Long Drive Day 3

Today was a great day!! So much better than yesterday! Yesterday really was too much driving so today we were more relaxed, but still went pretty far. This morning the first stop was a grocery store in Sweden as it was a bigger town and we would be heading into more remote areas so maybe not as many options and the store had so many things! We got all the cookies and fun things to try!

After that we headed on and I was looking for other fun things we might see (after passing more artwork on the side of the road) and found what was voted the nicest rest stop in Sweden every year! That is the first photo (only took a photo from the road as I forgot about it by the time we got there…but I know I said we stayed at rest stops the past two nights and I should say that the rest stops in Sweden and Norway are so much nicer than anywhere else we’ve been! Usually off the road a bit with nice nature around and some paths to walk and really great which is why we stayed at them).

We drove until lunchtime where we parked for a shirt hike. We had driven through a lot of rain before that so I was like we shall see what it is like and if it is not too rainy we can do the hike…well after lunch it was just sprinkling a little bit so off we went! And the viewpoint was so nice!! It overlooked the water and some islands and I loved it! And so many rocks up there! But the trail to get there? Well in the photo of Raymond hiking down? That stream? That is the trail! We have had so much rain there was water everywhere! So we tried our best to hike nearby, but not in the way too deep to walk in water. Then in the third photo after that one with all the rocks? There is a tree with a red band on it - that photo was taken from the tail and the red tree is the trail marker! So much walking up/down rocks! Then once you got down farther it was just a path through the woods.

Then we headed on and saw our first reindeer!! And a white one too!! I remember we saw a white one last time in Norway and I looked it up then and the Internet said white reindeer were rare, but we actually saw 2 today!! The second one was also in the woods by the side of the road, but we didn’t see him until we were almost driving by so no photo. So the Internet lied or we are really lucky! There was not much traffic and no other cars when we saw the furst ones so we were able to slow down and say hi! What fun!

Then we crossed over into the Arctic circle! I didn’t think there would be a marking for it as I couldn’t find one on the map for the road we were taking. Raymond was like did we stop here last time? We did not, but the other road we were on last time had the same sign! And then we saw more reindeer! This time crossing the road in front of us!! And that kept happening! We saw all the reindeer! We had some cross the road 4 different times, then there was a group on the side of the road we drove by very slowly as they looked like they were going to cross, then at least 4 different groups of reindeer in the woods! All the reindeer!!

We also got north enough that all the leaves were colorful! Or gone already! Yesterday it was mostly green leaves just turning, but today we were nearing the end of the fall foliage! It was really pretty driving around!

We also crossed over into Finland which was exciting. And pretty much right away it was very different in parts! Different trees, and smaller trees! So that was fun. And we passed someone cross country skiing training on the road! I was like today was so much fun!! We also stopped at the grocery store in Finland to see if there was anything fun for us to try and found all these birds in the trees outside - I think they were Bohemian Waxwings and they had a bright yellow band on the end of their tail!

We headed on and everything was great, but then the road we were on suddenly turned into a dirt road with lots of potholes…which was not great. I will say Raymond was driving all day and he did do an amazing job of missing them if he could! But I was like what is this?!? and looked on the map and it looked like all the roads we would take until Norway would be dirt…and that would be many hours which yeah we didn’t want to do that. It was a bit of a panic, but I found a way out and around that added at least 2 hours to our drive tomorrow as it was paved, but was not very excited fir that extra driving…and then we turned onto another dirt road…that suddenly became paved! And then it stayed that way! So we were like well we will see if the road we were going to take is paved or not (I did search online and could find no info!) and luckily it is paved so no extra driving for us! We are parked off the road by some water - I think - it is incredibly dark out! Complete cloud cover and there is absolutely nothing else out here so no light at all! Completely dark!! We will see in the morning what it looks like, but it is completely quiet!

All in all this was a great day with a slight hiccup. But all the reindeer!!Read more