Alla inlägg under augusti 2013

TUESDAY MORNING

Av EvaLena Hallgren - 13 augusti 2013 08:37

On our way up North to Mom’s puppy town we stopped in a town called Umeå because there was the yearly giant exhibit of stuff to sell. There was everything from cars to yarn. Lucky me got to ride n the stroller, and that was a real good thing because I would have been stepped on many times in this crowd. I did get a lot of attention from people that never seen a dog in a stroller. A police lady was so impressed she even tried pushing me a little, others thought it was silly to have a dog in a stroller, but Mom told me they were just jealous since they don’t have them in Sweden

We were looking at some real fancy RVs but none of them had a better layout than Adrienne, and the prices was way way up there, so no shopping here

The hall with the crafts and clothes was of biggest interest to Mom .............no big surprise huh ? there was booths with gorgeous yarn, and some very nice jewelry. As usual there was no pictures allowed in this place, but Mom tried to memorize as much as possible for future creations for herself.

She did buy a gorgeous dress that she couldn’t resist................what do you think ?

in one booth they were selling makeup .................and this guy modeled some of it. We weren't very impressed, and he still had a big wad of snuff under his lip ..................Mom hates that stuff, and unfortunately it's very common here in Sweden. Both woman and men uses it, and some spits out the stinky stuff in the street. That’s another reason Mom prefers having me in the stroller when in cities.

We are now at cousin Birgitta’s house parked in her yard. She lives on a gorgeous piece of land by a lake 20 km. from the city. Every morning we hear thee rooster from the farm next door, and cows and sheep also makes themselves heard. She has all of her 4 puppies living with their puppies in houses nearby, I’ll tell you more about all that tomorrow..............now I’m ready for my morning toilet.............don’t need a lead here, I can run and run on big fields .................

wet kisses to all ..................

OH, I almost forgot, the other day there was a perfect smiley face in the clouds. Mom stopped Adrienne in the middle of the road to get the camera and take a picture, but it changed so fast .................still can see it a little though

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SUNDAY MORNING

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Av EvaLena Hallgren - 11 augusti 2013 06:56

Oh well, another week has gone by before I received any help with updating my blog........and there is no excuse of having bad connection ?? ( only in the beginning of the week)

The God honest truth is, that Mom and Birgitta has been shopping at yarn stores...............and after that I’ve felt terribly rejected and alone. I’m listening to klickety klickety noise from needles all day long........I get a quick bathroom break and than back to click click ....................Yesterday I decided to pout all day to give Mom bad conscience..............so here’s my story for the week

Yarnshop busy fingers, closed for vacation ...................booo hoooo

Other yarnshop open .............whooppiieeee

and this is the result...............

They were in such a rush to get started with their needles so we stopped at the first best campsite, instead of driving to the famous High coast which is Northern Sweden's most gorgeous area. Not that it it was pretty here too, but it wasn’t the High coast..........

I entertained my self by looking out the door at people passing by..................

and taking long naps.....................which by the way isn't too bad.............

We continued our trip North and made a brief stop at a town named Sundsvall. The town was created around an iron mill and important harbor in 1642. It has a port by the Gulf of Bothnia, and is located 395 km north of Stockholm The city has burned down and been rebuilt four times.The first time, in 1721, it was set on fire by the Russian army during the war. The last fire, in 1888, was the largest in Sweden's history. It is presumed that the fire was caused by a spark from a steamship. After that fire, the city center was rebuilt only with stone buildings. Sundsvall's center is therefore nicknamed The stone city, and the old buildings are beautifully decorated with lots of ornaments and towers.

The main street was (like in most Swedish cities ) a no car shopping street.............

and of course there's a park with a fountain like most cities

After the last fire in 1888 a wealthy patron put up a weather vane in shape of a dragon on his rooftop to protect from further disasters. Many copied this and in later years the dragon became the symbol of the city. Now there’s a parade every spring and a new dragon is born and put up on display. Different companies hire artists to paint them as advertisement and children are encouraged to play on them.

This is a fad we noticed in many cities, and even in my puppy town Palm Beach where they had alligators painted.

I think there's no question what company this dragon is to represent .............

I liked this one a lot

but this one was my favorite by far..................giddyup ...................

one really perverse thing here was these window displays ?????????? not sure if this was done on purpose to get peoples attention, or if it was work in progress ?

Right now we are parked at Birgitta's house, but we made one more stop before we got here..................I'll tell you about that tomorrow, because it's now breakfast time...............

all is good here, Mom is almost done with her knitting project ..............hallelujaaaa , more time for me I hope.....................wet kisses to you all....

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MONDAY AGAIN

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Av EvaLena Hallgren - 5 augusti 2013 08:19

yesterday was another day I had to watch Adrienne for a few hours again. I’m telling you if this keeps up, I’m going to demand a bigger salary, the one lousy little treat I get isn’t enough anymore. I’ll have to put my paw down for sure. Other than that I really do enjoy this kind of living, new places and new scents almost every day, and I have excellent view from my bed................

Another job of mine is to get everyone out of bed.......................

so much work demands plenty of naps, but don’t be fooled I’m up and alert in a second if need be

we are now camping at the foot of a world famous ski jumping place in Falun.They’re fixing it up to get ready for the WorldChampion-games this winter. Mom told me she has been up in a tower like that, and carefully climbed down. She told me once up there you can’t see the ground where you’re supposed to land........the jumpers must have ice in their bellies for sure

This entire town is built around a very old mine.For well over a thousand years, ore has been extracted from Falun Mine. The start of the mining can be securely dated to the eight century, and there are indications that the mine may be even older. According to one legend, it was a Billy goat that found the ore deposits.

