Creepy Abandoned Shed? Yes please!

A good night of sleep! Glad I had the earplugs though because some of the little kids got a bit shouty in the early morning.

Today I was going to deviate from the Eurovelo 1, so I could avoid a very steep hill and pass by a little RV park at the end of a fjord in the microscopic town of Åpta.

As I headed west towards a shoreline road, I found myself obsessing over which items I might leave at home on my next trip. The camera, lens, laptop, and battery were easily ten pounds together. Did I really need to carry those over all these hills?

“Ah yes,” I thought. “The usual panic over hauling extra weight. Even though I obsessed over this at home and only brought what felt really useful, I still have these thoughts out here. They’ll pass.”

Then a moment later, another more sarcastic part of me added: “Yeah, and I know another way you can eliminate 10 pounds: Keep riding the bike, Mister Portly.”

After only half an hour of riding I got to a really cool chunk of road: There was a tunnel closed to bicycles, and next to it was a decommissioned side road that was reserved for bicycles exclusively! About five kilometers of completely unpopulated road, with really lax maintenance which made it look interestingly apocalyptic:  Weeds growing at the shoulder, a couple of big boulders sitting in the middle of the road where they rolled, et cetera. I loved every meter of it.

Just when I huffed and puffed my way to the highest point, I saw an amazing creepy building on my left. “Oh I am absolutely going in there,” I said out loud.

I jammed the bike up against some rocks to keep it from flying back down the hill, and pulled out the fancy camera.

So dang creepy! I love it!

My all-afternoon climbing effort was rewarded when the ground finally leveled out at a pass and I found a series of charming lakes.

It occurs to me, rather belatedly, that some of the Norwegian personality can be explained by the land they grow up in as children. I feel like I can relate, because even at the age of 50 I still have dreams on a weekly basis that are set in the redwoods where I grew up.  That quiet, dark, introspective, slightly spooky environment is like a layer that the rest of my personality has been built over. It feels like that internal quiet place is of a piece with the quiet, comfortable-feeling atmosphere I sometimes experience when there’s a crowd of Norwegian people indoors, talking softly or just reading, sharing tables, sitting closer to each other than strangers ever would back in my home town. A layer fades away and we all become trees, arranged comfortably in our forest.

Environment isn’t decisive, of course, but I think it can be responsible for trends.

About this time I rounded a corner and saw a thing I’ve only seen a few times before in Norway: An honest-to-goodness dumpster. At some point, jerks disposing of e-waste had either shoved their things into the dumpster and a disposal crew had rejected them, or the jerks hadn’t even made it to the dumpster and just dropped their trash nearby in the dirt.

And if you’re going to leave e-waste, why not the worst? A couple of huge amplifiers and a pile of used e-cigarettes. Classy.

When the proprietor arrived, he insisted on walking with me to the edge of the property so we could inspect the camping area together, even though I was already familiar with it from riding around. It was a lovely chunk of grass right on the shore, set nicely apart from the cabins. He seemed worried it wouldn’t be nice enough for this disheveled foreign visitor. I told him it was perfect.

He was curious about my route and gear, and reminisced about bike trips he’d taken years ago. I was quickly learning that my “I’m on a bike tour” conversations usually have a different shape in Norway, because so many people in the country are either bike tourists themselves, or used to be. They’re way more likely to say “What a great trip!” and less likely to say “You’re crazy!”

He wished me “all the best weather and luck” for my journey, just in case he didn’t catch me in the morning.

Last chore of the day: Finally eat that brownie!