How to get an upgrade without paying?

Vi sitter på flyplassen med boarding-pass på bissniss. Det som skjedde var følgende:

• Vi startet innsjekking på vanlig måte over internett på hotellet.
• Plutselig får vi tilbud om å kjøpe oppgradering til kr 2294,-
  Oh jess! 
• Sidsel var i tvil om tilbudet gjalt oss begge eller bare henne som går der å breier seg med Flying Blue Silver Frequent Flyer medlemskort.
• Derfor kjøpte vi oppgradering til meg først og sjekket inn
• Da vi skulle sjekke inn Sidsel fikk vi ikke det samme tilbudet om igjen.
• Vi prøvde å ringe KLM Norge, Nederland og på Dulles, men de kunne ikke gjøre noe med saken. Jeg hadde sete foran og hun laaaangt bak.
• Det eneste vi kunne gjøre var å ta saken opp når vi sjekket inn fikk vi beskjed om.
• De begynte å forklare oss at det var fullt foran.
• Da sa jeg "OK. Skaff oss plass sammen bak på økonomi, så er det greit, men da jeg vil da bestride regningen fra MasterCard for min oppgradering. Vi skal sitte sammen og Sidsel  må ha plass ut mot midtgangen. Ondt både her og der vet du. Særlig i dag.
• Så gikk det lang tid (10 min) og så var det blitt plass foran likevel.
  No extra charge. To bissniss for prisen av en billig oppgradering.

Ikke verst ?

That's it

Trip is finished.
There will no more posts in this blog, with a possible exception of some pictures from Tønsberg (Osebergskipet) in a few days.

15. June Nordic Heritage Museum in Old Ballard(Seattle)

 

 Some pictures from the unique museum can be found 
below. (But why is the Swedish flag bigger than the Norwegian?)

14. June in Edmonds

Spending the day with Sidsel's relatives in Edmunds. We had tickets for a tour in the Boeing factory. We saw the assembly line for Boeing 747, 777 and 787 (DreamLiner). Price: from 270 - 330 million dollars. You need to book months in advance to get tickets. No cameras were allowed inside the factory, but in the museum outside it was OK.

13. June Driving from Nampa to Edmonds /Seattle

First a warm tank you to Terje and Valerie for taking good care of us. We look forward to seeing you in Norway in August. The drive through Oregon and Washington was nice, but the weather changed and it became cooler. We are sad to have to return the car tomorrow before flying back to Washington DC. Then Sidsel will go to the dentist on Monday, and we will be on our way back to Oslo soon.


Here are just a few things we saw from the road. Mnt Rainer and Mnt St Helens were    covered in clouds, but we saw Mnt Adams from a distance.

12. June Nampa, spending time with the family

We went to visit the Snake River Birds of Prey Conservation Area. We saw no eagles, but took a number of pictures of the beautiful valley. I could not decide what pictures to select for upload, so I give you all of them. 

This is how QuickPic shows the overview of today's pictures.

10.June Silver City

Silver City is a mining town outside Boise. The gold rush here ended about 1890 and the town slowly diminished. Now more people are using it for recreation , fixng the old houses, but it is till pretty much a gohst town.

Pictures will be uploaded later.

09.June in Nampa

Spending time with the family. Took very few pictures today. Saw Boise and the surroundings.

Sorry no pictures uploaded today.

08. June From Yellowstone to Nampa

Today passing the large plains of Idaho. Colours and shapes changing all the time, and we had a few hours stop at the Crater of the moon. Then arrived at Terje and Valerie's in Nampa around 8.

07.June Yellowstone day 4, - Going to the zooo

This park is a regular zoo. First we had a nice walk for 2 hours, and when we returned from the woods, we saw the sign: "You are now entering bear country. Be sure to make a lot of noise and bring your bearspray." Afterwards wnen driving, we saw pronghorns, deer, elk, osprey (and many other large birds), lots of bison, Rocky Mountain sheep and cinamon bear and black bear, squirrels, chipmunks and a badger.

06. June Yellowstone day 3, - A cold ride

 We took a riding tour in Blacktail Deer Creek Valley. It started out with snow, strong winds and 37 degrees (+ 2 c). Sidsel spotted a wolf as we passed over a 7300 feet (2300 m) plain. Of all the things I did not expect in the Rocky Mountains, a restaurant called The Lighthouse the most unexpected.

05. June Yellowstone, day 2 - Geysirs

 Today we saw more geysirs and hot springs than I knew existed. 

04. June Yellowstone National park

The animals did their job. 5 minutes after entering the park we spotted the first buffaloes.  And then every 90 minutes (on average) Old Faithful has an eruption.

