Back to Norway - part six

     We made the turn, headed back toward Oslo, and drove miles along a steep cliff, on a very questionable road overlooking the sea/fjord. The next town had a fair minus hotel, but was $250. We asked about other places to stay. “There are none. Well, there are camping cabins, but I'm sure you would not dare stay in a place like that.” Well, after her $250 quote, I felt sure we would dare
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     They turned out to be small, but OK, for a mere $100. She was going to charge for sheets, but now we had our own. We had already wised up about this. But she did charge $2 for a towel. I started to tell Barbara we could just drip dry, but I knew it was no use. We decided to stay there for two days. $100 lodging was rare in Norway.
  
     The next day we took a trip back up the mountain to see Europe's largest Glacier. At the viewpoint, Barbara again swapped taking picture with people from many nations. It drizzled all day, but could not dampen our spirits at this glorious place. We followed the rushing river back down, and stopped at a road up to a farmhouse. A table loaded with raspberries was sitting out, with an open money box. Everyone just helped themselves. It would be nice if we could do that at home. What a trusting people!

We noticed as we drove back into our cabin that the office had a computer, so we walked over, met the owner, and I talked to him while Barbara got on the internet.
 
     The man was an engineer. He told me, in his broken English, that he always leaves his truck unlocked in town, and leaves his wallet on the seat. He's never had to pay a price for that.

Europe has “common law,” they call it. It was a holdover from long ago when people had to walk to go anywhere distant. It allows anyone to camp on another person's property, just close the gate behind yourself, don't set up camp anywhere close to houses, leave it clean, and be quiet.

     I asked him if he had ever been to America. “Yes, we've been several times to visit kin. But America has a very large police presence. We were driving, saw a grassy spot, and camped. In the middle of the night, the police woke us up with lights in our eyes. They wanted to know what we were doing here, in a school yard. And, I got several speeding tickets.” 60 miles per hour is very different from 60 km per hour. We only saw two or three police cars in 34 days in Europe. Traffic is monitored by cameras, and they always put up a warning sign in advance. They really don't want to have to fine you, unlike many of our small towns, who make money from it, and jump at the chance to stick it to travelers.

But he also told me, half his wages goes to taxes. Now that he knew us, he backed off charging us for a new towel.

We called both the kids tonight, everything was fine. Good to hear.

We have been following the edge of the Fjord now for days. A Fjord is a path gouged out by a glacier, on its way to the sea, and it always has a sea opening. The valleys left behind always have the rounded out appearance, sloping up to tall mountains. It makes for beautiful scenery, but farmers have almost no flat land. Waterfalls rush down the mountains in abundance, all summer, until the next freeze up, then more snow. A totally beautiful place.

     Norway is awash in new oil money, but we noticed that middle class people, who seemed to be doing well, paid a price for that. Many held multiple jobs, and business owners never seemed to hire much extra help, doing all the different jobs themselves. A business we in America would use half a dozen employees to run was often handled alone, Running constantly from one job to the next. Customers seemed to just be used to having to wait a long time for service. And there was seldom fast service. The cook was out wiping tables, running cash registers, just doing it all. All in all, I like our system better.

       Headed up the mountains at the head of the fjord, we followed the directions of the tourist lady way back along our path, and took a smaller road up. It didn't take long to see her reasoning. The view was spectacular. Above the tree line, nearing the snow, it turned into a single track, still two way, with pullouts far apart. Kinda scary, knowing nothing about who might be zooming toward us at the next curve. I guess we would just have to have a Peru-type summit meeting to decide who would be backing up a couple of miles.    A ski lodge loomed, off season now, and it had a cafe. And a toilet. The two women who were there were nice and talkative, but the cheapest item on their menu was two grilled cheese sandwiches for $20. We decided we really weren't actually very hungry. We got off the mountain, were in towns now, but the hotels were so high we continued on until we found a camping cabin. Out came our used sheets, worth their weight in gold. Free towels!

       The owner pointed out where a big “event” was taking place, so we chased it down. “Events” we stumbled onto in our travels had been productive, at times.

It was a “Pioneer Days” thing, so we payed our entry fee and went in. The locals couldn't believe foreigners were in their midst. It was mostly over, so we missed the entertainment. But they felt sorry for us, showed us around, and told us a lot about their pioneers. Boy, and we thought our pioneers had it rough. They even fed us for free, a very rare bird. No, I don't mean we ate a bird. Just a figure of speech.

Barbara asked about a very large, fragile, hand carved bowl sitting on a table. They just readily handed it to her to examine. Barb saw the carving date on it, 1500, and very carefully sat it back down. Just seemed to be no end to their trusting nature.