As I drove through a thick Norwegian fog the other day I thought of the Hollywood image of heaven where people walk on top of clouds. Being in a cloud is the antithesis of my view of heaven where we hang out with people we love who predeceased us.

Being in the cloud is isolating, frightening; you cannot find things that comfort although they might appear and again disappear without your control. Maybe hell is in a cloud, shrouding people from knowing where they are and who or what will appear. Removing control and holding understanding just barely beyond comprehension, leaving us forever striving to comprehend as the wariness presses down.

But for me hell quickly evaporated as I drove into a tunnel where it appears Satan doesn’t spread his disquieting fog.

I always enjoy folk museums, and the Norsk Folkemuseum was extensive with clusters of buildings depicting life in different eras and places.

A highlight was seeing the stave church from Gol. It was very similar to the Borgund stave church we saw a few days ago, but a little bigger and more ornate. In talking to the docent I learned that it was so deteriorated by 1884 when it was moved to Bigdøy, a peninsula owned by the King and adjacent to downtown Oslo, that they only moved the best preserved pieces, primarily the inner structure and staves. The current church is only 1/3 original. In reconstructing the church at Bigdøy, they copied the Borgund church to construct the outer walkway and roof. However the interior is almost entirely original. Inside, the twelve staves are painted with black swirling designs in lime wash and are topped with masks, which they believe represent the apostles. The log walls and ceiling of the semicircular apse where the priest would have been were covered in paintings from 1652. Like the Borgund church, benches for the elderly lined the walls in the nave where the congregation stood, but here the benches had a line routed near the edge, and the indentation was painted black. Similarly, a routed black line ran along the centers of the St. Andrew’s crosses which added strength between the staves. When they moved the church in the 1880s they removed the pulpit and windows which had been added after the reformation, because they wanted to return the church to its original condition. However they left the paintings.

Ornate carvings in the wood surrounding the three doors into the nave depicted interlocking lines reminiscent of Celtic patterns, and also an image of what looked like the Scot’s pagan Green Man. The docent said that the Norsk pre-Christian pantheon included a god like the Celtic Green Man.

Another highlight for me was to see Norwegian homes from the 1700s. They were log houses with a sheltering porch or outer door. We saw barns where the farm animals would have spent the winters, and kitchen gardens where the family would have grown vegetables. We saw store houses where food was saved for the winter. We saw a dairy building where cheese was made and small houses for loggers. We know in the 1700s our ancestors lived in rural Aust-Agder, and at least some were farmers or cotters. These log houses would have been familiar to them.

Itineraries are packed with sites to see, fun and sometimes exciting activities to experience, and interesting modes of travel: hiking, scenic railway, gondola, biking, skiing. In planning a vacation my hours and days are dedicated to learning the possibilities for sites and experiences we can enjoy in this new place. I discover museums, parks, local favorites. I learn about buses, subways, trains, and local driving tips. I reserve hotels and apartments. Plan our driving, train, and bus routes. Each city on our trip gets a custom booklet of sites and experiences which will likely pique the interest of my individual family members.

Traveling with my husband and daughters has always been a wonderful experience with a balance of old buildings, like castle ruins to explore, scenic places, and museums where we all enjoy learning about the culture and history of the place.

Traveling with my mother in Norway has been a new and equally enjoyable experience in travel for me. I still did the pre-trip research and made the individual city booklets, but each day is relaxed and none of the sites on the itinerary have been must-sees. Each day At times I found I needed to reflect about why I felt strongly about visiting a site before I gently let go and no longer regretted missing it. The most important vacation experience is enjoying time with family and sharing new experiences with them.

These four weeks in Norway with my mother have brought a rediscovery that hanging out with family is more valuable than any museum. Together we have visited medieval stave churches, Viking ships, farms, fjords, homes from the 1700s, and snowy mountain tops. We have driven across the snowy top of the world and up the steep sides of a fjord. And we have enjoyed hanging out in our comfortable apartments playing gin rummy and Yatzy. I have crocheted and learned basics of the ancient art of nålbindning. Norwegians knit, but as a beginner who is still learning to make even rows of knits and perls, I chose to bring my well used crochet hook instead. My mom bought me a book on nålbindning at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, and I’m enjoying learning to make a hat. I bought 2-ply red and dark gray yarn which I use together forming a thicker yarn.

We have slept in, talked, and laughed together in our apartments over these four weeks in Norway. So while I didn’t check off every museum and site on the itinerary, I haven’t missed a thing. Hanging out with my Mom has been a pleasure.