03. June Driving north from Bryce to Ashton

We have been driving all day. The car is wonderful. Not many beautiful pictures today, but we have studied the irrigation systems.  For us Norwegians  they are fascinating, huge and makes circular green acres.

02. June Bryce Canyon

We started the day with a horse ride through the woods and out on the rim of the canyon which has an elevation of 8000 feet above sea level. This canyon is no where as big as the Grand Canyon, but even more spectacular when it comes to colours and shapes.

01. June From Grand Canyon to Bryce Canyon

The drive was a never ending series of surpries as the landscape changed from forrest to sand deserts, past enormous canyons through sand/clay deserts. Then as we started to clibm up to 7500 (2400 meters) feet above sea level, there was grass, trees and rivers. We passed Zion National Park and ended up in Tropic just outside Bryce Canyon.

31. May Grand Canyon

June 01: Update. Added pictures. We saw Elk, deer, raven, vultures and different small animals. But most of all we saw mountains in sunrise and mountains in sunset.


May 31. : We have been on a Sunrise Tour (got up at 4:00), been for a long walk and taken the bus about a mile to get to the Park Center. The Wi-Fi is a little bit better here, but picture upload is still impossible. We will see what we can do tomorrow from Bryce Canyon.

30. May The Arizona desert

June 01: Updated with pictures.

May 30: We drove from Las Vegas, over the Hoover Dam, through the deserts and over the mountains to Grand Canyon, The interntet connection here is so slow we will have to wait with furter uploads.

29. May Las Vegas

This building (The Flamingo Hilton Hotel) needs a special comment:
In 1991, my company had a contract for the automation of all garbage handling systems on the world's largest cruice ship Sovereign of the Seas. Since a cruice ship is nothing but a floating hotel, this led to a job for automation of the garbage systems in Flamingo Hilton as well. I did the programming, and went over in the middle of the summer to stay one week for commissioning. The leftovers and other kitchen garbage is ground to a pulp and pumped to another building 0.5 miles down the road, where the water is extracted and the rest is transported on trucks to incinerators somewhere. When I got there, the first thing they had to do was to dig a big hole in the street to fix a blocked pipe. Then a lot of the cables turned out to have been wired incorrectly. We had to cancel the holiday in Finland and after 5 weeks I was able to return home.

28. May Last train to Las Vegas

Even after several days on the train, we are not the least bit bored. Today we went from Emeryville to Bakersfield by train and to Las Vegas by bus.

27. May San Fransisco

We were walking all day in the streets of San Fransisco. Since today is Memorial day tomorrow, and they were celebrating the 75th year old Golden Gate bridge, it was packed with people. There was aeroplanes writing congratulations in the sky and a huge bunch of sealions on the floating wharfs. We missed the fireworks.

26. May The Sierras - Emmeryville

 Another day on the train. As soon as we crossed the Californian border, it started raining. Sunny California did not turn out quite as we had expected.

Some comments overheard

........   yeah,sure, theyv'e got mountains over there
.........  oh yeah, the Sierras
......... if it's ten thirty, this gotta be Reno
....... then I asked him: how are you suppoesd to keep the terrorists from taking over our trains if you only select passengers at random for security checks. Well I sure hope you select the right persons!
..... then after about a year you can take her to the Temple

..... sure I can box it up for you, and would you need some silverware too? ... plastic silverware (box er det samme som en doggybag)

Litt om kommentarer og tekniske ting

Takk til alle som leser det vi skriver om. I dag slo vi den forrige rekorden som var på 30 page-views pr dag. Den spratt rett opp i 52! Jeg tror de er fordi det er helg og folk sitter å kjeder seg litt.

Det kommer inn enkelte kommentarer, og jeg er glad for å kunne si at de aller fleste er positive. Ikke en kritisk røst før i dag. Kristian etterlyser facts om hestekrefter og bilmerker. Jeg bøyer meg i støvet og tar selvkritikk for å ha glemt å notere ned slike vitale fakta, men for meg ble sletta rett og slett for stor. Tenkte ikke på å gi gass. Vi var mer opptatt av naturfenomenet enn av hestekreftene.

Jeg har ved flere anledninger forsøkt å svare på ommentarene. Det faller ikke like heldig ut bestandig. Noen ganger dukker svaret opp 2 ganger. En annen gang klarte jeg å få slettet hele kommentaren. Jeg jobber stadig med å forbedre teknikken og har funnet ut hvis jeg skriver svar på kommentarene mens jeg er logget inn for å redigere, skjer de ofte at nettleseren henger seg opp og det kan føre til en masse kvalm.

