Above the Arctic Circle

We're in Kiruna, Sweden right now, above the Arctic Circle.  A town of 23,000 people whose tourist information specifically mentions and even highlights, "It is actually possible to arrive in Kiruna without a stitch of clothing and get fully equipped for both winter and summer activities."  Let the record show that we did not test this theory, nor did we notice any passengers on Monday's flight from Stockholm testing it.

Instead, what we did yesterday was go for a long drive.  A much longer drive than we intended. So long that we didn't return until after sunset.  There's a national park close to here that we wanted to see, and we decided to let the local cachers be our guide -- in other words, we knew the general route and we stopped to grab a few caches that looked interesting.  The terrain was fantastic and unexpected -- lots of lakes and rivers, mountains with some snowpacks/glaciers, a variety of trees and ferns and other plants -- and we had clear blue skies, though unfortunately too many mosquitoes (note: REI's insect repelling shirt works!)!  We'd been expecting more tundra and marshes, like we'd seen in Barrow, Alaska, 10 years ago (a few degrees north of here).  Yes, we remembered the camera, though we probably didn't use it enough.

After seeing the national park and resisting the urge to golf at the northernmost 9-hole course in the world, we looked at a map and decided we should get north of the 69th parallel (read, find a cache north of 69 degrees).  That would mean going to Norway.  We checked the rental car contract and it prohibits going to Eastern Europe and Africa so we take that as tacit permission to drive it in Norway.  The weather and terrain changed instantly.  Clouds were blowing in, the temperature dropped, and instead of lush green hills it became harsh rocks, and suddenly we were above the treeline.  Sort of makes sense that the border ended up at this abrupt change. We ended up on the west coast of Norway, driving along a fjord (yes, back down to sea level with plenty of flora).  And for the first and only time of the drive, we noticed some small farms and a couple of horses.

We finally reached 69 North and found a cache.  Hmmm, let's look at the map. Uh oh, the map doesn't go that far north, and we can't see the roads if we're zoomed out far enough on the GPS to see the big picture.  It looks like there's a shortcut if we return by way of Finland.  Sure, why not. Turned out we were on the "Northern Lights Route" which goes through all 3 countries, and it seemed like a really good idea at the time, which was about 5pm.  Let's make sure that we have a full gas tank and then look for dinner.  Oops, we did too good a job of spending all of our Norwegian kroner before leaving the country, so wherever we go either has to take credit or the cash we do have: Swedish kroner, Euros, and dollars. Fortunately the gas station took credit, and we wisely bought some munchies. Unfortunately, we didn't see any dinner options, let alone any that could accept our payment.

There was another terrain change at the Finland border.  The first thing we noticed were 2 reindeer.  Then we noticed that the mountains weren't quite as tall, and there were lots of lakes and marshes.  We found one cache in Finland....and saw 2 reindeer at the cache site.  They were looking at us and we were looking at them, then they bounded away.

But now the GPS says our estimated arrival time back at the hotel is 12:32am. Yikes. Oh wait, Finland is 1 hour ahead and the GPS adjusted, so we'll be back well before midnight. But that meant it was nearing 9pm Finland time, and all dinner options we see closed at 8.  We did get to see a small part of a rainbow, though the skies above us were clear.  That made it puzzling when our windshield looked and sounded like we were going through rain....until we realized that we were doing our part to reduce the insect population of Northern Finland.

We returned uneventfully to Sweden.  Just over the border we found a small town's tiny general store that sold groceries/hardware/fishiing gear, and a clerk who didn't appear to speak any English.  We made it in and out of the store 15 minutes before they closed. Then just before 10:30 we saw brilliant pinks in the sky above a lake and quickly stopped to take pictures of the gorgeous sunset.

Yes, we made it back to the hotel before midnight.  And with that, we will sign off because it's nearly 10pm so it's time to go look at today's sunset.