The Snow Grotto and Violent Attempts to Make You Appreciate Nature

Day 13

Eidfjord, Norway

Terrye bring your camera, I whispered.

As though speaking aloud would take away the mountains that shot straight out of the water. As though speaking aloud would make the fog wake up and walk away. As though the world is only magic when it’s silent.

The trees were only just starting to change. The dark green leaves of summer fading to the beginnings of yellow. Of orange. Tumbling down the steep mountainsides and nearly tripping into the North Sea. Misty white and grey cotton candy fog velcroed to the trees.

I know. I saw, Terrye said. Her breath thick with wonder, stuck in her throat.

Homes were perched in places I wouldn’t want to carry groceries to, but were beautiful nonetheless. I’d live here, I thought. I’d climb that peak and that one over there. I’d bag them all. It’s the top of the world up there. God’s country.

Reverence.

Mom and Aunt Janet and I tugged up our bathing suits and then covered up with the snow white robe and the little matching slippers that were in our closets. Except I’d grabbed a mismatched pair so I had one slipper that actually fit and another that was way too big and fell off my foot with every step so it took forever to get around.

We went down to the spa on floor 2 and settled into the sauna. Once we were roasty-toasty warm and starting to sweat, we got out and hesitated at the cold water dunking pool. But we all fell in one at a time, quite ungracefully, and came up gasping and goose-bumpy and flung ourselves back on shore. We sat shivering and grinning in the sauna again. And once we were roasty-toasty warm and starting to sweat, we put on some non-slip slippers and went across the way to the snow grotto. It was as cold as you’d expect. I rubbed some snow on my arms and legs and Mom and Aunt Janet sat on freezing stone seats covered with snowy towels so their butts didn’t freeze to the stones like Flick’s tongue in A Christmas Story.

From there, we stepped down into a hot tub as big as the footprint of my house. One area had hot bubbly water pushing so hard, we could drag ourselves to the end and let go and the water would shoot us halfway across the hot tub. There were ladies napping in fancy bed things across the way, but we couldn’t keep from little screams of delight as we shot ourselves around again and again. We discovered a whole system of tubes stretched across the other end in such a way that they created lounge chairs. The bubbles and heat came right through the gaps in the tubes and it was the most glorious thing imaginable.

It was all so exciting, we were worn out.

Why didn’t we discover this on day one, Mom bemoaned.

Yeah pre-cast, Aunt Terrye could’ve enjoyed it too, I agreed.

Her poor body was covered in deep black decorations. She had a triangle from her mid-back down to each hip that was the kind of purple you’d wear to a wedding. A giant black oval covering half her left outer thigh, a black spot behind her shoulder and one down the whole back of one arm. Out of habit, she kept trying to use her broken arm. So she’d fashioned a sling out of every fancy scarf both she and Aunt Janet brought along on the trip to force herself to stop using it. Creative Accessories for the Invalid.

A lifeboat had been lowered and the ‘tender’ brought groups of people to shore. We hopped in and imagined the Complete Destruction of the Cruise Ship and rocky-rocky seas while we were safe inside that thing.

I bet we’d be safe even if it flipped upside down, Mom said.

Oh my god, yes, I said.

But five minutes later, past small amounts of perfectly calm water, we arrived at the dock.

There were waterfalls a million feet up in happy canyons. Treeless moorlands with pools and rivers. Two fjords with water clear and cold. Small trees lived in little yards, boughs hanging heavy with big yummy apples. I walked for half an hour on a little path to the edge of town and took photos of the boat. It was something like 13 stories tall, but was barely a dusty speck in front of the giant mountains just behind. Rose hips – bright red and half the size of my fist, ready for drying and wintertime tea. I could imagine ten thousand reindeer hiking the trails up there. So far away was my mind that I slipped on a wet rock and tumbled down a small embankment. I sat there for a minute feeling sorry for myself and then headed back through the mist to rejoin the crew.

I peed on the side of the road in a little grove of trees and wished I were on my bicycle. Touring through this beautiful land for days. Mercedes dump trucks passed by and I remembered that Mom said she hadn’t noticed any beater cars this entire trip. Maybe one or two with some rust, but most were new and well-kept.

Once I found everybody, we found a spot to watch the waterfalls while I had some real hot chocolate with a mystery cream on top that could’ve been made from reindeer milk for all I knew. But it was amazing and I couldn’t make myself drink it slowly. And then mom bought me a grey felt hat with red trim, decorated with a few yarn snowflakes on the side. And I wore it around feeling all Norway-authentic and imagined glaciers scrub-scrub-scrubbing the mountains around until they were all smooth and shiny. There was a whole row of trees that had been yarn-bombed with intricate far-too-difficult designs. Trees wrapped with knitted blankets and dotted with butterflies and birds and flowers and others with regular but still hard-to-do designs. Even a kid’s bicycle leaned against a tree – each piece of the bike carefully covered in knitting. Even its little basket on the front. Maybe they’ll make their way back to The Little Mermaid too.

A bus took us to the Nature Center where goats grazed on the roof. People here live on  agriculture, farming, tourists, and a hydroelectric power plant. They say ‘grazing’ like ‘grassing’, which makes total sense, and everybody had cows and goats and sheep. We went in the Nature Center and half-slept through an old movie that showed on three old giant screens. The video was shot from a helicopter, swooping and curving around and generally trying to make you sick to your stomach. And basically all the animals in the movie were slaughtered. Lemmings killed and eaten by hawks. Fish desperately trying to get off a line but caught and gutted. Reindeer minding their own business and getting shot by some bastard hiding behind a tree. Violent Attempts to Make You Appreciate Nature.

The ladies had wine with dinner and then Aunt Janet got a hankering to play a piano somewhere. We searched around the boat but couldn’t find one that wouldn’t include an audience. She’d spent so much time memorizing a piece, but was too shy to play to a crowd.

Finally she found an electric piano that wasn’t plugged in, so she played that silently and we all clapped a lot and got the whole thing on video.

We kissed the view goodnight and I had so much to dream about, I was in a hurry to get started. I breathed in for three and out for five, and it didn’t take long for my dream adventures to cue up.

And the snow grotto and the views and All The Nature and the tender and the walk in the mist and the adventure and the Life in the Air and I wondered how anything could be more wonderful than Eidfjord.