After a wonderful lunch and visit with our Norwegian relatives, we decided as a group to make a border run since we were so close. We caravanned our way across the Norwegian-Swedish border and stopped to take a couple of pics. Since we were so close, it made sense to explore Norway’a neighbor.
After a couple days bumbling around in a fog courtesy of jet lag and a long travel schedule, we’re all starting to feel a bit normal. We started our day with a killer hotel breakfast at the Radisson Blu in Trondheim. More options than one could possibly imagine at a free breakfast buffet and all of high quality. I quite enjoyed the crepes and the petit pain au chocolat. While my boys enjoyed the eggs, fresh fruit and croissants. Post breakfast we hit the grocery store and made a quick Starbucks run where we met a nice barista from Brazil, who ended up in Trondheim after meeting a boy in California.
The weather was cooler this morning, but drier so it felt warmer out than the thermometer suggested. We headed south through some light rain for a bit before we hit some sunny weather. We took a different route back to Oslo that had incredible vistas of mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and valleys. The beauty of the drive is impossible to describe adequately with words, so I’ll add some photos.
The downfall of driving so far is that the kids get stir crazy and start to fight over things like who has more leg room proportionately and who should have more leg room based on their size. Needless to say the Mayor and Goalielocks were without their phones for much of the drive.
We stopped in Lillehammer to have a picnic lunch at Olympic Park, which looks almost abandoned although we did see a team come in for training. It was a nice break in the drive and the boys enjoyed the opportunity to see the ski jumps and the torch. We hit the road again for the final leg of our journey to Oslo, which included our first experience with an undersea tunnel and AirBNB. It took us awhile to find the key pick up place and navigate the city, but we made it and our apartment is fantastic. We’re looking forward to our stay in Oslo.
We spent our morning exploring Trondheim with my parents, my grandma, my brother and his family, my cousin and her family and my aunt and uncle. Trondheim is a great walking town, so we haven’t needed the car once since we got here. The weather is quite a bit colder than Florida, a refreshing and rainy 55 degrees.
One of the coolest sites in Trondheim is Nidarosdomen, Nidaros Cathedral, which is the northernmost cathedral in Europe. The cathedral was built on the burial site of St. Olav and work started in 1070 as a tribute to the King and was completed in 1300. The church’s denomination (as with the rest of Europe) was originally Roman Catholic Church, but post reformation it’s denomination is the Church of Norway. It is truly a saintly place.
We stayed for the organ meditation where many of us fell asleep courtesy of a long travel day and some jet lag. The kids were only hushed once, which was a complete miracle. My boys lit a candle to honor Debbie. Each of the kids lit a candle to say a prayer, threw coins into the wishing well, and left a note of gratitude with a stone on an alter. Only two of them burnt themselves on the candles, another small miracle.
After the brief nap, or the 1:00 pm organ meditation, we made our way down to the crypt. Its much different from the catacombs of Rome or Notre Dame in Paris. In Norway, the burial practices were much different. In medieval times, they did not embalm people and they reused graves. This means the headstone would change when they would bury someone else in the grave. These headstones, some of which were for knights and other dignitaries, were what was kept in the crypt.
In the Nidaros Complex there are several museums including the crown jewels, the Archbishops palace where you can see the actual excavation sites, and a military museum. We were able to go into all of them on our combined ticket. The boys favorite was the military museum while mine was the Archbishop’s Palace and the military museum.
Post cathedral, we took a nice nap. For those that know me that will come as quite a shock as I am not a napper. Tomorrow I’ll grab some pictures of the free breakfast, which is absolutely incredible.
After a transatlantic flight with little to no sleep for everyone, we hopped on a train, the T to get our rental. For the next eight hours we hit the road from Oslo to Norway. I’m not convinced that Waze sent us the best route, but hey nothing wrong with a little adventure. Who doesn’t like driving on two lane mountain roads on no sleep and with three boys fighting in the backseat over the lack of legroom.
Adventures and travels don’t always come easy, they call from tenacity and grit sometimes, but that is also what makes them worthwhile. There was a payoff was the view for the two-lanes drive. The scenery has been absolutely breathtaking and we’re no worse for the wear. Time to get some grub before calling it an early night. Sending much love from Trondheim.
