Well, we never did get around to writing that formal "travel report."  We think that with the comments below and our many "Photo Albums" you can obtain a good idea of the wonderful holiday time we spent in Norway .

Mad River, California - January 2002

 Dear Friends and Family,

            The customary travel report is a bit slow in coming this time.  We had a most marvelous, eventful stay in Norway last month. We revisited many dear friends and distant relatives whom we had met on our previous trip as well as many new warm and friendly folks.  We were welcomed into many homes where people shared with us various holiday traditions, food, drinks and customs.  It was indeed special to be there at holiday time.  Even the weather cooperated and gave us a white Norwegian Christmas.  As before, we took many photographs.  We are currently concentrating on uploading the photos to the web site.  Hopefully, the captions to the photos can serve as travel reports

            We returned to Oakland, California, on the evening of December 31, New Years Eve.  After 24 hours of traveling that day, Keith's problem heart, that had behaved itself during the whole trip, finally acted up.  Some extra medication and a good night sleep in a nearby hotel were definitely needed.  We drove north to our Mad River home the next day, as Peg had to return to teaching the following day.  We squeezed every possible minute out of the holiday break.

Hilsen,

Peg & Keith Wheeler

P.S.  We will also keep the following e-mail on the travel report page, as it gives a brief report of the first few days of our trip.

Sent (from Norway): Monday, December 17, 2001 6:13 PM

Subject: We made it  

Hi all,

Peg and I just want to let you know that we arrived safely at Stavanger, Norway, in mid afternoon on Friday.  Our only problem was the storm that was happening in Seattle at the time.  This delayed our flight from Oakland and resulted in our missing our connection to Amsterdam.  They rescheduled us to Minneapolis where we caught a very crowded fight to Amsterdam. While not the most pleasant of flights, this gave us a little time to enjoy the nice and interesting Amsterdam airport.  The Braathens flight to Norway was very pleasant with the genuinely friendly, blond stewardesses and the traditional and delicious Norwegian open face sandwiches.  This all made us feel like we were already in Norway.

The weather was clear when landing in Stavanger and Gunleif Seldal met us just outside customs.  Due to a possible pending medical problem in the family, we were not able to stay in their home in Kleppe.  Instead Gunlief had arranged for us to stay in a very pleasant hotel in downtown Stavanger (courtesy of his frequent visitor's program with this company).  We spent part of the evening with him in the comfortable hotel lounge visiting.

The next day Gunleif took us on a very full and pleasant tour.  Our first stop was the Rogaland Art Museum located out southwest of town. This is the place that is most well known for its large collection of paintings by the famous Tysvær artist, Lars Hertevig.  Peg was disappointed, however, when she found out that very few of his works were on display.  They are preparing for a major showing and many of his pieces have been taken down for reconditioning.

We then drove down the coast a ways making some interesting stops.  The weather again was clear but cold.  The biggest problem was the sun as we were driving south.  Even at mid day, the sun does not rise very far above the horizon, so the sun was in our eyes until we looped around and started heading inland and north.  We went through Kleppe and found Foss-Eigeland where my Madland ancestors had once lived.  The river and the falls are quite beautiful, however much of this area is now a factory and much of the hillside has been mined for sand to make concrete.

We also stopped at Gunleif's office in the city of Sandnes and a few other sites before returning to our hotel in Stavanger.  Here we visited more and poured over more interesting papers that Gunleif had given us.  As he then needed to return home, we went out to eat in a restaurant we had enjoyed on our previous visit.  It was full of groups having Christmas parties but they were able to find a table for us-- the same table we had had before. We ate red meat, drank wine, and breathed 2nd hand smoke.

The next day, Sunday, we went as planned to the Quaker meeting.  While late, we were met outside and brought in to a very pleasant room where a small group of about 8 had started their silent meeting.  This was a most pleasant time for quiet reflection.  After about an hour the meeting was over and other friends and family arrived for their traditional Christmas lunch.  Everyone was warm in welcoming us and several hours passed in enjoyable conversations.  We came away with several interesting books, an older calendar with great photographs, and, most importantly, fond memories of the many warm and interesting people that we had met.  We will have to both try to describe this visit in more detail later.

Walking back to our hotel that afternoon on the still frost covered walkways, we had enough time to pick up our suitcases and walk just a little over a block to the bus terminal.  The sun was setting as we traveled north on the bus from Stavanger.  It was dark by the time we arrived in Aksdal where Einar picked us up.  Soon we were being greeted again in the warm and comfortable Slogvik home.  Again, we will have to describe later in more detail about the room were we are now staying.  Our bed room now has a rather long name, but the short version is the "Slooper Suite."  After some great food and conversation, we both slept very well.  It was so wonderful to be back with these dear friends who have come to mean so much to our lives.

Peg, Rotraud and Einar were up early this very frosty morning looking for the escaped Slogvik cows while I slept in.  Einar found the cows and Peg and Rotraud both got a good workout.  Peg also got some great early morning photos on her walkabout.

We had an enjoyable midday visit from Knut from Odda.  He had driven 2 hours south of his place to visit us.  We had fun joking and remembering his visit to Mad River and the redwoods.  After a fine dinner, Rotraud served a wide variety of holiday cookies with the hearty Norwegian coffee.  He has left as he has to go back north and to work this evening. 

It has been dark sometime now as I write this about 5 PM .  I noticed today that the sun came up over the hills across the fjord right around 10 AM and went down around 2:45 PM .  Of course it is light for quite some time before sunrise and after sunset due to the low ark of the sun from this part of the world.

I am writing this while everyone else rests.  We will soon be getting ready to go in to Haugesund for the Hanne Krogh concert.  Afterwards we will go to the Haugesund home of one of Einar's sisters for a late dinner and visit.

We will try to write more later as time allows in our great but busy schedule.  We might also try to send a few of the great photos we are getting IF we can figure that process out.  And, Kirk, do you think maybe you could post this initial travel report to our web site should any other visitors there be interested.

With love from Norway ,

Peggy og Keith

.. photos from our trip ...

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