Our last day in Stockholm... and more adventuring!

What a jam packed day... yet it didn't feel bad!  Exploring more of the city by coach... visiting and roaming The City Hall (where the big Nobel Prize Dinner is), looking at the Vasa Sailing Ship (recovered after 300+ submerged in the harbor) then lunch with a view.... decided we wanted to see a different part of the city by boat plus spend time in the Baltic Sea.  Yet, it didn't end there... we walked for about 90 to 120 minutes around more of the city.  It's our last day here and we though we sound busy, it wasn't tiring!  Plus, we decided to do on more geocache... and some Swedes were looking for the same one, so we put out heads together and, voila!  We Found It!

The City Hall is all brick  with a huge inner courtyard built in 1923.  The elected city officials meet here for their monthly meetings.  There are several halls within... one which seats 1300 people for a meal.  One room is all Gold mosaic tiles... Ceilings and walls in other rooms were spectacular too.  The craftsmanship on one ceiling built to appear like the hull of a boat upside down was beautiful.  This building was not one we were planning on visiting, but, boy are we glad we did! 

We left the Hall and headed through town to the Museum which held the sailing ship Vasa.  It only sailed for 20 minutes after it was built... and went down on its maiden journey.  Talk about fingers pointing blame.  It was lucky for the ship architect that he passed away before the boat was completed.  In the end, no one was blamed... However... I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but it was pretty obvious... It was TOP HEAVY big time... First time ever, two rows of cannons (with some cannons weighing at least a ton), an upper deck, then the rear deck that went up even higher... not enough ballast... and, like I said... she started to list right out of the gate,  and in twenty minutes she went down, killing some folks at the same time. 

During the 1950's efforts were made to bring her back to the surface and she was raised in 1961, all very carefully trying to keep her as intact as possible.  The Baltic Sea is just brackish enough that it was well preserved seeing it had been in the water since the late 1600's.  Sad, there where skeletons of some of those who perished when it went down.  

 Alright folks, the lines are NOT from the 1600... but recreated...

 See the double rows of cannons.... a first at that time... and it didn't work so well for them... not enough ballast!

 Can you imagine just how top heavy that stern was... ?

 This is a scale model (which took longer to build than the original boat)... and the colors the boat would have been had it not been in the water for hundred of years.  This really shows how little of the boat was in the water compared to what was above... and with very little ballast... well.. no surprise what happen!

 Looking up at the stern... and not even from ground level!

A marvelous lunch with a great view... and the bread... oh, so good.... 

 Weird Hot Dogs... In the US, the bun is bigger than the dog... here the opposite... and it's called a "French" hot dog... Is that cuz it uses Frenches Mustard... ?  No idea...

 And another boat ride....

 This crane is painted like a giraffe!

 The every popular midway type carnival was busy twirling folks, dropping folks... that sorta stuff

Still in Stockhom...Let's just say we slept in a bit late today!!!!

O My Goodness!  We slept in till 1:10 PM... yup... that's the afternoon... and that was getting to bed at 10:30 the night before... guess we needed it!  Funny thing, neither of us were very hungry either... I guess the meals on the planes and dinner here... filled us to the brim and MORE!

Once up, we leisurely enjoyed getting cleaned up and took a 'Historical Canal Cruise'... not too long, just about an hour.  Beautiful parts of the city, surrounded by natures canals... much wider (and cleaner) than in Venice.  The whole city is made up of islands.  Saw Mr. Nobel's dynamite factory, oodles of dwellings and many of the well known industrial companies headquarters.... IKEA, Volvo, Erickson, etc... 

Went to dinner around 6 tonight to meet the rest of the folks traveling with us.... about 28 folks... all ages... and all fun!!!! There's even one young man 15 yrs old.  Tomorrow we have on the agenda to see more of Stockholm and Jerry and I are contemplating  another boat tour... but longer and in a different area... I've had three glasses of wine with dinner tonight...and well, just can't write much... but I feel good!  Hearing that my folks in Washington are going to be enduring a heat wave... Hang in there!

