Monday 4/6, Tuesday 4/7

NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum (Monday 4/6)

Today was for Micah and Dan who love NASCAR (or Formula I)! We had a slow start to the day. After breakfast from supplies, we loaded up 2 cars for the drive to downtown Charlotte because Dan had to return home directly from the museum.

Arrived at the parking lot around 10:45 and walked the 2 blocks to the museum entrance. Joyce (Oma) had already ordered tickets for pick up at the will call desk where each of us got an “ID” card used for entry. After everyone entered the necessary information in the museum’s system (photo taken, name, etc.) we were off to see the cars and other displays. Micah and Dan tried out the “Pit Crew” experience. Here they got to get timed changing tires and refueling the test car. They bested everyone with a 12-second score! Micah and Leah also tried out as pit crew. Time not quite as good, but still good enough!

Gary, Micah and Dan tried out the free simulator–a computer screen with accelerator, brake, steering wheel set up. Gary thought this was sort of like driving on the Interstate highway system in Delaware…. We also bumped into Lighting McQueen from the Cars movie!

After returning to the Airbnb, Oma, Jolene, Leah and Micah went for a geocache called Octopus Garden–North Carolina’s oldest geocache. It is always a good idea to find the oldest geocache in each state!

Back at the Airbnb, it was another fine dinner from supplies before calling it another day well spent!

Carolina Raptor Center (Tuesday 4/7)

We had a leisurely breakfast from supplies and left around 10:45 AM to make our way to the Raptor Center. This center that rehabilitates injured raptors is located in the Latta Nature Preserve. For information on this facility see https://carolinaraptorcenter.org/. We enjoyed seeing many of the animals even though they were in caged facilities during rehabilitation making photographs very difficult.

We were able to do an adventure lab geocache while visiting and then to find some additional geocaches at the Latta Nature Preserve office on our way home.

Returned to our Airbnb around 4 PM. Everyone was tired so we rested up a bit before enjoying dinner from supplies and calling it another day of fun!

Saturday (4/4) & Sunday (4/5)

We had very leisurely time over the weekend. On Saturday, Joyce & Gary found a few geocaches and did some necessary shopping to reinforce supplies for Sunday dinner! We visited with Jolene, Dan, Leah and Micah, watched a little tv and had a nice dinner from supplies!

Sunday was about putting together Easter baskets with goodies and then hiding them around Airbnb for each person to find. Then it was on to prepare the Easter dinner of ham, sweet potatoes, Paake’s carrots, and homemade rolls. It was a lovely dinner!

In the afternoon, we were treated to a family photograph by our licensed drone pilot (Micah) and edited by Gary.

Waiting until sunset, we made a journey to downtown Charlotte to find a special virtual geocache called “Touch My Building.” It is an “urban musical instrument” by American sound artist and architect Christopher Janney, who works at the intersection of architecture and music. Some of his pieces are performances, some are installations, but most of them defy easy categorization. Many of them require a human element, like his master’s thesis project “Soundstair,” which uses photoelectric sensors and a sound sampler to make music as a person walks or dances along a set of steps.

“Touch My Building” was designed to encourage pedestrians to take a break and interact with their surroundings. It’s massive in scale, coating nearly the entire exterior of the nine-story parking building. The garage is covered in transparent blue and purple rectangles, connected to 36 30-foot-tall red fins. When the fins are touched, they light up and play music. But the building also has a mind of its own. Different tunes play automatically every hour and a “ghost” in the building will sometimes trigger random performances. (Janney says that this last feature allows the building to properly engage passersby in conversation. It’s saying hello.)

Good Friday Travels

We got the usual start around 9:30 AM from Hillsville, VA after breakfast from hotel supplies. Loaded up the car and headed out to seek a few geocaches along today’s route.  First up in Hillsville was an earth cache about the last stand of Lone Pines left in Virginia.  We gathered the information and sent it to the cache owner for acceptance.  Yay, another one done!

 

We chose I-77 South for about 20 miles in order to seek a cache that was about Virginia is for Lovers, but as it turned out it was just near a Love’s Truck Stop! Disappointment to start the day!

We stopped at the NC rest stop, too.

Then it was back on to the road(s) less traveled for most of the day. We enjoyed finding and completing an Adventure Lab which provided coordinates for a physical bonus cache located in a small park near the small town of East Bend NC. After a quick find in a cemetery another success!

We navigated to find a “puzzle” cache near Lewisville NC. It was a puzzle about presidents that Joyce had solved located in a park. Hiked past the playground and up a hill. Took some searching before we found it in a hollow tree, but perseverance paid off again! Found another easy cache in Davie County to add another NC County (they have 100). 

We discovered that we still needed to find a cache in Rowen County NC. So, quick searching located an easy find. Then it was on the road again to Kannapolis NC where we had to solve another puzzle to get the coordinates. Found it in a city park without too much difficulty.

Now, we were on our way to the Airbnb for the next few days. We coordinated our driving to arrive at approximately the same time as Jolene, Leah and Micah. Made it around 4 PM and the rest of the crowd showed up about 4:15 PM.

