Sweden Road Trip 2006- Day 11

Well, we did not get a blizzard as we were told to expect, but the weather is far from perfect. It sounds as though some parts of Sweden were hit harder then others. We just had ice and a lot of wind. Stockholm and Uppsala had lots of snow. They were talking on the Radio of the night trains that got stopped in Gävle. They were told before they went to bed that they would be delayed for a couple of hours, and then when they woke up 8 hours later, they had not moved an inch. Plus they did not move for several more hours.

This has put us in a dilemma which we need to consider carefully what we will be doing. We really have three options. The first option is to continue as we have planned. We head up to tonight’s hostel and hike the national park. This is the option that we want to do, but we do not really have the cold weather gear (with the exception of M) and we have no idea what the roads are like to the national park. Option two is that we can find an alternative place to stay tonight on the way. Maybe something that we had not planned on at first, but that will be a nice alternative. This is a good option, but there is not much on the way that we want to see and do. The last option is to go directly to Örebro today and just take a couple of relax days rather then just one. The problem with this one is that it is boring and it is kind of cutting our holidays a little short, which is sad.

We go with option number three. It is the most logical of the three options, and we are logical people for the most part (most people would argue that it is not logical to take the trip that we have taken during this time of year, but that is not the point). It is only 224 km to Örebro from Tröllhatten, so we have plenty of time and zero stress to get there. It is not like anyone there is expecting up at a certain time or anything. We decided to start the day by exploring Tröllhatten a little. We go by the hydropower plant first. This was the first one that was built in Sweden and it is still in use. M had studied it at the university, so she really wanted to see it. They had an activity centre and some nice walks around. We did not do them through, way too cold. Next stop was the Saab car factory. They have a little museum there that has the very first Saab and the most recent (with several in between). The other museum of interest was the canal museum. Sadly, this museum is only open in the summers. So instead of going to the museum, we went to the canals and had a look. They are very impressive. M got to watch a boat go through one of them, I was too cold to stick around. We also drove by the movie studios. I was not overly impressed with the ones in Hollywood, Trollywood is not going to impress me much either.

Sadly, we had lunch at McDonalds. As much as it is possible, we try to avoid McDonalds. Today it did not seam as though we had much of a choice. N needed to eat and it was the only thing around. They did have a great climbing wall for kids. The grips were soft and in the shape of fish. I could see doing it in N’s room (she has an underwater theme in her room and she is a climber).

The roads were not great, so it took a little longer then one would expect. We only took two more stops before we reached Örebro. The first was in Linköping. They had a Höganas factory store there. They basically had the same stuff that the other Höganas shops had. Of course we did buy stuff as well. The other stop was just along the road on the Göta Canal. I have no idea what the name of the town was, but it was a beautiful little stop; this being especially true with the ice and the snow. At about 5:30 we arrived at the In-Laws house.

For the most part, the trip is over. At least the exciting part of the trip is over. I think that the next Sweden road trip that we do will be around Vättern. That is the largest lake in Sweden and the one that we have been traveling on the last couple of days. A 10 day trip around it sounds about perfect. Though when we do that trip, it will need to be in the summer or maybe late spring.