Family reunion

Later on Saturday Olle’s sister with family also arrived to stay over night. Nice to see them since we didn’t have time meet in March, as they live several hours away.
Sunday morning was a relaxing one, with breakfast sitting outside. One advantage with living in a house, instead of an apartment.
Around lunch we all went to celebrate Olle’s grandfather’s 90-year birthday. All the uncles and cousins (except one) was there, so a real family reunion. You had a lot to talk about while enjoying the birthday cakes and later in the evening dinner, all prepared by the sisters-in-law. Good the house and the lawn are big, and the weather mostly nice.

Time to meet relatives

Friday afternoon (the first week) we went to Maria’s brother with family, where we also stayed over night. A dip in a nearby lake wasn’t wrong at all and fun with the two nephews all around you. A longer walk including an ice-cream break, as well as mini golf filled the next day.

You could guess it would be nice to rest in the evenings during the O-ringen week, even if it wasn't that hard work during the days (lot of time to talk to others). But if you are staying in the area just for a short time, it’s better to use the time to meet relatives. One evening we went to see Maria’s uncle (together with her parents) and another evening we met one of Maria’s cousins. The latter Maria hadn’t seen in like five years and her four-month old daughter was cute, even if she was at the time point when only her parents were allowed to hold her (or you had to stand the screams).

Tuesday afternoon we went to Maria’s sister’s home and stayed there over the next day, which was a rest day for the O-ringen runners (so they would have time to tourist in the area as well). Maria’s niece both trained horse jumping with the smallest pony and dressage with the larger pony in the afternoon. To train also the third pony, we went with trolley in the evening, which meant an hour long walk for Maria and their dog.

Like usual on Fridays at Maria’s child home, we went to Maria’s uncle for sauna in the evening.

Saturday was planned to be the day when we packed all our stuff to be able to move on to further vacation places. This wasn’t the case, since Maria and her mother went to help with the clean-up on the O-ringen camping, and Olle took care of the packing. Anyway after dinner we travelled to Olle’s parents again.

O-ringen orienteering race

On Thursday afternoon we went to the organizers’ start show of O-ringen, the largest orienteering competition in the world. Every year this competition is organized somewhere in Sweden, and this year it’s placed just half an hour drive from Maria's parents' house. Our orienteering club is one of 21 clubs helping (voluntarily) to organize the five days of running races, as well as a temporally camping site for a few thousands caravans/tents. We listened to an interesting/motivating seminar by Renata Chlumska, the first Swedish woman to climb Mount Everest. She told some fun episodes from her alone trip around USA when she paddled a kayak from Seattle to San Diego, bicycled with the kayak on a carriage (an unusual sight in the middle of the huge desserts) from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, continued kayaking around Florida to Eastport, Maine, and then bicycled back to Seattle (all in 439 days). During the evening we also went to the temporally sport shop to take the chance to buy walking shoes, some sport clothes and hiking backpacks (we found the exact brand we want), since the organizers had some discount in the shop this evening.
Maria was as young as 8 years when she completed her first O-ringen competition and there has been several more since. So for her it was obvious to help organizing one year, when you get the opportunity.
{"Orienteering require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain." "Usually, a foot-O is a timed race in which participants start at staggered intervals, are individually timed, and are expected to perform all navigation on their own. The control points are shown on the orienteering map and must be visited in the specified order. Standings are determined first by successful completion of the course, then by shortest time on course." from Wikipedia}

On Sunday was the first race day of O-ringen. We had agreed to help with the start our club was responsible for (one of nine starting places), the one for all the recreation classes (Motion). These classes have free starting time, not drawn lot of starting minute as all regular classes have. This also means the runners were not so stressed when they came to start and something needed to be checked.
Maria's father was responsible for the radio communication between our start and the competition center, while us two where placed in the information tent. The plan was that we should be able to help if Swedish wasn’t enough :-) Nowadays the punching at the control points is done electronically, and afterward you can also get a list of running times in the forest. Some runners had updated the number of the electronic card, but the secretary used a pen not suitable for the today rain (the surface of the bib, where the number should be printed, is very slippery). So the most what we did during the day was to compare with the updated start list we had printed.

The procedure was the same all the other four days of the competition, even if our duties with the card number decreased and instead we helped some runners to prohibit chafed feet (as usual when you buy new shoes or so). The runners started from 8.30 AM, so since everything should be prepared around an hour before first start, these days didn’t mean any late mornings for us.