We took a trip to the Glades this evening so I could test out my camera before our big trip. If you’ve never been to the Everglades before, it is hard to imagine what it looks like. It doesn’t look like a swamp. It’s a peaceful, beautiful, slow moving river teaming with wildlife.
The most savage beast of the glades is the American Alligator. Fishing here comes with the added challenge of having to reel in the fish before the gators can steal it. The big gators will often sit below the fishing dock waiting for someone to reel one in and then they’ll pounce. Tonight we saw several large alligators in the water, which was great. Additionally, we also saw several baby gators hanging close to shore in the weeds hiding from the larger gators and other predators.
The Mayor had a lot of luck fishing for blue gill and tilapia with worms. Goalielocks was fishing for bass, but the bass were not biting. He had a near miss with a gator and gar. Gars are a pain in the butt to catch as they’ve got very sharp teeth (and a lot of them) and they’re hard to get off the line. The gnats were out in full force, so we only stayed out for about an hour and I got plenty of practice with the new camera.
The trouble with travel is hockey is trying to maintain healthy eating habits when the majority of your weeknights are spent at the rink and your weekends are spent driving across the state to other rinks. Hockey season doesn’t have to be a diet killer if you’re well prepared. Just like you would take the time to prep our meals for the work week, you have to take the time to prep your snacks and meals for the road.
After hundreds of miles on the road, the ease and quickness of fast food is alluring. If, however, you’ve planned ahead and prepped your snacks and meals for the road, it is easy to drive by or skip out on the fast food. Removing the temptation and not wanting to waste food will go a long way to keeping you on the diet wagon.
Here are some great ideas for healthy snacks and easy meals for the road.
If you carpool with other families, be sure your snacks align with any food allergies that may be present in your carpool group.
These snacks are easy, convenient, healthy and relatively inexpensive especially when compared to the cost of eating at a restaurant every trip. For tips on how to indulge in an adult beverage or two without calling your waistline, see my tasty, but light on calories recommendations here.
The hardest of part of travelling out of state for hockey tournaments is trying to fit all of the luggage and all of the players into the trunk. It’s a bit of a game as you fight with the hockey bags, maneuver the suitcase and ultimately decided you can live with the sticks in the passenger compartment. Success comes with a true sense of accomplishment once you finally get it all to fit. Once we got the luggage jigsaw puzzle figured out in the trunk, we headed to my parent’s house in the Northern suburbs. The ride home was filled with the boys laughter and excited energy. They were excited to finally make it to our destination, and we were too, but we were exhausted and they were wired.
Once at my mom’s house, Michelle and Andrew got acclimated and felt at home – like most people do at my parents- in short order. My mom was ready for us with plenty of fresh cookies to go around. My dad, two weeks post hip surgery, was surprisingly agile and mobile compared to what I had expected. My parents and my niece and nephew were thrilled to see us and our friends. Thankfully my parents were able to help us convince the boys they should take a nap before we headed to the Wild game. They fought taking a nap, but were soon asleep.
After a nice, lengthy nap we got ready and headed down to St. Paul to see the Minnesota Wild take on the Chicago Blackhawks in game 4 of round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was a must win game for the Wild, so the Mayor and I were hoping our squad would show up. While I’ve been to several Wild games in Minnesota and Michelle had been to several Chicago home games, our boys had only been to Florida Panthers games. This was going to be a completely different experience for them.
We got to the game with plenty to spare having hit much less traffic than I had anticipated. Since we had the kids, we couldn’t really pre-game at McGovern’s or Tom Reid’s so we headed into the Excel Energy Center after buying some nice souvenirs. The kids were quick to notice that unlike at the Panther’s games, a lot of the crowd starting to file in was already drunk. Fortunately, neither the Mayor nor Andrew were shy about sharing their observations with others. They were a magnet for trouble and for the second night in a row, Michelle and I were convinced we were going to get shot or beat up on account of their mouths.
The pre-game started and their mouths were agape. The game experience in the Excel Energy Center is second to none as is the energy in the crowd. Having only been to Panthers games previously, the boys’ mouths were agape. They had never seen a building alive with that much energy. For them, the experience was incredible and one they still talk about to this day. As the festivities continued, the fans continued to file in and the boys continued to comment on how they were so drunk they had already spilled beer down the front of their pants.
