Well, the cruise has ended in Bergen, Norway and with it the fine weather. I’d wanted to walk around downtown, but it’s a cold driving rain and very stiff breezes, so we fled back to the hotel so that I could dry out my pants with the hair dryer. This evening, we’re keeping alive our…
Author: The Runcible Existentialist
Back-Tracking
Currently stopped for 30 minutes in Kristiansund – what a change in the weather – sunny, low 60s, and no wind. I wish we had more time here as it looks to be a lovely little town. And now back-tracking a little since I seemed to have started this travelogue in mid-trip. We started out…
In Trondheim
Today was a city tour of Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city and home of the ‘national cathedral,’ the Nidarosdomen, built on the burial site of Norway’s patron saint, Saint Olav (King Olav Haraldsson, canonized in 1031). King Olav was quite the christian zealot – apparently an adherent of ‘my way or the highway.’ The Norwegians…
Norway Continued…
On Monday, we stopped in Harstad and toured the area by bus and met up with the ship at Sortland. (We were told that ‘Sortland’ means ‘black land’ in Norwegian, but the town is trying to find a modern claim to fame, so the town council encouraged everybody to paint all the buildings blue. Today…
Grüßens aus Deutschland und Norge!
So I’ve finally managed to get an Internet connection, but it’s slow, slow, slow. We’re in the middle of our Germany-Norway trip. Last week was driving 1,500 kilometers around Germany and Poland…now we’re on the week-long cruise down the coast of Norway. This past day-and-a-half has presented some pretty bleak landscape – definitely what…
The Dog Days
So, this has been an unusually mild summer, but the heat has hit. Can’t really complain though – a couple of 100F/38C-degree days in a row which is normal for August in Central Texas. Not much going on…still going to Abilene about every week so not much new in the garden, but I thought these two photos…
Greetings from Denver, Colorado!
So I just returned from a Department of Labor conference in Denver, Colorado. I tacked on a day at the end to do some hiking. All-in-all it was quite successful. After arriving, I took a stroll over to the state capitol. It’s blue. That was a bit surprising to me until I remembered that ours…
Ramblin’ Man
So I should have been in Abilene this weekend, but decided to stay home to attend to other things, but took time out to wander around the green belt yesterday. We’ve had reasonable rain these past couple of months, so things didn’t look too terribly dire. More dead cedar and other scrub, and fading wild…
Gratuitous Post about Birds, Plants, and Wine
This has been a pretty good year for bird watching. I’ve got a couple of painted buntings that visit fairly regularly. These are generally one-time-a-year birds here – at least that’s my experience. I also have a fairly substantial flock of European starlings. Theirs is an interesting tale and instructive on the cautionary side. The…
Odds and Ends
I know I’ve been posting pretty erratically. I’m still schlepping up to Abilene each week; sometimes twice. I’ll be so glad when I can finally put that venerable city in my rear-view mirror permanently. Ah well – that’s probably a while off for now. Unfortunately, these Abilene sojourns are putting me way behind schedule…
The Runcible Existentialist 