Etter å ha kjøpt en USB/SD-card adapter, klate jeg å overføre video i MOV-format. (Hvis du ikke vet hvem MOV-format er, kan du hoppe videre til neste avsnitt) Padden spiller filene prikkfritt og Google Blogger godtok at jeg lastet opp en snutt i gårsdagens innlegg. Men når jeg ser på innlegget med Google Chrome eller ASUS nettleser, har ikke padden noen plu-in for å vise videoen.

Jeg ville derfor gerne spørre alle dere trofaste lesere om dere kan spille av gårdagens video fra orgel-øvelsen, og gi litt info om hva slags PC/pad og nettleser det funker eller ikke funker på. Hvis noen i tillegg skulle ha et tips om hvordan jeg kn gjøre dette bedre ville det være helt supert.

25. May at Salt Flats

                 "A day at the beach"  ...... but where is the water. 
After getting several advices from friendly people in the city, we decided to rent a car and drive the 117 miles to the Bonneville Flats. Some 32 000 years ago (  Lake Bonneville  ).  This was the most spectcular day on the trip so far. And thanks to the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo we got our best meal so far in the US. Greetings to Natalie (who served us)  and her grandmother (who is from Norway)

24. May Salt Lake Ci

Top of the Mormon Temple


May 26: Updated.
The city is open, wide spread out, not very tall and extremely clean; and the Light Train down town is free. We were surprised by the size of the Mormon Temple (that took 40 years to buld)  and everything else, epecially the organ pipes in Tabernacle Choir building.  And the building itself - the concert hall seated 4600+.


May 25: Today no time for  writing, just added a few pictures from the City and inside the Tabernacle Choir Building.
Rehearsals from 8 to 9:30 twice a week. Everyone welcome. No fees, no tickets. The UTA light train is also free down town.

23. May from somewhwere in the Mid West to Salt Lake City

Eating, sleeping, reading and watching the magnificent view.

Svar på konkurransene

Det var mange som visste at rulledingsen heter "segway".
Hilde visste også at sitatet var fra Arlo Guthries vidunderlige "Alices Restaurant".

And with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to dump the garbage.


Nyskjerrig på hv dette hanler om?            
                           
                       Sang uten video men bra lyd

.....  eller sjekk ut hva det handler om her:

                       wiki-artikkel

22. May from Chicago to somwhere in the Mid West

This morning I only had time to upload some pictures before checking out and leaving for the Union Station. We checked in on first class (Sleeper) and the trip to Salt Lake City is going to be some 37 hours. Our train is the California Zephyr. (Zephyr was the god that brought the western winds to ancient Greece) So far, most of what we see have been unbelievably flat farmland with a few woods, rivers and swamps and deer. Then it went dark outside and we will be put to bed soon.

A few words every day

You would not think it should be very difficult to write a few words each day. It isn't, but the real problem is finding out which words to write.

21. May in Chicago

May 24: Have updated with a Norwegian text about the boat-trip and other thoughts about Chicago.


May. 22: No time for writing now. Just uploading pictures. Will put in text later.  

20. May Norway to Chicago

 After a walk in the Buffalo Rock park in Ottawa, Norway was revisited, and then driving to Chicago. The rental car was returned, and then down-town by train to the hotel. It ended with food and music at Andy's.

19. May Driving to Norway IL

The towns over here have all kinds of exotic names like Egypt, Lebanaon, Ottawa, Stavanger and Marseilles, but one of them seemed more familiar than the others . . . . 

Route map -test update

   Route map below (les mer ...

17. Mai in Gettysburg

What do two Norwegians do in Gettysburg on May 17? We are too few to form a parade, but luckily there was a place where we could go to feel some real togetherness. The music was a little different from what we would have heard i Norway, but ........

Washington DC

Arrived Washington DC. 29 deg C.

Engelsk og norsk

As the observant reader may have observed, each day starts with a small English text. If you click "Les mer.." the Norwegian text and the pictures turn up.

Uploading pictures from an eeePad

Very frustrating, but at last we found out how to upload pictures from the pad.
(... more in Norwegian below)

Going away on the national holyday

  
While the rest of Norway gets ready for celebration of the national day (May 17.), we will be on the plain to Washington DC. (...more in Norwegian (+ a list of places we will go to is found below)

Why make a blog?

After Sidsel has travelled a lot to Washington DC the last 3 years, we decided to make a round-trip together. We will be gone about 5 weeks and I thaught this might save us some money for postcards, stamps and phonecalls. We also had a very nice trip in Shenandoah National Park some time ago and we would like to see more of USA. (... more in Norwegian below)