This rock reminded us of Bubble Rock in Acadia National Park in Maine, that we hiked to last year. Like that giant boulder, we unsuccessfully tried to push this smaller boulder off the edge of the cliff.
Karina and Lydia have talked about this hike as one of their favorites because they love to climb rocks. For some reason, the girls think flat hikes through the woods are boring and that steep hikes on mountainous terrain are awesome. Derek on the other hand has no sense of self-preservation and kept trying to walk off cliffs and boulders. It was nerve-racking.
The view was pretty at our stopping point, where we picnicked:
I carried Derek in his carrier on my back on the way down.
We stumbled on this sheep jaw bone as we descended:
Back at the house, we picked many bouquets of wild flowers and garden flowers during our stay. Derek made a habit of always bringing flowers he found on walks to Mormor. Even now that we are home, whenever we see flowers he points to them and says "Mormor", to which the appropriate response is "Mormor likes flowers" or "Mormor has pretty flowers at her house". Here are some of the pretty flowers in Mormor's garden.
Another day we went on a day trip to the glacier Svartisen, which is the 2nd largest glacier in Norway. We drove 2 hours south to get to the place where a small ferry took us across Holandsfjorden. We then had about a 3 mile hike each way to the glacier. The first part was easy walking, but the last section was a steep and difficult climb.
Here we are waiting for the boat to come:
Along the walk, we detoured to meet some tame moose! We had been hoping to see some moose while we were in Norway. Nate saw some on the train ride to my parents' house and caught a glimpse of one crossing the trail on our first hike behind their house, but we hadn't seen any since. At first I thought it would be silly and a waste of money, but those of us who went had a blast. We got to feed the 2 moose as much we wanted. There was a huge container of branches to grab from and feed them with. They were fun to pet and we even got to kiss both moose. One moose was a 14 year old bull (male) that had been rescued the year before from an animal park in Sweden that was closing, and also a 1 year old cow (female).
Each person who kissed a moose got a red heart sticker declaring they had kissed a moose! Lydia is going for her second kiss in this picture. She had already kissed the male moose and this is the female. One of her attempts kissing the male had her sticking her head through the fence to get at him; unfortunately, he ended up lifting his head and bumping her with his antler against the fence. This time, she learned her lesson and kept her face outside the fence so that it was the moose peeking through.
Derek did kiss the moose, but I didn't get a good shot. He still likes to randomly announce that he has kissed a moose, especially when he is wearing his pajamas that have a moose on the shirt. It must have left a big impression on him:-)
Karina kissing the male and then female moose:
And Nate and I:
That was all five of us who have officially kissed a moose or two. We proudly wore our stickers all day declaring we had kissed a moose. It was a very fun experience.
The glacier is in the background of the next picture. Apparently 18 years ago, the glacier touched the lake. It has since receded, which for us meant that the hike to get to it was that much harder than when I last visited here about 25 years ago.
To make matters worse, Nate and I forgot to bring the carrier for Derek. Mimi carried Derek much of the way up and basically all the way down. That was very difficult, not just because of 35 squirmy pounds, but because you often needed your own hands to maneuver up and down the steep rocky path.
We stopped for a picnic near the glacier:
Some people were out walking on the glacier using special equipment and with a guide. It looked pretty cool.
We finally did make it to the bottom of the glacier. The ice here was a little dirty and is hundreds of years old. The ice was also cracking, so we didn't get overly close. It was very exciting to be right by a real glacier though!
The inside of this ice cave was a brilliant shade of blue.
Karina was an excellent climber as usual and mostly just hiked ahead with Thomas.
Mimi carried Derek the whole difficult climb down without the carrier we forgot at home. He did rig a sort of seat using a regular backpack though, which helped a little.
The girls had taken turns pretending to be asleep on the rocks at the top. Walking back down, we saw many of the rocks showing off the layers of sediment, so Nate got silly Lydia to lie down on the bumpy, pretty rocks:
When we finally reached the bottom of the rocks and the trail met the paved section of path, there were many lovely cows out and about.
Svartisen was a memorable day trip!
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