This morning we flew from Oslo to...well crap, I'm losing track now, but somewhere in Norway about 30 minutes from our hike at Preikestolen, or The Pulpit Rock.
Look how many lakes dot Norway.
And the farms outside of the cities.
The 5 mile (8 km) out and back hike to Preikestolen is one of the most famous in Norway.
Took us about 3.5 hours round trip with 1500 feet (500 meters) of elevation.
Looks like the flat areas are swampy in wet times of year so wooden paths let you cross.
Throughout most of the hike, paths were created from cut stone
and were pretty darn fancy.
About half way up a group of kids were coming down and the first thing I saw was a BYU shirt and the second thing I saw was their missionary nametags.
Some were current missionaries and three were returned missionaries home for the summer.
What a small world! The coolest thing is Chad asked if they knew "Morton" and his family, which they did because the guy was the branch president and had a bunch of kids and everyone loved him and his family.
And Chad got to tell these missionaries that he baptized him 25 years ago.
I haven't hiked in a while, but am still in good hiking shape and enjoyed being on the trail.
It wasn't too snowy until the path close to the top, but we were glad for jackets.
We all made it to the very top, but I've got a real aversion to heights over the last ten years
and this is where I stopped, not comfortable moving across that totally narrow sketchy section only to move onto an even more terrifying spot.
I considered it for about one second and then turned around.
If you know me, you know if I even hear about people standing on ledges, I can't sleep for a couple of nights. My brain just sees them falling (or me falling) every time I close my eyes.
I keep a pretty distant distance from edges, but I HATE seeing other people close to the edge.
Makes me SO nervous worrying about if they'll be safe or not.
So I hung out here and waited (which is much farther from the edge than it looks in this photo -- I'm up on a hill about 20 feet up and 30 strides away from the edge where the edge is not at all visible to me).
And then I moved to a different spot because I could still hear people coming across the ledge and even that was making me jittery.
I didn't go to the very very edge with everyone else, but this was what I saw and I'm totally good with it!
Here's the view I avoided, and I'm glad I did.
Lots of little lakes scattered in the mountains.
And steps carved from stone.
That night we had dinner with another family the Christensens have stayed in touch with since his mission. They didn't speak much English, but were delightful and were thrilled to get to spend time with Chad and Kristin. Also, we accidentally drove the van through walking streets, but it was after 6:00 and most everything was shut down so we didn't make too much of a scene!
And tomorrow, we head home.
While we've been gone Lizzie helped around the house and kept Nick company for a week and then Chris moved home after finals and kept him company these last couple of days. Sounds like everyone's been happy and healthy and had a good time bonding at home. Couldn't ask for more than that -- Dan and I having a great time together in beautiful new countries while my kids enjoy time to themselves with each other. It's a good life.
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