The oldest documents about the mine are from 1288 and 1347.

this mine produced mostly copper and in 1650 the mine yielded over 3000 tons of crude copper.

In 1992 mining ceased, but the pigment for the red paint that is so common in Sweden is still extracted. The paint also function as a wood preserve.

inside the mine it was chilly and 600 + steps down Mom started to feel claustrophobic but managed to keep calm....................( I should have been with her)

Birgitta also looked worried.................

The Billy goat is the town mascot, and shows up everywhere

after a strenuous walk in the mine there was a well deserved “fika” and a train ride around the edge of the mine

There’s a lot of legends about the mine, and one of them is about Fat Mats, ( so nicknamed because he was tall and strong, not fat) who disappeared in to the mine and his body was found 42 years later completely preserved by the water in the mine. He was displayed in a glass case for years, and became a great tourist attraction.................but eventually he decomposed and is now buried in a regular grave.

If anyone is interested in reading more about this mine, here’s the link http://www.falugruva.se/en/?gclid=CN6oyr7k5bgCFfF2cAodcXgALw

When Mom got back she praised me for a job well done watching Adrienne, and after a walk and showers we all rested outside .....................weather still gorgeous.

in a few minutes we'll be ready to pack up and continue the road trip.................I've heard something about yarn shopping again ....................

Thank You Falun for a greaat visit............................see ya again one day

Wet kisses to you all

Buttons

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SATURDAY EVENING

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Av EvaLena Hallgren - 3 augusti 2013 21:22

Finally back to good connection and a city, not that I’m complaining I really liked the mountains and small villages, but my blog was suffering and I’m not to happy about that.

Truth is we have been in a civilization for a couple of days, but we were “wild camping” which meant we had no power, and twice I got Mom to write in my blog, and poofff the power was gone. She of course said a few really bad words, you know the kind that makes me run under the bed..................( no bed to run under in Adrienne) so I have to settle with the table.

It’s almost a week since I got to tell my story so this will be long.

First I want to explain how we can be camping out in the wild so often. Sweden is the only country in the world that’s called “all man right” loosely translated. That means you can put up camp everywhere in nature for 24 hours, regardless who owns the property. Of course that doesn’t mean you park in someone's backyard, or the city park. But if you see a nice place with room for a camp it’s ok to do so.

We have been camping in Mom’s Aunts backyard for several days, and she’s been taking us around to lots of nice historic places for “fika” and to look at beautiful crafts.

One day we drove for hours up in the mountain to a small house to bake some bread in a special old fashion traditional way. Personally I didn’t get the idea, there’s plenty of bakeries around, but since I’m the easy going guy I went along, and laid on the steps watching for moose and bears. I didn’t see any, but I have a feeling they turned away when they noticed my vicious grin................

I didn't care much for the bread, but the cheese on top was good.

Both Mom and Birgitta sat around knitting and chatting for several days, Mom gave up on that complicated needle thing, with the excuse there’s no need for that kind of stuff in Florida...... Birgitta stuck with it, and got the hang of it..............she’s clever . We took daily loooong walks, much longer than I would have accepted at home, but there’s so many more new scents around here, and funny looking animals.

This is a real cool idea..................or is it ...............

Mom never grow up..........jjjeeesssh ..............at least she didn't buy this apron.............

When the aunt had enough of us, we countinued our trip south, and eventually we put up camp at a ski slope Mom used to ski at as a puppy. It's not far from the bear mountain. Here it smelled wonderful, and I had so much space to run but Mom kept a close watch scared to death I would go to far ................I didn’t.

Following day I was told I had to stay home and watch Adrienne, not my first choice, but I could do with a nap, and she parked in a nice shaded area.

The mother bear didn't want her cubs in the water so she pushed them out...........

bobcats came close to the fence because of feeding time................

A few tigers slept in different places, not sure why they are here were they don't belong _???

It's a very steep hill to climb in this park and from the top the view is awesome

Snowleopards was sleepy

Kodiak bears were bored I think

The polar bears aren't native to Sweden either, although we Swedes often lie about that to tourists

This is a great huge paw

like I said Mom never grows up..............

Birgitta is cooling off.............................well tryiing to

After the Bears Mom wanted to show Birgitta where the Swedish horses came from and off we went.

Every horse is carved by hand, and also hand painted. The history how this got started and became the biggest souvenir of Sweden can be read at this link in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalecarlian_horse case you’re interested.

every single horse is carved by hand and handpainted

Moms friend Helge came by on his motorcycle to help fix a small leak on Adrienne,...............great seeing him again

The rooster is a newer addition.................this is a true tourist place and extremely expensive.

Since Mom used to live here she knows the roads well, and wanted to drive to the lake and camp. It’s a very small narrow road,to get there, and we met lots and lots of bicycles racing ? nobody told us, no signs, until we got real close and there was a huge crowd of people. We were stuck and had to wait until the race was over. Once again Mom said a bad word, and a few more when she found out they were charging to stay because the of the race. .................(.not sure that was legal...........)

Anyway we kept going and stayed by a river, again not enough power, and Mom noticed her lens to the fancy camera broken. ..................this time I sure wish I had a bed to crawl under............but not under this one with a bad wolf knitting.

There's been a lot of American cars on the roadsall over, Swedes are very big fans of them, and have meetings in a new city almost evry week.

some good looking old Swedish ones too

Finally we ended up in a bigger city camping at a campground, I’m brushed, Mom got a new lens, ( don't tell Dad) and things are very good.

It's getting late and this became long, but I do have a little more to tell, so hopefulyy I can get Mom to help me again in the morning............

Good night from me ...............and wet kisses to all.

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