Trip to Telemark: Thursday 7/1/10

FYI: I KNOW THRE ARE MANY OF YOU WHO JUST WANT TO LOOK AT PICTURES...SO I AM POSTING EACH DAY AS IT HAPPENED, IT WAS A 4 DAY TRIP, SO IT WILL MOST LIKELY TAKE ME 4 DAYS TO POST THE WHOLE STORY!

So, while in Norway, I had mententioned to Nora that I would like to visit a Stave Church. Well, OUR trip turned out to be much much more! It all started at 6:30am on Thursday, this is abnormally early for the island, we don't go to bed until really late.
We all hopped inthe car and headed North. And Summer is just like any child, every 15 mins or so she was asking, "Are we there yet?"
We were headed to a part of Norway called Telemark to a Town called Ulefoss. This was to the the starting point of our trip. We arrived in Ulefoss around 10:30am, were we embarked on a boat named Henrik Ibsen.
The boat was to take us up 72m.a.s (meters above sea level) The way this is accomplished is through a serise of locks. There are 8 sections on the canal with a total of 18 locks.
Here Summer and I are on the boat, we have jsut had a traitional Norwegian snack of waffels and jam! Oh so good!
Here is a glimpse of what the sceanary looks like from around the boat. It was absolutly beautiful! It is so green, so mountainous and so QUIET!

I had looked up the weatehr or teh trip, there had been a prediction of rain. As you can see I am basking in the sun. (This picture is for Bill, he loves to try to take pictures lik this while we are walking or sitting or really any time. So here you go Bill, one for you)

Becasue Telemark is inland away from the ocean it can be really warm. It was 27C. That is hot folks! I know...you are not sure what that is in ferenheit...it was 88F. I know ya'll are experiencing hotter weather there, but I am at the same latitude as Ankorage, Alaska, that is really warm for that area!

And finally, here is the boat! That is Nora in the bottom right, I am not sure I have posted pictures of her before. It was a lovely boat tour. It took about 7.5 hours to finally arrive in Dalen, NO.

This is not the end of the day, but my silly computer is not really loading pictures very fast, so it is tricky to get even 4 pitures loaded at a time. Tomorrow I will tell you all about the haunted hotel we stayed in, and yes, I stayed right next door to the haunted room...now do I believe in ghosts is another thing! Until tomorrow! Now I must go run errands in town!