable car to the top of one of the ridges, stopping often to take photos of rocks (which I still need to get off of the camera). The plan had been for mom to stay at the parc till 12:30, and then drive up and meet me, but she miss-read her watch and left early, arriving at the parking lot at pretty much exactly the same time I reached the ski resort and started walking towards the large "WC" sign. She saw me, and thought that it was a good destination, so met me there. I decided not to take the cable car up, since the ridge-top was hidden in a cloud, and instead she and I went to one of the restaurants for lunch. (yum, dumplings!)

After that we returned to the room, where I had a quick nap and a shower before we went down the valley into the main valley below and looked around a bit before meeting my friend for dinner. She took us to a delightful restaurant at a ridge-top farm, where they serve traditional South Tyrolean food. I enjoyed the pumpkin ravioli with SnowMilk for desert. It is every bit as yummy as I remember from when I was last in that area, and I still really want the recipie (it involves bread, apples, raisins, and pine nuts, buried in cream & cinnamon). It was a wonderful evening, with good food and good company. After dinner I let the two of them argue about who would pay, and was unsurprised when mom won after using the line "that is what mothers are for, and since yours isn't here...". (Mom had warned me she intended to pay, so I just kept out of the way when the subject came up, I know better than to argue with her on that topic!)

Alas, on the drive back up the valley after dinner I started sniffling. Mom had come down with a case of the sniffles right after she arrived (probably caught them on the flight), and was doing mostly better by the weekend. I don't tend to get sick often (caught two colds in 2009, both mostly better within 24 hours, and this is my first for this year that I could find mention of in LJ under the "health" tag, and I tend to mention such things), but did get these sniffles. They bothered me Saturday night, and were sort of annoying on Sunday, but didn't slow me down any, and by today I was mostly feeling fine again.

Sunday morning I loaded up the car and then I started walking along the road back down the valley. Mom read her book for half an hour and then followed me, reaching me just as I reached a clump of houses with a side-road she could turn into to pick me up without blocking traffic. I love our timing. We went from there to the city of Bolanzo, where we found the Archaeological museum (and also saw a marathon in progress). It was interesting to compare their museum with the Archeoparc. They have the Iceman himself on display through a small window into his chilled room (don't want him to thaw after all these years!) and his actual artifacts. But the Archeoparc has its replicas out on display for people to touch, which is nice. Mom thought the Archeoparc was much better. I largely agree, but I did like the fact that the city museum also had floors for the Bronze Age, Roman Age, and Middle Ages.

After that we largely drove straight back to Milan, with just a couple of stops at rest areas. We got home early enough to cook her a meal (I'd been nibbling all day, as I do--I had leftover restaurant food, of course, plus the things I'd brought for the trip, so I didn't need to eat again) before returning the car. She decided to come with me, so that I'd not have to learn the car in city traffic (we'd paid for the right for either of us to drive, but she did all the driving). I'm glad she came along, as the company was nice. When we reached the airport the rental agency was shut, with a sign saying "back soon" (in English!). So we waited. After 10 full minutes we called the phone number which was also on the sign, and the lady said she'd be back in two minutes (she was). Once the paperwork was complete we hopped onto the city bus to head back into town.

Normally when I return home from Linate airport I take the bus from the airport, and get off when it passes the point directly south of my apartment, then take the 20 minute walk north to get home. However, mom has some issues with her back that makes it less than pleasant for her to walk these days, so we decided to take two buses to get home. Alas, when trying to figure out were to exit the first bus so as to catch the next I forgot that bus 93 runs along the road next to my house for only part of the distance south--it then takes a jog over to the next major north-south road, and intersects the east-west road upon which the airport bus runs a couple of blocks from were we got off the bus. Oops. So we walked north the two blocks to get to the bus stop and mom sat down on the bench and we waited. And Waited. And Waited. The paper schedule said that the next bus was expected at 21:13 (we arrived at the stop at 21:05). Every so often the computer which normally announces how many minutes till the next bus would actually do so, but it went from "8 min" to saying nothing for several minutes to saying "7 min" to saying nothing to saying "8 min", and so on, sometimes going to a smaller number, sometimes not, and large chunks of time saying nothing at all (this is not typical behavior for Milanese bus stop computers). We watched three different buses going the other direction on that street pass before ours finally arrived, fully 40 minutes after we arrived at the stop, to carry us the rest of the way home. Even taking a slow pace we could have been home faster had we walked. Pity that wasn't an option. You can bet that I will remember to stay on the first bus all the way to where it intersects with the second when we return from Finland next week--not only because then she won't have to do the two block walk with luggage, but that street actually has three different buses going down it that all head close to my house, so we will have a choice, and not have to wait for one three times longer than the schedule says it should take.

