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Jacuzzi This morning, when I hit the washboard ruts on the gravel road I lost our garbage from last night. I didn't discover the loss until I was seven kilometers away. I turned around to retrieve it--the ride had been wonderful--a bike path wound around the tunnel. It was pleasantly agreeable starting the day with no traffic. Arran and Rebecca popped into view. Arran had found my garbage and picked it up. Spreading out the map we chose a little lake corresponding to an ideal lunch location where we planned to meet Arran and Rebecca this afternoon. Sharon and I took a local road (according to our map legend: "road with greatly varying quality"). Bumping along we learned "varying quality" was a euphemism for "deteriorated gravel road." With the combination of gravel and steep hills, it was a challenging adventure. The tread on my Holland tire was a straight line design and it slipped going uphill--something the designers in Holland obviously hadn't worried about. Sharon, rewarding herself for surviving the gravel, stopped to pick raspberries for an hour. She is on a berry mission, trying to pick as many different types of berries as possible. So far she had picked cherries, wild strawberries, currants, Saskatoons and raspberries. I contributed two puny handfuls; Sharon picked a plastic two-liter container and a pot full. In Skien we bought two liters of ice cream and headed to meet Arran and Rebecca. Our carefully selected meeting spot turned out to be a dried up swampy lake. All the lakes in Norway and we picked a dried-up one. Arran and Rebecca had stopped to find ferry information in town, so they had only been lounging on the wooden bike bridge for fifteen minutes. A spot, down a steep road, afforded a quiet location with a neat view of the remaining bit of lake. All four of us ate scads of raspberries and ice cream. I scooped out the remaining morsel of chocolate, remembering the manners Madeleine taught me, asked if anyone wanted more. "I've had all the ice cream I can handle," Arran burped. "I must be out of training." He grimaced, holding his belly. "I once ate two-liters all by myself." At the fond memory, a smile etched his lips. "See what nine months off the bike will do?" I gibed him. Austad Lake had a bathing area. I learned Arran was really as perverse towards cold water as I was. Rebecca and Sharon had plunged right in upon arrival and sat watching the entertainment from the beach, namely the Neil and Arran show. After much procrastination, we both went in, not quite holding hands, but close. "I hope I don't leave a ring," Arran joked. He ducked in and surfaced gasping and sputtering like an old Ford engine about to die. When Arran finished I still stood in knee-deep water, sucking in my cheeks. At long last I dipped in, up to my neck, fully clothed, including eyeglasses, watch and baseball hat. Norwegians stared, wondering why Canadians swam with hats and long sleeves. "Someone should tell Neil he still has his hat on," Arran tittered, looking on from the safety of the shore. "He looks like a golfer who's waded in to a pond to chip his favorite ball out." I told them, "I'm farting, so it will be just like a Jacuzzi." "Only colder!" Arran added. |
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