July 22 Skjolden, Norway

 This might be my favorite of all of our stops on the cruise.  It was just incredibly gorgeous.  It was a peaceful, small town. There was no public transportation, so we walked into the little town.

One of the ship's photographers took this as we got off the ship.  John and Cindy were so kind to surprise us and later bought a copy for each of us.

This, taken from our balcony, shows the walk to town along the beautiful lake.

Our group walking in.  Joan and Tom really felt lousy this day.  We all got a cold and cough during this trip.

I love this picture of Patty and Hal.

Joan and Cindy.  How I love them.

These little vacation cottages were for rent.  Wouldn't it be fun to come and spend a week in this beautiful place?

The color of the water was such a beautiful blue.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

These pictures were taken from the bridge.

We literally docked in these people's backyard.  There were sheep on the hillside.  I loved sitting on our deck in the afternoon, reading, looking at the beauty, watching the sheep, and listening to the bleating.  The weather was absolutely perfect.

Ken, Tom, and Roger were going to hike up the mountain.  But they got separated.  Tom went back to the ship to rest.  He really wasn't feeling well.  Ken met up with Roger later.  It was a tough hike.  Both Ken and Roger were exhausted when they got back.  But it was worth it- absolutely gorgeous.

There were beautiful waterfalls everywhere you looked.

Ken saw some interesting sculptures.

Nice pictures, Ken!

Just look at that!

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip.  It is so very beautiful!

This couple had set up a little stand to sell their homemade cheeses.

These two sheep were romping and playing for a long time.  I watched them from our deck.  They were cute.

Later in the afternoon, I went back down to the port to use the Internet.  It was quite a large room with many people taking advantage of the service.

We loved watching the sail away from this beautiful port up in a fjord from our deck.

We sailed by this community.  There was plastic over the fruit trees.

One of the things we enjoyed most on this trip was sailing in the fjords.  In what seemed like the middle of nowhere, there would be sweet little villages nestled in the hillside.  This isn't a good example because most of them were nestled among the trees with only about 10 houses, each on a farm.  We loved thinking about the people that lived in these isolated communities.  What were their lives like?  How did they get supplies?  Did they know God loves them?

This community was large enough to have a ferry servicing it.  Most of the ones we saw seemed completely isoloated, though I'm sure there were roads in and out.  But in the winter?