Oct 12
Shortly after we met 11 years ago, Kristin and I traveled through California. One sign, “Private Property — No Trespassing” shocked Kristin. These signs are everywhere in California, whether you’re in a dense residential area in San Francisco, or in the middle of the desert with no sign of humans in sight. Read more
When a glacier retreats, a lot of new earth — mostly rocks — become exposed, starting up a process in which plant life moves in on true virgin land. But most plants don’t grow on rocks, so something has to “break down” the rocks to make them more hospitable. Leading the invasion of plant life is lichen.
The mountains in the northern part of Norway have a peculiar look to them. Even though they’re just above sea level, they’re mostly bare except for thin laces of moss and low-laying vegetation. They look like wrinkled and tormented faces of old men.
Two Norwegians are sitting down having coffee. One man says, “When it started to rain today, I saw a tourist running under a bus stop. He said he was waiting for the rain to pass.” And they both burst out laughing. Read more
The locals call the mountain on the island Rødøy Lion (Rødøyløva) because of its shape. It’s a dramatic mountain. One side is the lion’s back which gently slopes up until it becomes very steep at the head of the lion. The other side is a precipice, dropping about 450 meters to four picturesque beaches. Actually, to say the mountain drops straight down is an understatement, because the top sticks out further than the middle. The peak is right at the top of the precipice Read more
I thought I’d hone my fishing skills over a few months and report in this blog on catching “the big one”, complete with a photo of me grinning while holding a biblically sized cod or halibut. But readers demand to know my catch now, so blog on this topic I must.
Fishing on Rødøy started very badly for me. Read more
Since I arrived here, the weather has alternated between overcast and sunshine. Daytime temperature has fluctuated between 60F and 75F, which is warmer than I expected. Today we were granted fantastic weather: sunny, warm, and no wind. After Kristin came home from work at 3 PM, we borrowed a little boat and went to a beach to picnic. We had salami on bread, peanuts, and big box of wild raspberry I picked when I went hiking this morning. Read more
