About this time five years ago, 25th wedding anniversary looming, I forwarded the husband an email I'd gotten from Icelandair hyping watching the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) in Iceland with the text "25th anniversary?" I was actually a bit surprised when he readily agreed, but then he'd heard many times in the preceding 25 years that seeing the aurora from Iceland was high on my dream list. We did go to Iceland, and we did see the aurora from northern Iceland, which you can see and read about here. The posts before and after describe the rest of the trip.
With our 30th anniversary looming, the husband and I were talking about a return trip possibly with a bit more time in the north. At the same time, I kept seeing ads from Hurtigruten, the company that does the mailboat run up the Norwegian coast. When one of those ads touted a cruise in search of the aurora, I bit. Cruising north from Bergen to Tromso or south from Tromso to Bergen, crossing the Arctic Circle in one direction or the other, all the while with chances to see the aurora every night looked pretty good to me. I also figured that a cruise might offer some of the same feel that riding the Indian Pacific across Australia did. When the husband came back from running errands one Saturday, I asked how he would feel about spending a sum of money somewhat higher than the one we'd talked about spending to go to Iceland.
We discussed it back and forth over the next couple of days, going back and forth. Each trip had its plusses and minuses. I raised the question of the cost given that we did spend three weeks in Australia less than six months ago. The husband countered that Australia was in 2014; Norway could be our big adventure for 2015. In Iceland, we could pick up more yarn for the Icelandic sweaters I made that get complimented whenever we wear them. In Norway, we could make a stop in Trondheim, where the husband's cousin lives. By the end of the week, we'd booked Norway with a scenic train ride from Oslo to Bergen added because why not. The details of the cruise are here.
A bit more than two years ago, the wife of one of the husband's colleagues was diagnosed with a brain tumor. One day she was having trouble reading the crossword puzzles she'd always read easily; the next thing anyone knew it was because of the tumor. She passed away last week. Occasionally over the last two years my husband and hers had talked about the plans they had made for after he retired, the places they would go, the things they would do. They won't take those trips or have those adventures. Even before Scarlett O'Hara went with the wind, we've held that tomorrow is another day. It certainly is, but it comes as is, with no guarantees of what it might hold.
If we don't make it to Norway in February, it won't be for lack of trying.
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