After all runners had started (at 1.30 PM), we moved the equipment to the starting place for the next day, to get less to do early next morning. Some days we then went to the Camping site center, where we had dinner.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the goal area during the days. So being one of the thousands organizers meant seeing less of the competition than a year when you compete yourself.

To the South again

During last Saturday we drove to the southern parts of Sweden. It took around twelve hours, with just over nine hours driving time. We stopped after every hour and a half to switch driver, and every other stop we also had a longer food break. A little scary to realize how much we filled the trunk with our bags, but being away from home for three weeks means different kinds of clothes will be needed (rain or shine). Not to mention how full the car will be when driving up north again, when we probably will bring some stuff more.
The drive wasn’t too bad, but it took the whole day.

The coming days we spent at Olle’s parents’ house. All of last Sunday rained away, more of a socializing day. Monday we spent outside instead, i.e. cutting some brushes on the house lot and a long walk.
In the afternoon Maria went to pick blueberries for dessert. Together with the taste of strawberries with milk, as well as the gooseberry (“krusbär”) pie we had another day, these are true summer tastes.
A sauna can be enjoyable even in the summer, especially if there is a lake nearby. We went swimming a couple of times during our stay, even if it’s not only nice that the water lilies (“näckros”) like the lake as well, hard to find some area to swim.
We also meet some old friends, who we hadn’t seen for some years (not time for all friends during March).

Today we passed IKEA and Biltema, neither of which are present in Umeå, on the way to Maria’s parents’ house. In their attic we found two bags with hangers, which we missed to bring with us in March (we do need them).
When you opened the door, you have to be careful so the (outdoor) cats didn't slipped through the door. Anyway a welcoming view, and during our stay the cats got less afraid of us.

Vacation next!

So finally it's the last day of work before vacation. Not that much of new experiments done, more of summarizing what I have been doing the last weeks. As well as making a list of what needs to be done when coming back in August, to help the start-up then.

In the evening we celebrated the start of our vacation with a beer together with some (new) friends. Although we had to bike in the rain, it was a relaxing evening.


We will miss when all the fireweeds ("rallarros") is in full bloom up here in the north. It will be a magenta sea in a week or so.

White water rafting on the Vindel River

The people bold enough to participate in today's white water rafting gathered at the University 8:45. We split up among the cars and drove then inland. About 90 minutes later we arrived in Ekorrsele, where the rafting company "Forsknäckarna" (The River Crackers) has its head quarter.

We started with some boiled coffee prepared over a wood fire. This kind of coffee might some times be like a full meal due to its thickness, this time it was quite okay. Other groups arrived and when we were all gathered (a total of 21 people plus guides), we changed our clothes to wetsuits, including a (ice hockey) helmet and of course a life jacket.

About 5 km upstream we boarded the inflatable boats, after some safety instructions. First it was quite calm, but after a while we entered the first rapids (class 4). We had to paddle like crazy in order to have the boat following the right line between (and of course sometimes through) the waves. Quite exciting!
When the water calmed down again, we landed on the shore to do some rapid swimming instead. We walked upstream about 300 meters before the stream pulled us down to the boats again. You really have no choice were to go when you are in the middle of the rapid, without a helmet and life jacket it could become quite nasty.
Before we came back to the company, we passed another area of rapids, but this time you had time to relax a little bit between them.

We had some more coffee and snacks when we were back in "civilian" clothes again. The guides told us that another tour, somewhat harder according to the whitewater rafting rating scale, takes place even more upstream at the rapids called Mårdseleforsen. Since we were only about 30 km from that place, we decided to go there before we went back to Umeå. Most of the road was gravel, but not so dusty. When we arrived at the rapids, we first had something to eat before we took the walking tour around the area.

During our walk we found these quite flowers, to Maria's joy. Moreover twinflower ("Linnéa") is the flower of the county Småland, but also she has another relationship to the name.


Back in Umeå we concluded the day with Ice Age 3 in 3D. It's the first time for to see a movie in 3D, more dramatic than normal.

(We thank Maria's friend Pernilla for contributing with photos, we forgot our camera).

Summer flowers

On the way home from Maria passes several spots of flowers this time of the year.

Red and white clover within the University area.

The harebell ("blåklocka") next to a biking bridge.

The area of both pink and purple lupin flowers is so inviting.