A Norwegian Roadtrip - Day 2a - Hiking in Trondheim

So having resolved my cable problem for the camera, let me catch up on our hiking the afternoon in Trondheim.  I had found a place online which was rated as easy hiking with well maintained trails near Trondheim by the name of Bymarka.  Easy enough said and it appeared to be perhaps 10 km out of town.  This was the first time we discovered just how hard navigating was going to be around the country.

I had looked up the route at the hotel using google maps and had a basic idea how to get there.  We also had data access on Tina's phone and the car came with a GPS system.  I figured as long as I had a basic idea, we were good to go.  That's all any male I know ever has of where he's going anyway.

Well an hour into our trip which should have been 15 minutes, I was getting more than a bit frustrated.  The problem is that Tina's phone doesn't recognize the Norwegian language and kept telling me that it couldn't find a place By Mark A in the area.  It did that even when I spelled it out.  Google wasn't really much better in that it didn't know any of the street names, which wouldn't have mattered anyway since there's almost no street signs over here anyway.  Finally, Google was able to give me an address of the park, although it couldn't figure out the streets to get there, and once we plugged in the address to the car GPS, it found the right roads which was a series of winding one lane roads through residential neighborhoods until you popped up upon a park with no signs leading up to it at all.

Well, Tina and I do enjoy these sort of trips for the adventure sometimes.  :)  So anyway, here was our afternoon hike around Bymarka.

A girl came by us on this trail going up one of the many bike many bike trails and then proceeded to fly down this part of the trails with no fear at all.  My back hurt just watching her.  Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a pic of her (and Tina might have hit me if I did anyway! :) )

Until the next post, har det.

A Norwegian Roadtrip - Day 2 in Trondheim

Both Tina and I got a GREAT nights sleep and awoke Saturday morning ready to explore Trondheim and find a good breakfast location in town.

...

Only problem is almost all the town doesn't go out in public or even open up any stores until 10 AM.  That's kind of late for a breakfast for us.  We finally did find some place, but only after walking 20 blocks or so.  We still saw some great parts of the town and got an idea of just how great of a place we were going to enjoy.

So having walked over town to find a breakfast place, we got back to the hotel on the waterfront and got ready for an afternoon of hiking.  The only problem was we needed to pick up just a few things before we left.  Wellllll ... guess what!  Best place for shopping was right next to where we had breakfast, and it wasn't a good idea to drive because parking would be a mess.  So on for our second long walk of the morning.  :)

That ended up being fortunate because the town was starting to hop by the time we got back into it.  We happened across a marathon which had a ton of contestants.  For anybody wondering why Tina and I are in Norway right now, the first batch of runners took off at 10 AM when it was 62 degree's, no wind, and no humidity.  Perfect running weather and perfect walking weather.  By the time we were leaving and the 6th group was taking off, it was up to a whopping 68 degree's and still beautiful.

The final delays on getting back from our morning outing was that we ran into a couple of musical acts on the way to the hotel.  The first appeared to be perhaps a military academy group playing classical jazz tunes in a local park for a crowd of a couple hundred people.  It was great to see local seniors, middle age, youngsters, and children enjoying the atmosphere.

The final reason we were late getting back to the Hotel was a high school jazz group which was truly TRULY unique. We sat and listened to there Dixie Jazzland music for a good 1/2 hour.  This is just a short snippet of how much fun they were.  The quality isn't great since we were sort of stuck facing into the sun and I had to reduce down the video quality to get the blog to accept it, but you can at least get a feel for how much they were enjoying themselves.

A Norwegian Roadtrip - Day 1 to Oslo and Beyond

So I'm  roughly 8 months behind on blog posts, but at least I'm not falling any farther behind for right now.  :)

On Sept 4th Tina and I flew out from Orlando International Airport on our way for a 3 week visit to Norway.  The flight didn't leave until 10 PM so we had plenty of time during the day to get ready and close up the house.  While we're not big fans of red eye flights these days, the price of this flight on Norwegian Air was too good to pass up, and the positive side was that it was a direct flight from Orlando to Oslo, Norway.  Mind you, that's an 8 hour flight, but that's still better than flying to NYC, and then maybe London, and finally Oslo.

