The promised lake

This picture was taken at about 10:30pm on Saturday night. If you look toward the center, you can just make out the setting sun. This was the one thing I was most excited to experience in Norway, and it really is an experience. Having sunlight so early in the morning (beginning at about 3:30am when we were there) and so late at night completely changes your perception of how much time you have to accomplish the things you want. It means that a hike to a lake at 9pm isn't out of the question. It means that when Damion and I slept until 1pm after a long day trip, we still had time to go for a mini-hike, watch Claire's last soccer game, go grocery shopping, prepare and eat dinner with the Macleods, go for an hour and a half hike, eat dessert, and sit outside and enjoy the fading light at 11pm before we headed off to bed. The next picture was taken at 12:30am when I had some trouble sleeping. Even here you can still see the smallest hint of pink in the sky.

Damion and I had spoken of going biking, and Roberta wanted us to be familiar with the trail, so she, Claire, Damion and I set out to hike it on Sunday afternoon. Our destination was a huge beautiful lake. The next picture isn't our goal lake. It's just another beautiful lake on the way: Here are Claire and Roberta hiking on the trail. This was before we started ascending. It was about three miles to our destination, but we were stopping to take pictures, throw water on Claire, and just in general enjoy the walk. I took so many pictures, particularly as we started going up hill, but I won't post all of them here, as it'll get redundant. Just think: beautiful blue sky and lush greenery, again and again. Okay, I'll add just one more: I like this one because for some reason (certainly not the skill of the photographer, because I don't have any) the trees are blurry, so it looks like a Monet:



So we walked and walked, and made it to the promised lake, which was beautiful and cold. These Norwegian children are made of tougher stuff: