Norway harnesses Northern Lights for tourism marketing campaign

A little truth in travel may be helpful here. Norway, an OPEC member but not an EU member, can be very wallet-toxic for visitiing. Oslo can bleed you white, and depending upon how far north you wish to go, you may pay lots of highway tolls. Finland is a better placed to see the aurora borealis, is reasonably priced and has air-service farther northward than Norway.

  
In the summer of 2004, I took a little excursion that, subsequent physical limitations notwithstanding, it would have been possible to imagine taking every summer until the end of (my) time.

The S.S. Badger car ferry sailed, then, from Manitowoc,WI to Luddington,MI at around midnight arriving at the break of day.

The trip was undertaken for two reasons: to row with my dear friend Becky Peck, her husband and sister on the magnificent St. Joseph River where her parents have a summer home that it is hard to imagine ever leaving. There is a nice video of us in a pair of doubles gliding beneath the lovely arched Main Street bridge in St. Joe.

 And, to continue on over to Port Huron Michigan where I was being met by a guy to take delivery of a twin hulled Skimmer, a sliding seat rowing craft for persons like me willing to sacrifice some speed for a lot of stability.

"The City of Port Huron, stretching for seven miles along the shore of the St. Clair River and the base of Lake Huron, is an international border crossing marked by the spectacular Blue Water Bridge."

Our grandchildren and I had, on a previous visit, been impressed by the trilobite fossils to be seen and counted on the faces of large rectangular limestone blocks lining the St Clair at the park in the shadow of that Blue Water Bridge.

But, none of that, though it makes me envy the me of that period, is why I'm sitting up here tonight.

It was the night crossing, the one element of that little adventure, that is available to you all.

The Badger was, in that calm nighttime, home to two things that it is hard to get enough of: darkness, I think the whole deck and it is huge, was lighted by one twenty  - five watt bulb and quiet. Apart from the deep humming of her coal fired engines, there wasn't a peep out of anybody.

One assumed that a crew was somewhere at work and there was as well a somewhat creepy young man with a night vision vid. cam gathering clandestine images mostly of summer-tanned young women and girls as they slept bare-legged and stretched out on rows of seats or on the carpet.

But, it was out on deck where it was impossible, in the middle of Lake Michigan with neither shore twinkling, to focus on anything but 360° of jet black jewel-studded sky.

I felt like "The Little Prince" of Antoine de Saint Exupéry's magical drawings in his wonderful novella by that name: very small, jammie-clad, ducking asteroids and weighing the risk of star burn.

Were I Onassis rich, I would buy that ferry and insist that you hang around all summer waiting for clear nights.

I think that we would call her Thesepia Boat.
 





 

 

Its amazing what a little cloud of gas from the sun can create.

good morning all! 
 
what a wonderful story to wake up to and read over a first cup of coffee, stoney.  thank you!
 
'tis amazing....little planet earth! 
 
hitch hiking....

I have experienced that darkness,in the Nort Woods, south shore, Lake Superior.  .  .A meade telescope is standard equip. in the roadyacht,and a climb to the roof,a tug on the cord to retrieve said tool,along with tripod,stool and thermos of tea,reveals stars and celestial objects and occurances that rival the planetarium. And I can smoke a stogie.

STONEY- Great story! I wish you had thrown video creep overboard, but I understand how you would not not want to go to jail for a long time & scar your grandchildren in the process...

Stoney - such a pleasue to read your narratives.  I would love to see the Nothern Lights but sadly, have not.  Yet. Have a great weekrnd folks...... peace out

well I haven't actually seen them, but I can if Ijust close my eyes...

i think the pictures are about as close as i'll physically ever get to the lights discribed.  that works just fine for me.  what great photo's.  i just imagine that the energy captured is actually everywhere,...,,..,what is it that we see, when we look at things?

It is one of my dreams to see this wonderful display of the Universe. Non-manmade wonders of the world are the most amazing because they can and do change from time to time and second to second.

 Good Day All ... and Blessings ..............
 
 
 
 
ROADYACHT:  Good On You Sir !!!

nothing srikes awe to all of my senses than nature, beauty to behold in so many ways.  Great topic to get my butt up and out of the house.

  
We had a call earlier from a friend reporting the death of someone that I imagined had to have been gone for decades.

"Shroud," he had been called because with his jowly face, down-at-the-corners hooded eyes, low, reluctant voice and dismal outlook on life, he had become a bit of a gloomy legend.

When I was a kid, he was already chastising his wife for buying something in bulk: "Who you gonna leave that to?"

The barber remembered asking him where he was going to hunt on the last weekend of the deer season: "I don't look," he shuddered, "that far into the future." It was two days away.

He celebrated a fiftieth anniversary with his wife and then, a thirtieth with another lady after the first died.

Last Friday, at the family's northern deer camp, he had a light supper, a walk out to the little reading shack and when he returned, in the middle of a yawn and stretch before turning in, he is believed to have said: "Maybe next year, we ought to get some plumbing in this place."