So many boats... all over!

 Just enough wine so I don't remember what this place was... but part of an old castle!!!

 To me, you'd have to be hard pressed to sunbath is you're willing to do it on these rocks.  We saw folks all over on the rocks... or crawling down to them...

 Our Hotel... we're on the left, 6th floor... great view!

And it begins...after a year of planning!

Wow...we are really on our way!  With the remodel underway...so many details to complete.  Add to the mix Halley in the hospital in MSP with cellulitus... We are extra thankful we are even on our way!

We we're welcomed on the plane and finally felt we could start to relax. Of course, the champagne they gave us didn't hurt either.  After we took off, it was a short time later when we saw all the some from the fires roaring east of the mountains...it was a lot!  Prayers for those with homes in the area.

Hiccups in the homefront continued... but one of them we fixed while at JFK Airport.  The other one, the TNT, is still hanging... 

From JFK it was weird, since we took off we took off at 10:15 pm, in the dark... and needed some good sleep for this 8 hour flight... that the sky was getting brighter and brighter... Sun rising as we headed east. Makes sense since Scandinavia has a sunset around 10pm while the sun rises about 3:45 am...  Glad we have blackout shades!

After settling in, we got word, Halley goes home today...yeah!!!!  With that news and getting all checked in, we were ready for a little explore and spent about 2 hours in Old Town.  Mostly the original buidings of the area.  Walked past the Royal Palace, and so many other great buldings; we learned Stockholm is really a series of islands with canals; additionally,  our room looks out at The Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize Dinner takes place (they all seem very proud of that... the dinner??) Our room is blessed also with a beautiful view of the water and canals.  

Italian Dinner tonight with a a great Chianti and reasonable prices...We like that cuz things are very expensive in this area! Oh... and we can say we found a geocache in Sweden... I'll just show a pic of the area.

Alright... the eyelids are getting heavy!!!! Our bed is calling! 

 Even Stockholm has a lock bridge!

 Geoccache!

 A fine Chianti!

 Nobel Peace Prize Dinner in this building...and part of the view from our window... 

Last Day in Duluth... The Train Museum, Geocaching, & Sailboat Races on a Beautiful Evening!

An absolutely, wonderful slow morning... needed that after the headache I had last night.  Got started with our touristy stuff about 11:30.... nice...

First stop was the Train Museum... This museum has done a great job... Halley couldn't get in the cars, but I took photos and could share what they looked like inside.  Of course, they also had a huge miniature train set that looked pristine and lifelike.  The whole experience was great in that there wasn't huge amounts of reading about what you were looking at... and if you didn't want to do any reading, you still got the gist of the particular train car or engine you were looking at.  That's pretty important when we have Halley along... Oh... and they had a gift shop... score one for us!

Had a late lunch in the Canal Park tourist trap!  Ahhhhhh, love Americana! Seriously it is a nice little walking town.   Halley located the Cold Stone Creamery... so, after lunch she and Andy had a treat while Jerry and I walked & found a geocache in the area.  After they finished up, we drove to a couple more caches so Andy could see how they are done.  Found two more!

Topped the day off with watching the evening sailboat races.  They were so far from us... had to zoom the camera... After all the crazy wind the last few days...tonight's breeze was light (that's why they were so far out in the bay... looking for more wind) the race seem to go on forever... We had a great area to view them from, a wonderful duo singing great songs, folks around us all friendly and all of us laughing at our own jokes... Eventually we got hungry, so, we walked all of 50 feet to eat on the outdoor patio and still listen to the great music!  The evening was almost perfect... Till the mosquitoes found me... and ONLY me... I guess I'm just lucky that way!

Tomorrow, back to Minneapolis, drop the wheel chair off and then on to the airport....Whew... did alot these last few days!

The Mail Car 

 Just a little snow plow!

 A huge articulated Engine... don't even know what that means, but it WAS huge!

Yes.... success at the gift shop!

 Teaching Andy the finer points of geocaching!