Unfortunately for the Wild, the most dynamic part of their game was the pre-game and the introductions. They were flat the entirety of the game. The few chances they did have, they did their best to make Crawford look like a god of goal tending. While the Wild’s play was lackluster, the entertainment from the crowd around us was not. A couple comprised of a Wild and a Rangers fan, got into a huge fight and at the behest of the surrounding crowd and his other friends, he ditched her. There was drunk goal to the right of us that managed to fall down two rows barely spilling her beer and not hurting herself.
Perhaps the best moment of the game, was when Andrew started talking smack to the two fans sitting behind him and the Mayor. They were both drinking and one was spitting some chew. Andrew felt compelled to tell him that he was going to call his mother and let her know that her son is a drunk that chews. Thank god they had a sense of humor and thought that the boys were hilarious.
By the skin of our teeth, Michelle and I survived another adventurous night with our crazy boys. The Wild lost and the Blackhawks went on to become Stanley Cup champions that year. Two years later, the Mayor still talks about how incredible it was to be in the Excel Energy Center that night and be a part of the experience. Making new memories and sharing great experiences with my boys, their friends, and my friends is one of the best parts of having our kids participate in a travel sport.
Part 1 and part 2 of the story can be found below:
For the first time in my travelling life, I would need to use the baggage claim at ATL. Usually, my trips to Atlanta include hurried runs with the family from terminal to terminal to ensure we don’t miss our connecting flight. It felt a bit foreign not feeling rushed upon landing in Atlanta. Fortunately, the rushed feeling was replaced by the mortification and embarrassment of our continued run-ins with the boys’ favorite fellow passenger and her nipples. Had they not announced it every time they had a visual on her, it probably wouldn’t have been so embarrassing.
We collected our baggage, as the boys continued to stare at the beautiful women and her see through shirt, and headed out to the shuttles. It was after midnight and the shuttle lines were crowded. Storms across the Eastern seaboard left several passengers stranded in Atlanta for the night. Michelle, the boys and I muscled our way onto a shuttle with three older travelers after the shuttle driver assured us he could take us to a hotel that would take our vouchers.
We drove for what had to be 20-30 minutes before pulling into a seedy looking motel with funky colored lighting up the side of the hotel. We had taken the backseat, so we were the last ones into the hotel lobby. The shuttle driver followed us in and was given cash by the clerk in the hotel lobby. The lobby of this Choice Hotel was dingy, dusty and gross. A breakfast nook off to the side beckoned the boys, who by this time of night had become hungry again. The heavily tatted hotel clerk was unwilling to let the boys have any of the cereal to eat.
There was a couch off to the opposite side, so we sat the boys down and waited our turn to check in. Our fellow travelers had been trying to check in with their vouchers, but the hotel clerk was refusing to take them. He was trying to charge us over $110 for the night in his seedy, roach infested hotel. As they argued with the clerk, we tried to keep the kids occupied and relatively quiet.
This became increasing difficult as a few hotel guests started to file in. These guests, clearly prostitutes with their johns, were dressed in clothes that would make even Tara Reid blush. Our boys’ eyes were wide with wonder and hysteria at the veritable shit show that had started to walk through the hotel door. Now Michelle and I were starting to get worried one of their comments might get us shot. Needless to say, we were not comfortable staying in that hotel.
Our knight in shining armor, was a fellow traveler, a beautiful woman from Milwaukee that is a merger and acquisition specialist (something tells me that Choice Hotel isn’t her normal hotel of choice.) She arranged for two ubers to pick us up and booked us each a hotel room in a hotel close to the airport. She truly saved our bacon. Finally after the longest night of travel and fearing for our physical safety, we made it up to our hotel room at 2:00 am.
That morning we headed back to the airport bright and early to head to Minneapolis. The weather was beautiful and sunny as we hopped the shuttle to ATL. Security was kind to us rushing us to the front since we had the young hockey players and all of their gear. Finally after an adventurous evening starting at PBI and a circus of a night in Atlanta, we made it to Minny.
To Be Contd.
