Wednesday, September 17, 2008

West Coast of Norway, and Family in Farsund!

Headed down the west side of Norway, Shanna and I stumbled across this interesting design for a compost bin. I quite like it -- it's a plastic tub with a flip top lid, and then another removable lid that sits directly on top of the organic material (shown). There are also latches that keep the entire thing enclosed, but are readily opened to release the material (not shown).
We then went to Preikestolen, also known as Pulpit Rock. It was about an hour-and-a-half walk up a well-cared for path. I wasn't expecting such pretty scenery on the climb. Marty snapped this photo of me on the actual rock, which is a 25 meter x 25 meter slab of granite that has a sheer drop off. I did do a headstand, but no too close to the edge.
On the way down, we watched the moon rise in the east.
We then took a little detour to a fishing town called Farsund. I was on a mission to find out any additional information about my great uncle, Gabriel (or Frank) Samuelsen, who rowed across the Atlantic with his buddy, George Harbo, in 1896. There's a song about them. There's a book about them. They are written up in Wikipedia. I wanted more.

This librarian (in a very nice library, by the way), helped me find a book on the Atlantic Rowers. It is in Norwegian, but has pictures that I've never seen before. The book was for sale in the bookstore down the street. Marty bought me a copy (thank you, Marty!). I am so excited to have this little nugget of my history; I'll add the book to the copy I have of the log Harbo and Samuelsen kept while crossing the sea over 55 days in a little rowboat. Talk about hard core.
In wandering around Farsund, the original home of Samuelsen before he went to New Jersey, I went up to the graveyard. I found a Samuelsen and a few Sorensens. Relatives? Perhaps. Regardless, it was neat to ponder what I would be like if I had grown up in Farsund, Norway.
And so our journey in Norway came to a close in a campsite just east of Kristiansand. We took the ferry south to Hirtshals, Denmark, and drove down to Copenhagen. More on Denmark in a bit.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well we know from you Dad that hard core rowing is in your heritage. I ordered the book from Amazon.

Unknown said...

Got the book today " The Daring the Sea", the True Story of the First Men to Row Across the Atlantic Ocean. Looking forward to reading it!