Moab

Our US Christmas roadtrip now has brought us to Moab, Utah. We checked the weather everywhere, concluded it was bad everywhere and decided we most wanted to see Utah and all the weird sandstone there, so we went there anyway. With the exception of a horrible long drive here it is awesome! We actually used three dayes to get here. The first day we used 3 hours getting our car from Avis, who has a mixed up computer system.... Then we slept in Mojave desert, drove to Vegas next day. We then decided to drive on against Utah after checking the weather forecast, realising that neither really wanted to see the strip (and that I can't climb due to my stupid knee) and setting our watches to Nevada/Utah time (according to Martin). Well into Utah and the mountains the temperature drops to just above 0. We stops in a town called Richtfield and eats, and also discovers that the time is 9pm and not 7pm.... Also that the road ahead is even worse. So we sleeps there and reaches Moab the day after.

Moab has the best mountain biking of the planet (according to Moab), and that is totally the case. We have now biked three days and sight-seen one, and we both love it! Every other minute while biking Martin is yelling "wow! look!". The only bad thing is that I really miss Norwegian Christmas and my family and Mo i Rana and snow... I don't really get much Chrismas feeling here... The little town is also awesome though! (even though it's not really Mo i Rana :) It has a really nice Microbrewery with good beer and really nice cheap food. And a cosy little cafe called the Love Muffin! What more do you need to make the perfect biking place?!

Martin biking up slikrock, Poison Spider trail.

Me and Utah!
Biking on the edge :) - Eagles Perch trail

Bagels for lunch, Martin taking the photo and focusing more on my bike than me, and also mocking me for biking in yoga pants, Long Johns and knee pads....
Martin at Gemini - Eagles Perch trail

Martin imitating Balance rock and Balance rock, Arches National Park

Men working....

Us and Delicate Arch
Us under Delicate Arch. It was a lot larger then I thought...

Americanization

Life back in San Francisco bay area with Martin is good. Although I must admit I really miss Norwegian December... No snow here... And no real advent... After growing up a place where there is lot of snow and no sun at all in December, sunny and green doesn't really feel very Christmasy. However, it is really nice not to freeze :)

Other than that, days goes by, me working from the apartment in Menlo Park, Martin working at Centre for Design research at Stanford. We also got a trip to Pasadena, Los Angeles because I had a meeting there, and we have seen San Francisco and celebrated Thanksgiving American style.

San Francisco!

Thanksgiving at Greg's parents place. I like that holiday, just about being happy and eat :)

We also whached Stanford-Oregon State in American football with Greg. Oregon state lost.. a lot.....

Since neither of our parents bothers to make us advent calendar when we are so far away, me and martin made for each other :)

Biking in the hills of the Peninsula. It is REALLY nice biking there. Only problem is that it is about 25km to bike on road to get to the nice mountain biking.... Totally worth it, but still, a bus going there would have made more time on trails, less on road...

Old Woodside on the way to bikeing

Me biking in Corte de Madera creek park

Fancy American Christmas decorations (the threes are huge!)

Washington

This weekend I went to Washington visiting my cousin Håvard, who lives in Colombia, Maryland, aka suburbia. Very nice to stay at a place with a proper nice bathroom for a couple days! (the one where I stay in blacksburg sucks...)

Amy, Håvard and the national mall. Which is basically one big monument/museum with no residential area, no shops, no restaurants (excepts in the museums). Weird in a very typical American way.

And I bumped in to these two at the train station!

If you look very closely, you can see some blinking red eyes in the top. This proves that this is actually an alien artefact supervising the white house and the national mall. If you look closely above, you can also see an UFO flying around, belonging to the same aliens.

A Morpho at the museum of natural history!

Hokies

Virginia Tech have a really good football team (american football of course...) They are just called the Hokies (see bellow and here) and everybody here is totally crazy about it... On thursday there were a football game here too, Virginia Tech vs Georgia Tech. VT won :) That day it was totally crazy around here. A LOT of people crowded around in little Blacksburg. And Tailgating EVERYWHERE ... Fascinating concept...

Another fascinating thing was Rockey Horror Picture Show, which me and Christer went to yesterday evening. Very recommended to see a proper version with shadowplay and crowd interaction and everything :D

Me and the Hokie at Squires student centre, VT.

