Lillehammer to Vinstra

Today I (Ken) picked up our Ford Focus from Hertz in Oslo. Ola, the receptionist at the front desk said he has never driven in Oslo. The city is too big and too many trams and buses, he said. Getting back to the hotel was not too difficult. I probably drove down some streets that I shouldn't have. I was going to plead ignorance if I was stopped; I lucked out and wasn't stopped. Joel loaded all of the maps for Norway, England, and Italy for us on our PDA. We were able to access the maps, but were not able to set pick an address for Lillehammer. The PDA and the old Bakkens just don't agree; we really needed Joel for some guidance using this new technology. Sadly, we are not as good with this as he is. The PDA kept thinking that we were in England, and we could not convince it otherwise. So we guided our way to Lillehammer the old fashion way; we used a map.

Once we got to Lillehammer, we unloaded our luggage and headed to Vinstra. Why would we want to go to Vinstra you ask? Well the long and short of it is that Vinstra is the homeland of the Bakkens. It was about an hour and a half north of Lillehammer. It was a beautiful drive through the Gubransdalen Valley. The mountains and the lakes really reminded me of most anywhere on the west side of the mountains in Washington. The weather was rainy and really socked in. We found the information booth in this tiny town, but no one was there. I stopped at a store, the only one open,and was told the town closes as 2pm on Saturdays, and it was later than that. I showed her the name of a relative I have, she said she knew him, and he lives over the mountain range, and I should call him. I had done what I had wanted to accomplish, which was to see the valley and the town from which we came. Vinstra was very small by the standards in the states, but it was very quaint. The homes had many varied colors and there was still ice on the lakes and snow on the ground.

We returned to Lillehammer cold and hungry. We walked to a place called Peppe's Pizza. Don't laugh too much; Sally in her research found that it was a good place to eat and reasonable in price for Norway. When we ordered our pizza, the waiter asked if we wanted to have sour cream on the side. Sally and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. If you know my mothers cooking, she puts sour cream in almost every type of dish you can think of. Her cooking is great but tends to add a few pounds on us whenever we visit. Once again, I am realizing were she has gotten her wonderful cooking skills. Mom, you need to add a little garlic, and a few secret spices to some sour cream to make the sauce for the pizza. You drizzle the sauce over your slice to suit your taste. It was wonderful, but added some more calories to the meal. We passed when they asked if we wanted ketchup for the pizza. Sally even liked the sour cream sauce on the pizza; I think that she now has a little Norwegian in her.

The walk to and from dinner was cold and drizzly. In the summer it would have be beautiful with the open shops and the warm weather. It reminded us of Whistler. It is a traffic free cobble stone walk with the Olympic rings embedded into the walkway. Sally thinks that I was still on the lookout for the illusive Norwegian women's ski team. Once again, no sighting and no luck! We are heading to the room for a warm Winters sleep. We can't upload any pictures tonight since we don't have access to the computer's brains. We will upload some from our hotel in Oslo tomorrow evening. Thanks for your comments; we enjoy hearing from you! Ken