Norway 2018 - Balestrand #1

We have a wonderful room in a small family-owned & operated hotel, right on the water's edge, top floor (4th), end of haul, private balcony overlooking the fjord.  What a wonderful place to spend a few days!

Norway 2018 - first fjord crossing

From Flam, we took the ferry across Sognefjord to Balestrand. This is the longest fjord in Norway, with many arms. We plan to ferry-hop and visit some of the historic villages.

Norway 2018 - Flam

Flam is the fjord 'transit' center, with people arriving in trains, tour buses, private vehicles, ferries, and HUGE cruise ships (which I personally think are an abomination in this pristine setting). We were happy to hop on the ferry and spend the next couple hours crossing the fjord to the tiny village of Balestrand, where we stay a while.

Norway 2018 - alpine train

We took the scenic trains from Oslo to Flam, across the Norwegian Alps. Incredible scenery!

Norway 2018 - Oslo

Some of my friends who are not on Facebook asked if I could post our trip on my blog. I see I have not used this in over a year! My bad . . .

This is the first leg of our trip, Oslo and scenic train over the mountains to Balestrand on Sognefjord where we will get some much-needed R & R + plenty of time on the water exploring the fjords.

In Oslo we spent our time riding the ferry to the islands, riding buses & trams to see the city, walking our fannies off, and perusing all the important museums & galleries. We spent a fair amount of time at the National Gallery, which has an excellent exhibit of works by famous Norwegian artists, including Edward Munch's 'The Scream'. We found the viking ship & maritime & Kon Tiki museums especially intriguing.

Still crazy . . .

I see that I've been completely remiss in posting to this blog. My apologize to those few friends who don't do FaceBook . . .  I'll make an attempt to be better.

Since my last post at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado, we've had lots of fun & seen lots of amazing places. We spent a good deal of the winter in southeastern New Mexico, staying mostly at NM State Parks -- they're lovely and very cheap! We also went through West Texas and visited Big Bend National Park, and spent three weeks in the Hawaiian Islands. We visiting the Big Island, Maui (where we had a week with my oldest son's family & where my youngest granddaughter lives), and Kauai.

The Spring Migration took us north through Colorado, where we got to visit oldest grandson in Durango and friends in Cedaredge. Then on up to Wyoming where we spent time in the Pinedale area before moving on northwest to Anaconda MT to visit another old friend.

Now we're at Sequim on the NE Washington Olympic Peninsula, seeing the sights here + visiting RVing friends. Later this week we travel to the Washington Pacific Coast and will spend some time in the Cape Disappointment area before moving on south along the Oregon Coast for the rest of the summer and salmon fishing through September.

There! That catches us up. If I can carve out some time from our daily adventures, I'll post some pictures. Otherwise, you'll just have to relent & get on Facebook!

Catch-up time!

We've been parked in an awesome spot at the Great Sand Dunes National Park for the past 10 days. The lighting on the Dunes and the west face of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range changes constantly, and it's always fascinating! The colors likewise are in constant motion, varying from a rather bland tan to vibrant roses and violets. I've had so much fun painting 'critters' on YUPO (a polypropylene surface -- think oil on water in reverse) that I decided to also share our travel experiences with watercolor on YUPO. The Hunters Moon was wandering around & was to our east over the mountains while the sun was off in the west. Hope you like this little 'Noon Dunes Moon' piece!

I discovered I hadn't posted anything for quite some time, so time to catch up.  We spent July, August, and September on the Oregon Coast. Had a wonderful time fishing, exploring, walking the beaches, etc. The freezer was filled with Chinook (Kinge) Salmon, Pacific Rock Fish, and Red-Tail Surf Perch. We had an incredible time and plan to spend more time on the OR coast next year!  We made a quick trip across Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and landed at Boyd Lake State Park in Loveland Colorado for 10 days; took care of dental & medical stuff. We discovered a nice regional park in SW Denver area, very near Red Rocks and stayed there a few days so we could visit my son Scott and grandson Justin,who both live fairly close-by. And that brings us to the Sand Dunes. 

I managed to find a little time to do some painting. Here are the ones I hadn't post previously; they're all Watercolor on Yupo:

Flight of the Dragon 

 Dance of the Orca

Eagle Eye