We made it to the Arctic circle!

 Today, we had planned to continue on the coastal road, but decided instead to take the easier E6 road to Bodo.   Remember the E6?  That THE major road in Norway?   Here it is....  I really should not make fun of Norwegian road, because they are in fact marvels of civil engineering.

 Even roads linking small islands
to the mainland have magnificent
bridges, and cross roads have at times truly impressive tunnels (the one between Sandnessjoen and the E6 is a 10km
straight line through the mountain).

 So, in between the bridges and tunnels, the roads are small, but I think that it is the right priority.

 Right before this particular bridge, we ran again into this tough dude:
He is doing the same coastal road we've been doing - on a bike!!!!  We saw him yesterday waiting for the ferry -
he just took out his fishing pole and started fishing...  caught an impressive bass while we were getting bored....
We choose the E6 because the coastal weather was so-so (it was nice on the other side of the mountain), because we were tired of ferries (they are pleasant, but requires a lot of planning, and/or waiting, and because the itinerary that our
awful travel agent had planned was simply not doable in one day, particularly on a Sunday when there are few ferries.
Let me not start ranting about the travel agent....  let me just say she could give lessons on how NOT to plan a trip to Norway.....  but we clearly are managing to have a perfectly good time anyway.
The last reason we took the E6 is that I really wanted to stop at the Arctic circle visitor center,
because I was very excited about crossing that line.  I know that a lot of people live up here above it, and a lot of people drive up and down that road all the time, but we had not!  so that was a milestone for us!

The E6 is actually a very beautiful road up here, going through the mountains, up above the tree lines, along beautiful rivers.  And the weather was really pretty, so we definitely choose the right path.

On the way, we stopped at the Stravisen national park, hoping to hike to the glacier (the 2nd largerst one in Norway).  However, to get there, you have to take a short boat ride across this green lake (really unusual color!

the river that flows down from it shows it even more strongly),
and the boat only shows up ..... when it show up - which is not very often.... (and you CANNOT find the schedule, not for that matter where it is anywhere on the internet- go ahead, I challenge you to give it a try!), one of the other quirks of the Norwegian tourist industry:  they really would like you to visit all these pretty places, but not enough to make it easy......) .

 We did see the glacier in the distance, and  had a nice picnic by the lake, enjoying
the sound of water falls.

 Most importantly though, on the drive to the park, we finally saw a couple of moose!  It was funny, because it was basically on the only road that did not have a "moose crossing" warning sign.  Also, Joe must have been channeling the moose because just as we got to the clearing where they stood, he said:  "If I were a moose, this would be a nice spot.....".
We did not not have time to take out the good camera, and I was so excited that I did not do a great job at capturing the moment .  Still, here they are (on the 2nd picture, you see the butt of the first one - I think that was the mommy)!

 I got almost as excited by the little lambs and their mommy by the road (it takes little to entertain me......).

We continued North until we reached the Arctic circle, stopped at the visitor center,
and took the obligatory pictures (see picture at top of blog).  (It's OK sometimes to just do
what everyone else is doing, because we are all excited about the same thing),

 and then walked around the mountain behind it, where people have build thousands of little cairns.  I would have done one myself, but it's hard to find rocks by now, and I felt bad using rocks from other people cairns....  Some poeple clearly use these as little memorials.

The vegetation is very sparse up here:  the altitude is not very high - only 690m- but it is very north, so mostly little scrubs and moss.  Still, there were these lovely flowers.  It never cease to amaze me how life find a way!

The road follows a lovely stream, where you can still detect some of the green color that comes from the glacier...









Then on to Saltstraumen ( the highest current in the world - more about it tomorrow!),
where we met with Maria and went to her's family lovely cabin:  the view on the fjord is awesome,
but we'll post that tomorrow.
We had a great dinner of local seafood, and are hoping to catch our own dinner in the fjord tomorrow!

We also got to hang out with their 2 little terriers.  Do you think Joe misses his dogs?
Now that we are in the land of the midnight sun, it better get VERY sunny!
Because it's hard to see the sun NOT set unless it's sunny!
(so far, the forecast looks good).