Driving Through Norway

We left Geiranger, Norway, late one morning, and drove up, up over the mountains through a snow storm and scenes of grandeur, with a constant stream of huge trucks and buses headed in both directions. The road above Geiranger went higher and steeper and got narrower and rougher with blind curves around mountain cliff’s. The narrow cliff-hanging road, at one point high above a mountain lake, had no guard rails, but for the very best of reasons. They hadn’t forgotten guard rails, there was no room for guard rails. For Emmy, this was an hour of terror interrupted by moments of sheer panic!

We finally reached a very good road with three tunnels ranging from one and a half, to three and a half miles long. When we came out the other end, we were well below the snow but it was still raining.

At one point we were far from any town, driving along a narrow, twisty, up and down road in an area filled with huge boulders, small trees and brush, but with plenty of greenery to feed a flock of sheep. From our vantage point on the side of a hill we could see two shepherds in the distance, far below, attempting to herd their flock. Both shepherds were dressed in shabby old cloaks that hung in loose folds — they appeared to be out of "Central Casting," costumed for a part in a Hollywood movie.

As we drove around a hairpin curve we noticed one of the shepherds herding most of the sheep down the hill, but one sheep had hidden behind a boulder, and was now headed in the opposite direction. One more sharp curve brought us to the second shepherd, near the road. We pointed and gestured, and when he finally understood we were telling him about a straggler, we expected he would head immediately towards the contrary sheep.

Instead, he reached among the folds of his tattered mantle, brought out an old U.S Army surplus walkie-talkie and told his buddy to go get the wayward one. Aw well, so much for the old days, and the old ways.

That was long before cell-phones.