“What are we doing tomorrow, Lindsey?”

“Well, I agreed to do a video shoot up in Norway.  Do you want to come or would you rather relax for the day?”

Duh!

No sooner was the Stockholm show over than the three of us were whisked out of the building into a waiting car which took us to a hotel by the airport.  (Lindsey didn’t even get the chance to see her fans afterwards, which she always enjoys.)  Apparently, Lindsey was under instructions to get a good night’s rest.  The next day was to be an exhausting one.  As it was we only got a few hours’ sleep at the hotel before we had to catch a shuttle to the airport before dawn.  There we bumped around before we found our check in gate at desk 7/8, which was very much like Harry Potter’s platform nine and three quarters.  It didn’t exist.  We did eventually find our flight agent and the pilot waiting for us.  They greeted us, took our bags and hustled past security and then escorted us to our aircraft – a Citation Bravo, waiting on a distant corner of the airfield.  There are certain advantages to flying on a private jet – the first being that if you happen to be late the plane will generally not take off without you.

Other perks are equally awesome.  There were three passengers on the plane – Lindsey, Diane and I — in addition to the pilot and the co-pilot (who also served as the stewardess).  So there was plenty of leg room and arm room.  There was also an entire basket of chocolates and plenty of non-alcoholic stuff to drink.  Best of all, I left my bag in the aisle, (not, I point out safely stowed under the seat in front of me).  And no one came around at take-off and told me to unrecline my seat or return my tray to its full, upright position.  It was way cool!

As we lifted off from the runway I also realized this was to be one of the smoothest flights I ever took.  The trip northwest to the coast of Norway was to last about an hour and a half.  It was an incredible leap over almost 500 miles of semi-wilderness terrain.

When we arrived in Alesund above the 60^th parallel it was still dark.  But as we disembarked, there was already a car parked beside the plane waiting for us.  From the driver’s seat stepped a big, blond-haired Norwegian, Havard.  Little did we know, Havard was not only our driver and guide through this excursion, but our protector as well.

He took our bags and tucked them into the trunk and then offered us breakfast – yogurt, fruit and granola bars he’s picked up before he arrived.  He apologized for not providing us with a warm meal, but explained that he had three and a half hours of driving to do and we had to hurry.  We drove from the Alesund Airport and from craggy island to island through several subterranean tunnels, frequently going underground (and under water) for several minutes at a time, until we finally emerged into the light of day and our long, beautiful drive through the fjords of Norway.  It was the most pristine, breathtaking journey of my life, weaving in and out of the narrow glacial inlets, dwarfed by steep cliffs towering above us.  The forbidding magnificence of the scenery was accented by the deep blue water which stretched before us for miles, accented by the mountain walls of rich, lush greenery.

We stopped in a tiny village on the Sunnylvsfjord to catch a small ferry to the other side. Havard invited me to climb from the truck and gave me a tour of the ferry and a panorama of the fjord from the bow of the boat.  It was absolutely freezing.  There was a harsh barrier which protected this splendor from the abuse of men and the twenty-first century.  The landscape grew all the more breathtaking to me.

We drove about a half hour more, through the hills and beyond the line of verdant foliage, where the stark mountains and patches of ice and snow gave the setting another kind of beauty.  We wound down into a deep valley to the town of Geiranger, and then up into the mountains on the other side.  Finally we reached the top and parked where the film crew waited.

We expected it to be cold.  We knew the temperature was below zero.  What we did not expect was the 30-40 mph winds which pelted us as we opened the car doors.  This was a day on a mountain top which would never be forgotten.

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