In June/July 2018 we did a heritage trip to Norway to visit some of the historical family sites from Jonathan's side of the family. Jonathan's mom was with us which made the trip really special, finding places where she had lived as a girl. We also got to practice our newly acquired (and very basic!) skills in the Norwegian language.
On the way to Oslo we spent a couple of days in Iceland doing a tiny bit of exploring. I didn't blog extensively on the trip, but I did put together a couple of videos summarizing the highlights of the trip.
Iceland
Norway
Monday, December 31, 2018
Monday, September 14, 2015
Traveling home
We had originally planned to sightsee on the way home as well, but since we extended our stay in the Northwest, we basically just made a beeline for Pittsburgh when we left there. We did manage to have a couple of nights with friends: one of those nights we stayed in Helena, MT with our dear friends T & G who are running an organic farm. We got a tour of their place and had a whole feast fresh from the field for dinner!
We also stopped at Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore, since they were right along the way. Sadly we drove within spitting distance of Yellowstone.... saw the signs to turn off, but we didn't go. Yellowstone deserves a real visit, not just a drive-through, so we'll hit that another time.
No more pictures from here on out. Altogether it took us about 5 days of driving all day long to get home. One day we drove 800 miles--nearly 13 hrs in the car. There were a lot of things we could have stopped to see, but I would ask the girls, "OK, do you want to stop and see the Corn Palace?" and they would say, "If we stop, will we still get home on the night you said we would?" I would always reply that we would likely get home the following day (my "best-case scenario arrival time" was fairly optimistic, and didn't hold up against many tourist stops). They always voted to keep plowing on so that we could get home "on time." I think they were pretty tripped out by that point.
We got home on schedule, having listened to Story of the World complete volumes 1 & 2, plus the audio book "The Tale of Desperaux," a daily hearing of ABBA Gold, plus various and sundry movies that were viewed in the back seat. The only mishap of the trip home was that the very last night in the hotel near Chicago, I left my Kindle. After keeping track of it for the whole trip, I managed to lose it on the last day! Thankfully when I called, they had it in their lost and found and mailed it to me right away. Here's a shout-out to honest house-keeping staff, and on-the-ball hotel clerks!
Good to be home!
Edit: Sometime after we arrived back home from this trip, I finished editing the video collage which I had been making along the way. Here it is at long last! Road Trip 2015 Video Collage
We also stopped at Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore, since they were right along the way. Sadly we drove within spitting distance of Yellowstone.... saw the signs to turn off, but we didn't go. Yellowstone deserves a real visit, not just a drive-through, so we'll hit that another time.
We also drove through Badlands National Park, which was about a 20 min. detour from our normal route. We did get out of the car for about 5 minutes in one spot, but mostly just saw what we could see driving through. Obviously not the ones we appear in, but a bunch of these pictures I took while driving, so I couldn't even look to see if the camera was pointed in the correct direction. I guess that goes to show how scenic it was.... it didn't matter much which direction you pointed the camera, you were bound to capture something cool!
No more pictures from here on out. Altogether it took us about 5 days of driving all day long to get home. One day we drove 800 miles--nearly 13 hrs in the car. There were a lot of things we could have stopped to see, but I would ask the girls, "OK, do you want to stop and see the Corn Palace?" and they would say, "If we stop, will we still get home on the night you said we would?" I would always reply that we would likely get home the following day (my "best-case scenario arrival time" was fairly optimistic, and didn't hold up against many tourist stops). They always voted to keep plowing on so that we could get home "on time." I think they were pretty tripped out by that point.
We got home on schedule, having listened to Story of the World complete volumes 1 & 2, plus the audio book "The Tale of Desperaux," a daily hearing of ABBA Gold, plus various and sundry movies that were viewed in the back seat. The only mishap of the trip home was that the very last night in the hotel near Chicago, I left my Kindle. After keeping track of it for the whole trip, I managed to lose it on the last day! Thankfully when I called, they had it in their lost and found and mailed it to me right away. Here's a shout-out to honest house-keeping staff, and on-the-ball hotel clerks!
Good to be home!
Edit: Sometime after we arrived back home from this trip, I finished editing the video collage which I had been making along the way. Here it is at long last! Road Trip 2015 Video Collage
Northwest--time with B's family
The next week we jumped houses over to B's parents. We had lots of family time in WA, and also up at Great Grandma's across the border.
On the day we were all together, we learned that Great Grandma Billock had passed away. We all felt sad, but it was so special that we were all there at that time--the only day in the whole summer when we were all together. We had a lovely memorial service for her in which we shared our memories. Glad that we could be with my dad that day.
Later in the week after G & C left to head back to California, we went over and spent a day at the Northwest Washington Fair. Lunch in Lynden before the festivities. Downtown Lynden is a Dutch immersion experience!
Northwest--time with J's family
By the looks of this blog, we entered a black hole in Walla Walla and never returned! In reality the morning after we arrived there we continued on up to the Northwest and had several weeks of wonderful family time.
The first week we spent with J's mom, doing some hiking and hanging around home.
One of the days we went to Deception Pass
We also had "Norway Day" exploring Norwegian heritage. M is busy embroidering a new bunad, which is going to be a work of art!
The girls also modeled her smaller bunads, and had fun parading around the garden wearing them!
The first week we spent with J's mom, doing some hiking and hanging around home.
One of the days we went to Deception Pass
One of the highlights of our time during that week was hiking the Skyline Divide trail, which had been recommended by our dear friends the Sutters. It did not disappoint!
We also had "Norway Day" exploring Norwegian heritage. M is busy embroidering a new bunad, which is going to be a work of art!
The girls also modeled her smaller bunads, and had fun parading around the garden wearing them!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)