What a Puffin looks like

A very scary bridge

The sign that says it's a 56 minute hike up the mountain

BIRD MOUNTAIN, RUNDE, NORWAY

The west coast of Norway is dotted with thousands of islands. Somewhere along the coast is a place called Bird Mountain, located at the town of Runde. The drive from Aalesund included a ferry ride that was my first time ever driving a car onto a ferry! We went to the little cafeteria for svele (small pancakes with butter and sugar) and coffee while we traveled across the fjord.

I have posted a picture of (one of) the scariest bridges I have ever had the pleasure of driving on. It was only a ONE LANE bridge for TWO WAY traffic!! You had to look across from one end to the other to see if any traffic as coming. If not, you could proceed. At the top/middle, it opened up to two lanes so you could see if anyone was coming before you start down the other half. Very scary, but totally worth the anxiety! On the far side of that bridge was one of the most beautiful places I've seen in nature.

Being from a relatively, no, REALLY flat area, mountains always fascinate me. This particular mountain is very well known among bird watchers because of the Puffins that live there in large numbers during June and July. The terrain of the mountain is just amazing with steep, craggy cliffs that drop to the North Sea. Mari and her friends Christina and Alicia went with me. Even the 17-year-olds who thought it would be lame and were just going to get out of the house had a good time and said it was very cool! It's gotta be good to impress a teenager, right?? The climb was ROUGH at first. I started thinking things like, "I'm in decent shape. I exercise at home. I bet it's the altitude that's got me huffing and puffing so much." Then I think, "This ain't Everest, Telisa!" Thankfully, the climb levelled out after about 30 minutes. Again, it was totally worth the hard work. The scenery was just gorgeous and we saw a TON of Puffins! Even the teenagers were excited when we saw them :) The path grew more and more narrow as we ascended and I had a few moments when I was glad I have seen every episode of Man Vs. Wild with Bear Grylls.

I have to tell you that I had a bit of fun with the girls when we came off the mountain. We were all pretty tired when we got back to the car. Even walking down a mountain is a workout. As we were about to get in the car, I started frantically checking my pockets for the keys. I acted like I couldn't find them. They didn't panic at first but then I told them about how I had taken them out of my pocket trying to find my camera at the VERY TOP of the mountain. I seriously thought Mari and Alicia were going to cry. It was great!!