Norway

We traveled safely to Norway and picked up a car in Oslo. Our first night was in a hostel and then we picked up cousins, John and his daughter, Janet. We have made quite a quartet. Larry is the driver. The girls are the backseat drivers. John is the tour guide. He led us through the Valdres valley to Laerdal on the fjords.



We are now in Fagerness and have joined up with our tour group. However, the hotel computer is not letting me onto Juno so I decided to blog. I haven't learned how to download pictures on this machine, so the pictures will have to wait.

John has led us to many farms associated with our families. Yesterday we stopped at a church looking for graves of our ancestors. We think we found some but even more special was the farmstead just behind the church.




That was a key family farm. Then we headed down the road to another farm. The older woman there spoke no English. We weren't sure we were at the right place so we stopped at the neighbor across the street. He offered to be our interpreter and went back with us to speak with her. She wound up smiling and happy with us, we wound up at the man's house for 'coffee.'

Today, our searching brought us to a farm where the man and his daughter drove us to the old homestead. We trekked through the cow feed yard in the mud and then up a steep, grassy hill to the location. Only a bit of wood and a few iron tools were left on the site. Large trees had grown up where the house had been. The view was spectacular, but the farm would have been very hard to work being on the steep side of the mountain.




When we arrived, it was cloudy with rain and mist. Today started out with bright sunlight. By noon it was cloudy with a few drops of rain. Now, at 5 pm it is bright sunlight again. I'm wearing my heavier jacket and will layer that with sweaters tomorrow when we go to a working farm. Fall is in the air. The air is cool but clean and fresh. The mountains make me feel like a tiny creature in comparison.

The food has been fantastic at the hotel. Tonight they are doing a BBQ. Then there is a program afterwards.

I need to share the computer. Add more a different day.