Morning light in Flåm, Norway, looking off the balcony of our hotel room. (above) Morning is my favorite time of day and this particular morning we did not have to rush off to catch a train or a ferry or a bus so we could enjoy a a few leisurely hours in the village before our next adventure.
good morning! ~ friendly little curious female house sparrow
later on we would cross this bridge on a bus to get to a long tunnel to Gudvangen
it didn’t take me long to find a few gulls
entrance to Ægir Brewery & Pub, where we had dinner the night before
wood carvings in a dead tree near our hotel
so many lovely birch trees
Ægir Brewery & Pub ~ it’s only open for dinner
Flåmsbrygga Hotel, the warmth of knotty pine floors and doors
Ægir Brewery, sign above entrance
Tim on a little stone seat sticking out of the wall of the Flåmstova Restaurant
wall in the Flåmstova Restaurant, where we had breakfast
ceiling in the Flåmstova Restaurant
While we were eating breakfast by a picture window, enjoying the view of garden, fjord and mountain, a cruise ship very slowly pulled into port! Then we could barely see the mountain over the top of it! Cruise ships are amazingly large – Flåm was such a tiny port I am sure it couldn’t possibly accommodate more than one of them at a time.
I still can’t get over how it was spring on the fjord and winter in the mountains
there was a hiking path up through the farms hugging the side of the mountain
wish we had time to hike up there, but the zoom lens came in handy to capture this scene
We boarded a small bus to take us through the mountains to Gudvangen. This is the entrance to Flenja Tunnel (above) which is 5,053m long. (16,578′). We came out of it for only 500m (1,640′) before entering Gudvanga Tunnel, which is 11,428m (7.1 mi) long, Norway’s second longest road tunnel.
Next stop: Ferry ride on Nærøyfjord from Gudvangen back to Flåm.
Westerly Morris Men ~ 5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
Strike up a measure, sprightly this way And we’ll dance an idle hour away Dance in the garden, dance on the lea To a Morris music light and free
Westerly Morris Men ~ 5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
Greenly call the rushes Budding is the willow Spring now is here and all is fair And she rides on the south wind Sweet and warm with May And a wreathe of hawthornes deck her hair
5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
Why not dance when happy songs resound In the trees and hedges all around Say farewell to toil and work a day For the dance will drive all cares away
5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
Tim’s father, Karl Freeman Rodgers, Jr. (1930-1978), was a Morris dancer. Sadly, he died of cancer shortly after Tim & I were married so I never had much of a chance to get to know him or to see him dance, but I think of him every May Day, especially when we manage to drag ourselves out of bed to watch the Westerly Morris Men dance at dawn on the campus of Connecticut College.
Karl Rogers was elected Squire at the 1972 Ale. Karl had many talents: racer, musician, singer, teacher, and he was among the best at all of these. In his year as Squire, he founded the PMM Newsletter, and pushed hard for the establishment of a PMM-funded scholarship to Pinewoods Camp for prospective Morris dancers. ~ Pinewoods Morris Men
5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
From the first, then, the Newsletter was intended not only to report PMM activities, but also to exchange views and ideas among all Morris dancers. Karl’s success in establishing the format led directly to the creation of the American Morris Newsletter less than five years later. ~ Pinewoods Morris Men
5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
In November (1978), we lost a valued friend and founding member when Karl Rodgers died on Thanksgiving Day, after a long battle with cancer. In his year as Squire, he started the Newsletter, and introduced the idea of a Pinewoods Scholarship. The Newsletter flourished, and spun off the American Morris Newsletter; at the time Karl died, Fred Breunig was well on the way to establishing AMN as the premier forum for Morris matters in this country. The scholarship had been established in 1975; it was only fitting that it be renamed in Karl’s memory. ~ Pinewoods Morris Men
5.1.15 ~ New London, Connecticut
I am born on May Morning – by sticks, bells, and ribbons I am the sap – in the dark root I am the dancer – with his six fools ~ William Anderson (The Green Man)
No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. ~ Edvard Munch (www.edvardmunch.org)
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Circles)
It is that dream we carry that something miraculous will happen that it must happen – that time will open that the heart will open that doors will open and that the rock face will open that springs will gush forth – that the dream will open and that one morning we’ll glide in to a harbour we didn’t know was there. ~ Olav H. Hauge (The Dream We Carry: Selected & Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge)
It’s morning again, little hope, and the world’s drying off with fresh-laundered sunshine. Life’s face is never the same though we may look at it for all eternity. ~ Kolbein Falkeid (Morning)
To see the fire that warms you or, better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst and to dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four walls and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more satisfying than a gift of tropical fruit; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wild flower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life. ~ John Burroughs (John Burroughs’ America: Selections from the Writings of the Naturalist)
“Nay, nay,” said a nuthatch, making its way, head downward, about a bare hickory close by, “The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat. Only the superfluous has been swept away. Now we behold the naked truth. If at any time the weather is too bleak and cold for you, keep the sunny side of the trunk, for a wholesome and inspiring warmth is there, such as the summer never afforded. There are winter mornings with the sun on the oak wood-tops. While buds sleep thoughts wake.”
blue jay by Mdf/Wikimedia Commons
“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it,” and then the speaker shifted to another tree farther off and reiterated his assertions, and his mate at a distance confirmed them; and now I heard a suppressed chuckle from a red squirrel that heard the last remark, but had kept silent and invisible all the while. ~ Henry David Thoreau (Journal, November 28, 1858)
