Capturing the Moment

  Endless ice formations. It is like nature's personal ice sculpture garden. Exploring ancient chunks of ice, once part of the giant Columbia Glacier, now stranded and slowly melting on this rocky moraine. Michelle, posing in front of our boat, while surrounded by beautiful natural works of art. Our boat, dwarfed by the towering ice. I climbed ontop of a stranded iceberg to get this angled shot of my group. Team extreme for our shorewalk among the ice garden. The tide was so low that we were finding sea stars and sunflower stars on our walk. Beautiful red version of a sunflower sea star. Michelle, using a beautiful ice sculpture as a temporary arm rest. Panorama of the ice-choked fjord leading to Columbia glacier. No boats are going to get through this for awhile. Our stranded ice sculptures all came from the Columbia glacier. This was my artsy shots from our walk. I shot this under and through an iceberg with a big arch in it, framing the ice beyond. There was all kinds of formati...

  Sunset colors light up some of Bergen's old quarter near the waterfront. A modern piece of art accentuates the scene, with the sunset colors wrapping around it. Our hotel, the Opus XVI, is in the building to the right. Architecture from the Hanseatic German traders dating back centuries. This network of German traders spread all across Central and Northern Europe as far back as the 1100's. Bergen was one of their oversea offices in Norway. There are several ways that travelers can get to Bergen, Norway. You can fly, or drive, but there is another way that is hands down the best, taking a scenic ferry ride through the fjords from Flam. It is a very relaxing five hour journey on mirrorlike water, past towering cliffs, rushing waterfalls, and tiny villages. The scenery is nonstop. It almost feels like entering a painters canvas. Not to mention we enjoyed a few glasses of wine from the onboard food shop and ended up sitting next to a famous movie actress, Jodi Foster. Pulling up ...

  Hiking through Norway's Sognefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site. After taking one of the world's most scenic train rides to Flam, we kept traveling farther along the shores of Norway's famous fjord lands. We drove past waterfalls and viking rowboats, past the factory where the penny-loafer shoe was invented, into a little valley village called Aurland. Here is where we found our little boutique farm hotel called Aurland 29/2. The stand alone one bedroom suites were surrounded by a big vegetable garden, wood fired hot tubs, beautiful flowers, and horse fields. On one side a famous fly-fishing river flowed by, while sheer cliffs towered over us on the other side. The meals here were noteworthy. Most of the food, from the fish, to the meat, to the vegetables, were all sourced locally. You could go watch the chef picking veggies out in the garden. The neighbor's farm seemed to be a good supplier of chicken and eggs. The chefs did a great job preparing multi-course dinner...