A Norwegian Roadtrip - Day 7 -The Final Drive to Kirkenes

We had stayed true to remaining along the coast to see beautiful Norway from Oslo all the way to Alta.  This was a fight every step of the way with our rented navigation system which kept wanting to send us through Sweden.  Furthermore, the locals we talked to kept asking why the heck we weren't going through Sweden!  We finally gave up on this last day and went through Finland on our way to our most Eastern stop in Kirkenes.  What I didn't realize until we got here is that we're only about 20 km away from the border with Russia.  Way too much that I forgot about geography from school.

Also I forgot from school that the official Arctic Circle is that line where you officially have at least 1 day out of the year where 24 hours are in total darkness.  By the time we got to Alta they get about 2 1/2 months or darkness ... and ofcourse 2 1/2 months of total light.  Not sure I'd like either one.

Anyway, here was our journey through Finland and onto Kirkenes.




 And a few pics along the way.  Amazingly, north Finland looks a lot like Norway.

 And after 6 hours, we made it to our final northern destination.

 That's a mighty fine looking woman there!  :)

And on an absolutely serious note, thoughts out to all our 9/11 heroes, our friend Kathy who's moving on to a better place, and our son-in-law Jason who's going back to Gainesville this weekend to let some of the best doctors in the world correct what his proper medication levels are. We may be in Norway, but we're there with you.  Peace to all.