Virginia

Me and Christer are now in Blacksburg, working at Virginia Tech. We are visiting Diana, who are a really nice and incredible good professor in material science. Basically we are just working a LOT here (which is good, because we learn a lot and get a lot done). Last weekend however, we went hiking in the Appalachian mountains. A really pretty place if I may say so :)

Christer and the Torgersen building, where the lab is. Why do we always end up in the building with a part over the street? At least it feels like home :) Virginia Tech is generally a really pretty place. Very small town with almost only the large university. Seems like a really good student environment here.

Christer and Diana

A little fishy!

The cascades, where we went hiking.

Mountainbiking Mammoth Lakes - The story of an unplanned roadtrip

I am now in the states visiting Martin at Stanford. This weekend we wanted to go away, but we did not really know where and what to do. Just before leaving we decided to go mountain biking in the Sierras. The weather we forgot to check and the distance goggle maps claimed was about 5 hours.

We was planing on going early, but ended up leaving Palo Alto at around 5.30 pm-ish. This meant rush traffic about all the way to Livermore, which is normally an hour... When we then got to Yosemite national park and Tuolumne meadows it was really dark, and raining.... and misty... and windy road... And when we got to the pass over to the other side of the mountains, which is about 9 950 ft (quite high) it was also snowing. All this resulting in us using a lot more than 5 hours, and getting to bet at 2 in the morning.

Saturday, however, we where a bit tired, but got a really nice day biking :) Sunday, it was raining again. And it was really windy. And snowing at around 8500ft (Mammoth Lake is around 8000ft). We got some really nice biking anyway though. A bit cool only... :)

Since it was so cold and rainy, we decided to leave a bit early and get back to Palo Alto early. But as we came to the pass over the mountain, it was closed... And so was the two next passes north... We actually had to drive almost to Lake Tahoe to get back... Which meant an 7 hour drive... But we did get to see a lot, and we did have a lot of fun :)

Me!

Me and Martin with Mammoth Lakes in the background.
Martin.
Me biking in the snow on Sunday.
Completly soaking wet, cold and ready to go home. We got some comments when we went out biking in the horrible weather :)

At the gas station at the turn out to Tioga pass over to Yosemite... Where we stopped to ask what to do. Seems like we weren't the only ones wondering :)

Biking in the alps

This week I am on a conference in Freiburg, Germany. However, to get there I had to fly to either Frankfurt, Stuttgart or Zurich and then take the train. So ofcource that had to be exploited, so I asked Marianne if she wanted a visitor for a weekend. Marianne found out we should go mountainbiking, which is probably one of the better ideas ever. We got full suspention bikes and went to Vallis with Fabienne, Andy and Ruth. Andy showed us some of his favorite trails, which is just awsome! I have never been on a real mountain biking tour like this before, I have only been for training tours in bymarka and such, which is nice, but not as awsome as this. I am totally gonna mountain bike more!

Lunch day 1, biking part of the holy trail :D Andy, Fabienne, Ruth and Marianne

Fabienne


Andy

Pronounced Bitch :)

Biking second day, 1000m up from Binn, 2000m down to Brig. Got some snow, but totally awsome

Laban biking Switzerland

Rescue course

Me and Vibeke was on a climbing rescue course this weekend. Very interesting, nice to know what to do if the one you are climbing with get injured.


A butterfly didn't understand that Teresas homemade chalk bag was not a flower :)

Everyone listening to Jarle the instructor


Vibeke is coming to rescue me, as I am hanging "injured" in the wall :)

Jarle supervising Teresa getting rescued .

Sea kayaking Helgeland

Last weekend I was with the kayak group of NTNUI sea kayaking in Helgeland (almost at home!! :) A very nice weekend, and I learned a lot!

Siri making coffe while waiting for the ferry in the morning. We where supposed to take it the night before, but we where to late... So we had to sleep by the road...

Lunch :)

Eating shrimps :)

BBQ in the evening.

We paddled out to see the old stone carvings at Rødøya which is 4-5000 years old. This is probably a kayak.

This is the first proof in history of skiing!

Siri rolling the kayak

Me trying (not very successfully...) to roll... People who can roll probably see straight away what I do wrong.