Going to Gothenberg - NOT

 Friday, August 21,2026

The adventure today involves a ferry to get from the northern part of Denmark across the Baltic Sea to Gothenburg, Sweden.  I’m learning a lot about geography!  I’ve heard of the Baltic Sea but couldn’t tell you where it is—now I know!

The ferry port is in Frederikshaven, about an hour north of Aalborg where we stayed last night.

The ferry leaves at 1:45 but we were asked to be there by 12:30. We lined up with all the cars and trucks waiting to be loaded.  It’s quite a production getting everyone directed to the right place

We had our passports and ticket ready to go when the ferry officials came out and told us the ferry had been cancelled due to mechanical problems. Oh no... The next ferry wasn’t due to leave until 8:20 pm and they couldn’t guarantee that everyone would be able to be get on.  The RV group decided we were in better shape than all of the other cars, since we had drinks, food and a bathroom! On the walkie talkies you could hear: “I have wine, I have beer. I have cheese, I have crackers!"  So, we felt like the 7 hours of wait time was manageable.   But then the ferry patrol in their reflective suits came and said we had to leave the lot—they had to unload 900 people from the ferry...  So 18 rv’s took off down the road and found a parking lot next to a railroad depot big enough for everyone to fit, and we parked until plans were figured out.  Everyone kept saying, it's part of the adventure!

 I have to say this group makes the best of any situation.  We found a street of shopping and restaurants a block away, so several went wandering until plan b was developed.

It was a really cute town, that kept us busy while our tour guides were on the phone with the ferry office for over an hour and a half. 

We found plenty of shopping, a consignment store and even the police station!

Finally at 4pm our guide Nick announced the arrangements:  they could only get 7 rigs on the 8:20pm ferry; the remaining 11 would have to wait until the 11:05 pm ferry.   The ferry ride is about 3 hours, so it will make for a long night.   Two of us immediately volunteered to take the late shift, as we knew it was going to be hard for some people.  A few others chimed in, and then Nick randomly passed out the tickets to the remaining people.  Each ticket had a time stamp, so the remaining people got a surprise or disappointment. (Imagine how hard that would be for the guide to decide who gets early and who gets late shift.) Fortunately there wasn't much complaining.  The late shift hopes we get a prize!

Since we had another 7 hours to burn, Jim and I found a place to have a decent dinner, then went back to take a nap.   Our ferry isn't until 11pm, but we got in line at 8:30 so we can clinch a spot...only 1/2 day later than planned!  We were the first ones in line--2 1/2 hours to go!

While we're waiting...I'll finish up the blog for today.  Several have asked about the rv set up.  Here is a picture of my "office" (it's about the only place to sit)

And here's Jim's chair with his birthday balloon.

The bathroom has a pretty nifty set up...Behind the sink is a wall that opens up to reveal a shower!

We're adjusting to the small size and figuring out where to put things so that we can find them again.  At least we don't have to unpack and pack bags each day.

We got the signal to move forward to our loading spot, just as the bedtime reminder dinged on my clock!  It's going to be a long night!   Our tour starts at 9:30 tomorrow!

All About Aalborg

 Thursday, August 20, 2026

Today is Jim's birthday!  Another year younger. 

Our day today included a tour into the city of Aalborg, the 4th largest city in Denmark.  It was established over 1000 years ago as a trading post in the Viking days.  We rode the city bus from the campground into town.  I'm sure the bus driver wondered what was going on!

 I was amazed at both the age of the city and the charm it brought with it. 

The city is lined with cobblestone roads.  Buildings are painted in lively colors, and the streets are clean and quiet.

One house has a plaque naming everyone that has lived there since it was built in 1787! 

The oldest building in the city is a former monastery, and today is the birthday of the building, so Jim has a birthday twin (a little older though...it was built in 1431!)

It subsequently housed a hospital, school, sanitarium and mental ward, and today it is apartments.  I guess you can do a lot in 595 years!

There were beautiful murals all around the city (they call it street art). Artists are commissioned from around the world.

The city sits on sand and water and limestone, so is constantly moving.  You can tell from the buildings that maintenance is quite a challenge.

One of the main industries of the area is concrete, made with the limestone and sand in the area.

The Danish language includes two special alphabet characters that may soon be discontinued because they can't be reproduced on a standard keyboard!  Check out the O with a slash and double A which have a special pronunciation. 

There was a huge cruise ship in port.  They get only about 30 ships per year due to the shallow inlet.

We went to the rooftop overlooking the city for a great view.

I think this was one of my favorite cities yet.   There was so much to see, the people were very friendly, it was not crowded, and I got my Starbuck's mug!

And then we returned to the campground.  Jim got to go to the dump station on his birthday!  What a gift!