Today I accomplished some work and yet another job application, had a nap, cooked a yummy soup, hung out a bit with mom, and have some energy left to do a bit more work before heading home tonight to do yoga and get some sleep. I missed my internet connection this weekend, but that was all I missed. I loved being in a beautiful mountain valley--I could so live there. Funny how the outer edge of the southern Alps doesn't really appeal to me, but that valley is far enough into the range that it is on the far side of some sort of climatic border--the vegetation there is a rich-dark green that is ever so much nicer than the brownish green of the plants on the southern most ridges of the range. The rocks there are also much nicer--a pretty metamorphic schist, while the outer edge of the Alps is sedimentary. I really do need to figure out how to arrange my life so that I get to either live in, or spend lots of time in, such a mountain valley.

During the next week or so I need to:

* finish processing all of the data from the last microprobe session & make lots of diagrams
* learn how to create "AFM" diagrams in Perple_X and compare the predicted and experimental results in that format
* finish finding papers that talk about talc & garnet in natural rocks and extract the compositional data to compare with my experiments
* weld shut another capsule for my next experiment (tried one today, but managed to split the weld at the last moment)
* fly to Finland on Friday and meet family, descended from my Great-grandfather's youngest brother
* replace my ailing computer with one that can handle changes in the building electricity circuits

If you ever get a chance to spend a week in the Schnals Valley in South Tyrol (Italian Alps), go!
( My adventures at the textile forum--cut because it got long and there are photos, but it is worth a look )

After a delightful visit with cousins in Copper Center I drove back to Wasillia with my cousins K. & R. on Christmas Eve. We left there about 15:30, so as evening was coming on, but it was still light enough to see the mountains when we left behind the broad valley of the Copper River basin and started up into the hills. After we passed Gunsight Mountain (I am ashamed to admit that I'd been driving past that mountain for years before I made the connection between the name of the peak at that distinctive square notch in the peak which resembles the notch in a gun used for sighting) we stopped at a pull out so the boys could fire a few tracer shots from their .50 caliber. They shot at the bluff on the far side of the river (checking the topo map when we got home, the bluff was about a mile from the highway at that point). Since the bullets were moving directly away from us they looked to be moving rather slowly, in a pretty red arc (though I know that were they coming towards us they would have been moving much to quickly to avoid if we were unfortunate enough to be in their path). One of the shots hit the top of the bluff and ricocheted back up into the air for a bit. It is really kind of impressive that tool users are able to throw the functional equivalent of a rock for such a great distance, really. Pity that the only two reasons one might do so are 1) for the fun of seeing it fly (like we did) or 2) to cause harm to another (sadly, the reason the technology was developed). Soon after we returned to the road we passed the cute little octagonal cabin that I loved as a child--I'd make up any number of stories about living in it and enjoying the mountains every day, instead of just driving through them once every month or so to see family up north to entertain myself as we drove. A bit further south we passed a small peak with the official name of Lion Head Rock, but which my cousins always said looked like a nipple, but my sister and I, who must have been hungry when first we saw it, thought looked like a chicken drumstick laying up against the side of a hill (the photo in the link isn't quite taken from the correct angle to show that illusion--I couldn't find one taken from the correct spot, and it was too dark for me to take a photo whilst driving). No matter what one thinks it looks like, it is easy to tell from looking at it that it is what is left of the core of an old volcano, like Pilot Rock in Oregon. Funny that I never noticed that before, even though I have done this drive a few times since I started studying geology. It took my cousin mentioning in conversation that is what the peak is, about an hour before we passed it on the way up to get me to say "yes, that is exactly what it looks like!". When I was young the four-hour drive seemed to take ages, but now it seems pretty quick, and it took little more time before we were passing King Mountain, and not much longer there after before we were back at K's house in Wasillia.

We enjoyed a quite Chirstmas Eve with his wife, sons, and a friend of theirs who is visiting from the lower '48, and I got to sleep by 01:00. I heard him and his two-year old moving by 07:30, and though I could easily have gone back to sleep, I decided that since I was sleeping on an air-mattress in front of the tree, I should probably get up so that when they were ready to unwrap presents I'd be out of the way. Cousin R. came back out to enjoy Chirstmas dinner with us, as did K's wife's dad, step-mom, and two dogs (both of whom are as quiet and well-mannered as K's dog). We had a lovely feast, at which I ate more than I should, and during the course of the day I stitched up a small Christmas tree ornament for them. They were pleased to receive a hand-made gift, and I had the fun of making it. I took photos, but, alas, I left the connecting cable for the camera in Italy, so sharing it will have to wait till I return next month. After dinner I got a ride with R. back to Anchorage to the home of my SCA brother, who owns his own house (purchased two years ago, when he was only 20). I may well wind up going to stay with other folk between now and when I fly to Fairbanks, but since there is a guest room here I've unpacked my suitcase into the closet--if I go spend a day or two elsewhere I'll just take a change of clothes in my carry-on luggage, rather than dragging along everything, including the costumes brought for events.

They've bid me to make myself at home, and gave me free reign in the kitchen, so I baked more braided bread today. I love having friends and family who will let me do that.

While I've called a few people, no one has been home, so it looks like I'll probably make it an early night and catch up on my sleep, and see if I can finish shaking off the hint of sniffles that I've picked up in my travels.