Figure 8 On A Bike

It's time for us to crash someone else's travel plans: Susan's mom, dad, sister, and our two nieces were in Colorado for a week, so we got to join for their last 3 days around Twin Lakes and Leadville . 3 days of walking less than 2 miles a day, hanging out and recovering around the spacious "cabin" up on the hill above Twin Lakes, and eating as much food as we can. Even better, they brought a bag that had new shoes for us, and we could send a few extraneous items (like the Microspikes, no longer needed for the mostly-thawed mountains) back home. The convenience! Definitely worth it for cramming into the trunk of the Forester and trying not to bang our heads along bumpy dirt roads; who knew the Forester was a 7 passenger vehicle? 

It was finally time to reach the fabled Lofoten archipelago, a promised-land of world-class climbing! Waking up at Trollskåla, the first step was to bike to Melbu and snatch some groceries before we caught the next ferry. The morning was gray and groggy (and the ocean smelled like sulfur?) and my allergies had finally also made it across the Atlantic. I was cranky at Susan in the grocery store, trying not to scratch my eyes out, so she gave me an antihistamine and sent me to a bakery for pastries and coffee. We were in much better moods getting on the boat. A nice guy from Finland gave us some stickers and told us how he bikes about 150 - 200 km a day and has done this route 3 times now. Nice... will you take some of our bags? Views just after getting off the ferry

Waiting for us in Tromsø were our friends Ellie and Cristobal. Ellie is actually from Wales in the UK, but Susan met her while they were both teaching English in Punta Arenas, Chile; Ellie met her husband Cristobal there as well, and somehow they've now moved about as far away from the southern tip of Chile as you can get on a globe. They were out working when we arrived but left us a key to get in and an adorable welcome message, which worked out really well because it gave us time to clean up a little. When you haven't seen someone for 7 years you probably don't want your smell to be the first thing they notice! Life's too short for bad maps