Ahhh…on our way to Aars and Aalborg

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

It’s 60 with light rain today and we’re getting ready for our first real taste of Denmark.  We learned that 60% of the energy in Denmark is from renewable power sources—solar and wind farms!   I also heard that people in Denmark are the happiest people in the world!  We also discovered they make fabulous Danish and cinnamon rolls—one whiff of the pastries and bread from the office this morning had us all running that direction to pick up a yummy homemade breakfast treat. (And one for tomorrow too.)

In Denmark the monetary unit is Krone.  Even though they are part of the European Union they opted not to use the euro.  When I saw our pastries were 86.00 krone, I gulped...yes, they were good, but were they that good???  I had to look it up—it only amounted to $13.  And by the way, we found out on the iPhone you can convert currency through the calculator simply by pressing the calculator button in the right corner and selecting convert and the currency. (Handy tip from our guide!)

Fuel prices are scary, especially when posted in krones. But, keep in mind, this is per litre!  

Traffic signs are also interesting.  Speed limit is 110!!  (that's kilometers, not miles per hour.)

I had to look up this sign.

Chat GPT says it means trucks and large vehicles cannot overtake and pass smaller vehicles--In other words, stay in the right lane. Sure wish they'd implement this on I70 at home!

We travelled north and stopped at the small town of Aars.  As a side note, one of the couples on this trip were married in Aars in 1991 when he was in the service and deployed in Germany.  He made a stopover here and they got married!  She is from Germany.  They were excited to revisit the area.  Our tour guides tried to set up a vow renewal or recreation of their day but the courthouse where they were married has been torn down.  They checked in at the new courthouse and got their picture taken to compare to 35 years ago.

 It was raining hard, so we didn't get to explore much of the town.  We stopped to check out the main street, (empty) had lunch at a nice restaurant and then continued on.

We headed north to our campground in Aalborg--Strand Parken Familie Camping.  It's in the northern part of Denmark.

The sun finally came out, so we were able to dry out and enjoy a nice evening.  Tomorrow will be a day for exploring and finding out more about this area.

Kamping in Krusa!

 Monday-Tuesday, August 17-18, 2026

After a good night's sleep, we woke up Monday to 60 degree weather--what a climate shock from the last 10 days of 90+ degrees!  Our group met for lunch and a briefing on the upcoming trip--The Best of Scandinavia!  It's the first time the tour company has offered this trip, so we are the "guinea pigs".  Everyone in the group has previously travelled with the company and specifically with our tour guides Nick and Kay, so we are all very confident that it will be a fantastic trip.

Our group will include 18 RV's with people from Florida, Michigan, Texas, New Hampshire, Iowa Illinois, Colorado, Virginia and South Carolina.  We are the only ones from Indiana.  6 RV's are people that were on our tour in South Africa in 2023, so it will be fun to catch up and see what everyone has been doing for the past 3 years.

Everything is very organized.  We got our name tags, our trip logs and lots of info on what to expect on the trip.  We have a few jokesters in the bunch, so it should be interesting. 

A bus arrived to pick us up and take us to DRM, the RV rental place.  

There is quite a process involved, from vehicle inspection, to registration, to signing waivers, forms, etc., signing your life away with your charge card, then education on how things work.  We were also educated on what to do in the case of an accident, as well as the rules of the road: always drive with your lights on, no right turn on red, don’t speed and always wear your seatbelt (cameras everywhere and tickets given with no questions asked!). 

We were introduced to our little rv (one of the smaller ones) and assigned #12. (The number is used for identification and communication).

Ours is a Ford chassis, diesel engine, a Forster model.  We thought we had downsized with our new motorhome, but this one is REALLY small.  Not much storage, but we’ll figure it out.

Our first stop was the grocery store just down the street from the RV depot.  We had to stock up on paper towels, napkins, water, bread, pb&j,and of course some cookies and beer!

It was a real trip trying to find things—we all had our phone apps out looking at labels to see what we were buying (was it sparkling water or still—we found you have to check—they really like sparkling water)

We were finally on our way and made a wrong turn right off the bat.  It might have been because we kept getting a warning bell about a “lift gate open” (door open)

.  The service tech warned us that it might happen and just to push “ok” on the steering wheel and clean the contacts on the door when we got to our next stop.   Well, it kept dinging and Jim kept pushing ok, which then reset the trip meter and our directions and markers were all messed up.   Aargh!  (The dinging never quit during our 85 mile drive!)

It was an easy passage into Denmark 

We arrived at Krusa Campground and announced “ #12 coming in” using walkie talkies and were directed to our “space” which was just a spot on the grass.  We ran an electrical cord to the box and we are all set up!

Our tour guides provided a pizza dinner, we had our travel briefing for Wednesday and everyone settled in for the night.  

Whew!  What a day! But a great way to spend our 31st anniversary!  Happy day to my sister with an anniversary on the same day, and Happy Bday (yesterday) to Uncle James in Tx!