Midsummer's Night

 This photo was taken at sunset on December 21, 2011 at about 2:30 pm.

This photo was taken at sunset on June 21, 2012 at about 11:00 pm.

We decided to celebrate the summer solstice by going up on the mountain and watching the sunset. The trouble was we ended up not being able to actually see the sun set. It finally went down at 11:12, but it was behind the mountain. It appears to travel both down and sideways along the horizon in the summer making it seem to go around you. By the way, sunrise on the 21st was at 4:10 am.

The 21st began as another beautiful day. We decided to take a hike that we read about on an island in the northern part of our county. We had very sketchy directions that we attempted to follow. Much of the island roads were one lane and meandered through the countryside among the old farms.

We love the old out-buildings. These islanders do too. They keep the buildings in good condition or use parts of them in making new storage sheds or barns.

We enjoyed the wildflowers and farms but we couldn't find the trailhead.

Everywhere in Norway this old method of drying the hay has been replaced with a new way that uses big round white plastic bags. Somehow it just loses the romance of the thatched rows drying in the sun.

Nothing like fresh mown hay drying on the racks. I'll have to admit that this process is a little more labor intensive than putting the stuff in a big bag and stacking it in the field.

This is where we simply ran out of road at the entry to someone's barnyard - nice turn-around point.

We came upon a couple of yacht harbors filled with beautiful pleasure boats including some fantastic sailboats. It bears repeating that about 25% of Norwegians own a boat.

 

This old time boat storage was our lunch stop. No fancy yachts here but plenty of little fishing boats.

We never found the trialhead but we had to return home for Kerry's weekly home teaching with Brother Bakke - his 89 year old companion. Bakke drives and Steed holds on. We visited a couple of people and returned home in plenty of time to get to downtown for the sunset.

This week is the continuation of the summer-long music festival. The bands spill out onto the streets as do the dining tables on non-rainy nights. This was a country-western band who serenaded clothing shoppers as well as diners.

We still have about an hour to go at this point but the sunset was wonderful in gold, orange, and pink.

The streets remain crowded late, as most of the restaurants and all of the bars are open until 3:00 am. We are tagging along with this group at about midnight.

Even after the sun goes down the sky maintains some light for quite a while. By the way, we did get our hike in as we walked down from Fløyen to the central parking garage - about an hour's trek. If this is to be the only midsummer's night we get in Norway we couldn't have wished for anything better.