Unpacking and selecting among the available 4 bedrooms took a little time, but then we enjoyed dinner from supplies. Then caught up on everyone’s news before calling it a night!

After a long day of time in the air, long walks in airports and airfare dining, we arrived home tonight at s little after 10 PM.

Just one photo from our last day in Norway and, yes, he has a tail!

Maybe more later….

Gary & Joyce

Here we are at the airport just before boarding. Yesterday we took the train to Centrum and walked our feet off!

We saw the famous statue of the little mermaid, colored houses among the canal and a few other sights.

Enjoyed a very nice dinner in the Clarion Hotel bistro. Repacked our luggage this morning and found our way to the airport, through security and passport control.

Leaving for Boston in 30 minutes, then on to Philly. Home around 10 PM tonight!

Gary & Joyce

Today was preparation for our departure tomorrow from Bergen to Copenhagen. We repacked all our suitcases for the trip this morning.

We had arranged to meet one of Gary’s photographer friends. He invited us to his home for lunch. Into the Volvo rental for the 20 km drive to his home. We stopped to pick up some flowers as a gift. Found his home with the help of Google maps and enjoyed a nice, simle lunch. We discussed photography, politics and things Norwegian and American.

On the way back to the hotel, we topped off the Volvo before returning it to Enterprise Rental Cars. So, after parting with the car you’ll never guess what came next….

Ok, so maybe you would know that Joyce had been holding in reserve a geocache at the airport! It was a nice walk to the other side of the road on a bike/walking path. There WAS a cache there and we found it beneath the B in the Bergen sign. Then on the way back to our hotel just imagine there would actually be another one to find! And so we did that one too.

We enjoyed a very nice dinner in the hotel bistro. Gary had fish and chips, Joyce a pizza along with rose wine. We split a cheese plate for dessert followed by coffee and espresso. We had a table by the windows and enjoyed the sunset – quite unexpected on a mostly gray day typical of Bergen.

Back in our room Gary got a message that we had left a few things in the rental. Since we were a 10 minute walk back to the airport we made our way back to collect them.

Now to call it a day for an early start tomorrow.

Today headed back to Bergen to get ready for our flight to Copenhagen on Tuesday.

After breakfast at the Thon hotel, we loaded up the car and made our way over to the Steindalsfossen waterfall near the hotel to see it in the morning sun. More beautiful! There was a troll or gnome on the patio of the nearby gift shop.

Continuing on we stopped for a couple of geocaches on the way to Troldhaugen, summer home of composer Edvard Grieg. We had a guided tour of the house and walked the grounds on our own. Joyce had saved a mystery cache to do while there. We found all the answers, got the correct coordinates and Joyce found the cache in an evergreen tree!

Inside we saw Grieg’s Steinway piano and many objects. Outside we also saw his studio building near the water. In the museum there was a special Norwegian violin.

We arrived at the Clarion Hotel near the Bergen airport oir home for the next two days. After checking in, we walked to the airport to catch the tram to Bergen Centrum for photography and caching. We found a few caches and photographer the iconic painted buildings in sunshine instead of rain! Lucky this time!

Enjoyed dinner in an Irish pub before catching the tram back to the hotel. One more day here in Norway!

This morning we had a nice European breakfast in the hotel dining area. We loaded the car and were in our way from Rysstad around 9:30 AM. Our first stop was for a geocache at the Hylestad Kyrkja. We successfully found the correct information that led us to the cache.

It was then on our way through the mountains again with weather and tunnels. We stopped on Røldal again so Gary could photograph the Stave Church under better lighting conditions. Stopped in the same town to buy gas for the trip through the mountains.

Then we were off on a 60 km round trip diversion to find a cache at the Flessenflossen waterfall. We were somewhat surprised to see most was in ice. Found both the waterfall and the nearby cache! Then continued on our way north through rain and snow. Heading for a ferry to cross the Hardangerfjord. Made the ferry 4 minutes before departure! Saved us an hour waiting for the next one.

Before checking into our hotel for the night in Northeimsund we first paid a visit to photograph the Steinsdalsfossen in town.

The hotel restaurant was fully booked until 8:30 so we decided to eat elsewhere. Stopped in the local pub, but they had stopped serving food because they were having a concert. We found Italian just a couple of blocks away. Enjoyed salad, lasagna and a beer.

Last cache of the day we found on the walk back to the Thon hotel for the evening after another long day of driving.

Following breakfast from the hotel, we were on our way around 8:30 AM. First stop wasba geocache "travel bug hotel". Thie type of cache is a place to trade traceable items that have a mission. We took one to move along to another cache.

Then we were really on our way to the southern most point of land in Norway. Here we saw the light (justnot the northern lights)! The Lindesnes lighthouse is a beautiful red and white one. After finding a few caches here? We were on ourway to visit Lista Lighthouse. Once again a few photos and some caches.

Another lovely drive through the mountains brought us to the town of Rysstad and the Silver Garden Hotel. We enjoyed dinner in the restaurant. Joyce had moose patties (not necessary to repeat) and Gary enjoyed arctic cod.

To bed! More kilometers to drive tomorrow!