Road Trip

It was one of the situations that every husband dreads.....You know, anytime where you have more than one choice. So here was my dilemma.....Play soccer with the boys or take the wife on a road trip?

Well, as you can see I made the right choice!!
We made our way down south, about 3 1/2 hour road trip to be exact. I was a fairly easy drive, with little traffic. We loaded up the IPOD with some of our favorite music and we were off. We had done this road trip before and were on a mission, with specific objectives in mind. Soon after getting into town, we found the perfect parking spot, just a short walk away from our target. While I was busy figuring out the parking meter, Chris happened upon this creature...

More on this later.

So off we went on our adventure. As we continued along towards our main objective, we ran across an Elvis sighting! Here he was tuning up his guitar, I later saw him wander down toward the river bank to serenade some folks.

Must stay focused.....Ah ha, target in sight, locked in. The Food Market (Saluhallen) was ours to enjoy!!

Once inside, it was a wonderful array of food stalls, but this was our primary target...The Sausage Man! Hold on, don't shop while you are hungry, isn't that the rule? OK, so we asked the young man, who was a summer hire, at Hasselbacken where we could get a good grilled Bratwurst. After a few minutes of discussion, we were sent off on our merry way to go find some food (probably not a grilled bratwurst since we didn't get a warm-n-fuzzy from him that we could find a grilled Brat in the town). Oh yeah, we were told by the young man to come back prior to closing time (2:30pm) if we wanted to pick up some good sausages for our ride back to Oslo. Copy all, we will be back!!

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you where we are....here is a small clue.

OK, so you want me to be more specific...here ya go....

So, on our way out to go find some grub we run into a marching band. They were playing American music, so the obvious first guess is that they are from the States. Wrong....some locals pretending to be Americans, it was a little strange, but entertaining.

After some walking around to find a place to eat lunch we finally settled on a place to eat. (Note to self: Need to spend less time walking around before making the final decision...I have a bad habit of doing that, but was better this time around). It was a restaurant called the "Cattlemans". Food was OK, but not great. I must say that in my biased opinion the U.S. has the best tasting beef. And I would much rather cook out on the balcony to begin with, food just tastes better that way.

After lunch we begin our trek back to the food market and get sidetracked. What the heck...is it parade day in Sweden or what???? Along comes this gaggle of folks, working up a sweat and putting on a good show on a hot, hot day.

Click on the play button below to watch a short clip....

Couldn't resist taking picture of this sweet girl, not sure if the others are her sisters but they all were very subdued and probably wondering why Momma had put them in their native costumes on such a hot day.

And here is the Man of the Hour!!! He saved me from taking a long trip home empty handed. We got so caught up in the parade that we lost track of time. As we headed back to the food market I looked at my cell phone to see that the time was...Yikes! It was 2:35pm, five minutes after the sausage man said he was closing up for the day. Fortunately, he was still there and graciously hooked us up with some sausages. Not only that, but he went out of his way to vacuum pack the sausages, get some ice to pack them in and threw in a jar of mustard (free) to boot. Now that is what I call service. Thanks a million!

For those of you wondering about the coconut, here's your answer. It was a promo thing thought up by these entrepreneurs. Basically, find the coconut, bring it back to this stand and receive your nice, cool refreshing drink. Oh yeah, then fill out this form so we can fill your mailbox with loads of junk mail. Needless to say we didn't participate, but thought the guy sitting on the beach chair deserved every bit of junk mail he was going to get. I mean, check out that outfit...you deserve all that stuff after making us all suffer through your visually, dizzying patterns of outer wear.

Never a dull moment in this town. Iron Maiden was in Goteborg, and so were about a gazillion of their fans, both old and young. (BTW, a 70's rock band for those of you who don't' know). Anyway, here's just a few snaps of the "show" before the show.

Maiden Rules!!!!!

Well, we had about as much excitement as we could handle for one day. Plus, we had a long drive ahead of us. Luckily for us, it was a nice ride home, to include a gorgeous sunset.

OOPS...forgot the most important thing....Success!!!!