The 8 hour flight may not have been too bad ... I dozed on and off and Tina slept for probably 6 hours.  What wasn't too well planned was that rather than staying in Oslo overnight, we decided to get a jump on driving since over the course of the next week we have to get all the way up to the far Northern coast of Norway.  So after the 8 hour plane ride and an hour getting luggage and a rental car, we enjoyed a short little 6 1/2 hour drive up to Trondheim.  There were portions of it where we were literally switching off drivers every 1/2 hour because that was about as long as either one of us could last at one time.  Regardless, we made it safe and sound, and in time for a late dinner at 10 PM local time.

For those of you who want to follow along, this was the trip so far (ignoring a short little airplane ride).

Meanwhile, for right now I need to go write a nasty email to the bozo who scheduled the start of our trip like that.

 

Pictures of Trondheim tomorrow.

A Visit From My Brother

My brother, Bob, came to Florida for a visit at the beginning of December.  Having spent a couple of days over with my parents in Winter Haven he drove over here to enjoy our Space Coast house.  Fortunately Jessica had a day off while he was here and was able to visit her Uncle Bob.

On the second day he was here we took a trip out to the Viera Wetlands.  I've shown pictures of it before, but it never ceases to provide a splendid place to capture nature.

At the end of the day though, visits are all about the time you have together and the people you get to spend that time with.

Sorry we're behind schedule on posting again, but Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everybody everywhere.

Visiting Kalia in Dallas

Kara and Chris moved to just outside Dallas  early summer last year, making it a bit more challenging for us to visit Kalia. Nonetheless, we persevered and made it to Kalia's new home in McKinney Tx for Thanksgiving this year.  After a fantastic T-Day dinner with Kara and Chris's new friends, we went down Friday to the Home for the Holidays celebration in downtown McKinney.

Grandma - you realize your nose is poking out my eyeball!!!

Did I tell you about grandma's nose in my eyeball?

Three Generations of Good Looking Drago Women!!!

Chris took the following picture sequence, which I think goes a long way in showing the hyperactivity of Kalia.  Given her mother ... she comes by it honestly.  :)

Look at what camera ...

Is there a camera over there ...

No ... that's just Daddy and Mommy out there ...

You mean a camera over there ...

Hey ... did you see the little boy over there ...

Daddy ... what are you doing over there ...

 On Saturday we visited my most favorite store and let Kalia build a tool box.

 

Kalia's much better at hammering than Chris ever will be ... but Chris is pretty brave (or maybe stupid) with his fingers!!!  :)

 That afternoon we visited a local McKinney park with a great playground before Tina and I headed back home.

 

The Expert Slider

The Amateur Slider

Poor Chris!  He needs to learn how to hammer and slide from a 2 year old!  :)

CCS Grandparents Day

Jennifer and Jason's kids switched over to "Community Christian School"in Melbourne which had it's grandparents day on November 15th.  I had customers in house, but Tina and her Mom were able to attend.  All 3 grand-kids performed in a show as a part of the day.

Ashlyn (Right Center in Front Row - First Blue Shirt From Center)

Jesse (Right Center - Second Yellow Shirt From Center)

Kaylyn - Figure it Out! :)

Kaylyn Again

 You have to admit, Kaylyn makes a pretty good looking Police Officer!

Merritt Island Hike

Merritt Island has a large area of undeveloped land just north of SR-520 and the first road north of there.

Harbortown Marina is on the Barge Canal

Tina and I took a hike there at the beginning of November on the weekend after our return from Vegas.  It was another beautiful part of Florida wilderness.

Early Morning Hiker

The Lake in the Swamp

The path ended up down at the barge canal which goes from the Indian River to the Banana River and is the main waterway from our house over to the Port Canaveral locks. It was the first time we'd seen the canal from land.

The Barge Canal from Land

It was still a bit early for birds to be down but the flowers and greenery were beautiful.

Fall Flowers

The Non-UF Swamp

 

Happy start of winter from the frigid Florida swamps. :)