Day 1: June 24th

Made the classic mistake of saying. . . “Lets blow all of our money tonight!” rather than pay an exchange rate twice.

The debauchery of Reykjavik’s send off left us feeling as though we truly had champagne bottles broken on our bodies.

After hours of pretending to know how our bikes fit together – we were off!

Right from the get go there are bike trails everywhere.

Biking like toddlers we clumsily stumble through town finding the last of the gear we would need for our week of rain and low fifties weather.

If I were still of the mindset that making hip hop songs is “worthwhile” for a middle class 30 year old white kid, I would write a rhyme tying together “back tracking” with “bike packing”.

Or to put it another way I would not be surprised if I pulled out ol’ Webster’s Book o’ Words and under Bike Packing found “Bike Packing: see Back Tracking”.

Nevertheless we managed a great bum camp beside a lake and across the street from a grocery store.

We then proceeded to sleep heavily for 9 hours.

Day 2: June 25th

Ferries are on the honor system.

Our bodies however are still on the need-lots-of-food system.

Our glycemic levels fluctuate like the stock market in 1929. . . Always crashing.

We had our first true bum meal in a graffiti coated freeway underpass.

Being a bum in one of the richest countries in the world makes you one of the richest bums in the world.

And so we made our way across Stord to the Island of Bomlo, where all the bums go. Here even the bird songs are reggae.

Thats just a joke.

Everything here, just like the rest of Norway, is crazy expensive.

I paid $4 for a tiny bottle of water so we could fill up the rest of our waterbottles in the rave-lit bathroom.

Day 3/4: June 26/27

Finally starting to hit a 60km/day stride.

The landscape is that of huge granite mountains that wear the foliage thin like an old and tattered t-shirt. Partially due to the fact they are dotted with sheep like flakes on the body of a very messy eater.

The Norwegian people are almost offensively nice -giving us free pastries when we only ordered coffee or sailboat rides to “the most beautiful island”, taking the unbaked bread we purchased unknowingly and baking it for us, driving 1km down the road to return some money because he accidentally overcharged us after he was already nice enough to leave the store open an extra 10 minutes because all the stores on the island were closed.

I secretly wonder if there is some sort of tax form that they can tally all the unnecessary favors they do for strangers to get a larger return.

I wave and smile to everyone that we pass. Anna does not.

For the first time we paid for a place to stay. It was a campground on the shore of the homeliest looking bay with a crowd of late night sheep and an even more raucous crowd of gulls who came for the afterparty.

Someday soon it will get dark.

Day 5: June 28th

It’s Sunday. Everything is closed on Sunday. Especially in Egersund.

Our streak of effortlessly and unknowingly catching the last possible bus/ferry/fastboat continues.

After a mad dash to Stavanger we crashed a campsite, not unlike our last campsite, but instead of animals it was people.

The next morning, after the stealthiest sex we could manage we had a coffee in the town responsible for 1/8th of my genetic heritage.

We took a bus/train to Egersund and everything fell apart.

After riding across town yelling at each other, trying to find any open food store, we gave up, came back to the first gas station we passed and, through a terrible miscommunication, we ended up paying $21 fro 3 hotdogs, all mustard flavored. . . the only flavor in the world I don’t like. I wanted a hamburger. Velcommin WORST CASE SCENARIO!

Nate has a crazy butt right now. Rip City – that’s Fart Town in Norwegian.

Day 6: June 29th

We made plans to get up early but when the alarm went off those plans were quickly dashed.

Nothing can be accomplished in the rain.  Any great thinker would have said that if they spent most of their time being wet.

The prase ‘held at bay’ has aquired new light, for whenever we reach these bays/sounds (‘sunds’ in this case) we get trapped by the weather.

A protestant work ethic at work on the snooze button.

There is never a clearing.  Every move becomes a gamble.  “Do you think the rain has stopped?” Anna asks.

“If I were a betting man, all my knees would be broken, my toes shot off, whatever ever other ungodly things they do… I dont know anything!”  I reply casualy.

Regardless we push on.

Today was the hightlight of the Norwegian riding.  Fjords like fireworks.  Impossible to ignore what they are worth.

Our hopes of celebrating our accomplishment (both of the ride and our one year anniversary) privately were also dashed.  This time by a group of origin undetermined tourists that I plan on making friends with right now.

Aside: We set up camp on a beautiful lake with lots of shit and shit collored toilet paper in far too visable places.

(continued in next post)