Karasjok, Norway 445 km

A northern phenomenon we are unfamiliar with has made an impression on us. There is no typical overnight cooling because there is no night. The temperature dropped to 22C and reached 30C today. We are way above the Arctic Circle (almost 70N). Go figure. So we made an early start and by 9 am it was already 25.5 and we were getting ready to strip off gear. On our way out of Kiruna this morning we passed the road to the ice hotel that you hear about on the various travel shows. Wrong time of year or we may have given it a try.

We said goodbye to Sweden this morning and traveled through the top corner of Finland then into into Norway. Three countries in one day. Again no border crossings. There are old buildings where we guess the authorities must have been in the past.

We continue to have trouble pronouncing the 20 letter names for towns, etc., well maybe not 20, but lots. The names just don’t make any sense to us monolinguists!

Lots of bodies of water: ponds, slews, lakes as well as some very promising fishing streams. Every time we stopped we were plagued by horseflies, etc. yet we don’t see any in the towns so we wonder if they spray or something. 

The "Horsefly Wave"

We have noticed the trees are definitely getting smaller as we go further north. But we still are in  deciduous forests – contrast that to 70N in Canada.

We are truly in Lapland now. Lots of “watch for reindeer” signs but no wild life sightings at all today. We also have only seen one road kill in the entire trip. Reindeer droppings were found in our hotel room though and we did see a partial skeleton at one of the rest stops so we know they are around.

Lots of small motorhomes and trailers – great vacation area. Must comment on not seeing any pickup trucks except for a few work trucks. It is all small cars pulling the trailers, and the hitch system they have is just one very small ball with no safety chains or sway bars. Doesn’t look very safe to us. So far we have not seen much in the way of hills so that may be part of the contributing factor. Also the trailers do not have black water holding tanks like at home so that would affect the overall weight. Not sure we would want to be responsible for emptying the bucket each night!

Our GPS has been giving us some grief. It stops intermittently so we think it may be from all the rough and dusty roads the past few days. We will see about removing it and cleaning the terminals as it will be handy as we head south and get into more inhabited areas.

We have decided we need a rest day so will have a relaxing evening and explore the town tomorrow. There is a Sami (Laplander) cultural center as well as a museum within walking distance so it will be nice to be out on foot and explore what the town has to offer. Several people we have talked to on the way have told us we need to go to the tip of Norway (Nordkapp) but we are not into the marathon 8 hour round trip to just say we have done it.