Neck bones were heard to snap as heads turned in disbelief! No one had ever heard so much as a single comment about even the near future without it having ended: "Of course, I probably won't be around for it."

He turned in and fifteen minutes later, when the doctor in the group went into the bunkhouse to retrieve a book, Shroud looked and felt like he had been dead for fourteen of them.

Maybe the lesson is this: If you strike a deal with your maker to let Him worry about tomorrow and He will keep giving you today, stick to it or you might, at a spry 101, have the rug pulled right out from under you and quickly.

He was known in his family as, Pap and I'll leave it to you to guess the name of his usual at the local deli: a bagel with ground fennel and chive cream cheese called The...


 

Stoney:  If say it was called "The Pap Smear"  I'll never eat breakfast in your town. 

JULIA:  Ford  Motor  Company  a  while  back  specifically  designed  a  car  for  women,  complete  with  surveys,  experts.   Then  the  named  the  thing  the  "probe."  Designed  specifically  for  women.....

There's a place about 4.5 hours from here, way up in the mountains called Potter County, Pa. It is one of the most isolated and unspoiled spots in Pennsylvania, so much so that it is affectionately known as "G-d's Country." From this point in Northcentral Pennsylvania, one can view the Northern Lights, and just about the rest of the galaxy that is viewable from the 41st parallel.

I remember those cars from mid 80's and early 90's movies like Judge Dredd and Back to The Future.  I always thought that Ford was referring to probe as it applies to theoretical physics.
 
 

Daniel Zev:  Have you ever thought of photographing it sometime?

Julia Masi: I have considered it, but there are a few other places in Penna that take precedence, chiefly among them Centralia, Pa, a city that has been on fire (underground) since just about forever. From the photos I've seen, it's incredibly creepy in the winter, with smoke and steam rising from the cracked dead earth, in an almost post-apocolyptic manner.

It sounds like the set of a horror movie.  Does anyone live there? I've never heard of this place, but then again I live a sheltered life.

I lived in Alaska for six years and I saw these all winter, every winter. Beautiful! No need to go to Norway to see them.

There's about 11 people left, but the Church still hold services on Sundays to what I hear is a packed congregation. 

The steam during winter services must add a certain tough to any fire and brimstone style preaching.  The atmosphere sounds mystical.   

"The Devil and Daniel Webster" is on TCM right now.  ...thinking about holes in the ground and fire and brimstone.
 
Great movie.  Would you make a deal with ole Patch?  Or maybe you have already?  Just jokin'....
 
And if you miss this film, at 11:00 tonight, you've got another chance to decide if dealing with the devil is worth it, in "The Picture of Dorian Gray."  Also known as beauty is as beauty does, or any number of other little sayings.
 
"The devil, believe it, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing..."   said Oscar Wilde, of course.  These two movies show him doing nothing of the kind.
 
Have a good night all, and don't talk to strangers who want to do you favors.  Nothing comes without a price.
;)
Happy viewing!
 
 
 
 

PARK- you appeared just as I was thinking about you! And now you're leaving... unfair.
Guess I'll go pour some wine & turn up the heat.
 
We rented "The Reader" to watch later.

Movie? How about a   .  .moviola  .  .especially for cat people,with sound- - click my video

On Thanksgiving night, all the bird fat and salt and sugar and whipped cream combined with wayyy too much Veuve Cliquot somehow got sideways with my hormones and made the room go all trippy with hot flashes and my own little set of Olivia Borealis.
I can not recommend it.
I'm still flashing off and on like a broken traffic light, hot and less hot, and I really should not have heated up those leftovers tonight.
I so am glowing again...Herr Diesel would be proud.

Bert: Actually, the Ford Probe was originally designed to be the new Mustang until an enthusiats and fan revolt made it very clear to them that it would not sell as that. They had invested so much in its development by then, Ford couldn't just shelve it. So it was released as the Ford Probe. At some point that slips me right now, it was switched to the Mazda 6 platform and production was moved to the joint Mazda/Ford plant in Michigan where the Mazda 6 is built.
 
I've never seen the northern lights. The few times they have stretched as far south as Chicago, there was the inevitable cloud cover, something that happens very often.

Swami...ever have Lakka?

Penn~was she the Andy Kaufmann charater from Taxi's sister?

Ha, nice one kid.

 
Eli,

I can't think of the Great Lakes without thinking of you and Pinky and your ties to them. Your mission of disposition has a nice roundness to it all things considered.

Don't you wonder if they might one day makes us the eau-pec to a parched world?

Why don't we do this, pile as many villagers as we can aboard the Badger for, "Nordlicht 2010," next autumn (they sail into early November).

Combustibles, comestibles and potables will be encouraged aft where temperance will discouraged.

Leaning-back deck chairs, Peterman lap robes, good friends, memories and a clear, dark sky.

If porn-video boy capturing crotches and cleavages happens to be onboard, it won't be for long.