Visitors with Swedish Style

Carol and Lois eagerly awaiting our guests arrival.

Late Friday afternoon the "cousins" from Sweden arrived by bus after their stay in the Big Apple. Lois, Carol and I were at the transportation center to greet them. Pretty exciting considering the history of correspondence, the trip by Lois, Carol, their mother, Margaret, niece, Lena and sister-in-law, Bev to Lenhovda, Sweden to visit and now five of them venturing here. Pictured left; Anders is first through the gate and is greeted by Lois followed by his partner Laila, his brother Gunnar and Anders and Laila's daughter Elin and partner Anders (initializing the younger Anders for distinguishing between the two). Laila, Elin and Anders went home with Lois in her car while Carol and I took Anders and Gunnar to the car rental agency for them to pick up a van for their stay in Maine. Afterwards we all met up at Lois for a dinner of salad and BBQ baby back ribs.

From one end of the table, L-R: Jim, Lois, Carol,
Laila, Anders and Elin. Jim and I had a great time
getting to know the travelers.

From the other end of the table that's Anders and Gunnar on the Left.

Saturday Lois took them to LL Beans and after a visit at our house we all headed over to Elaine and Steve's for a gathering of family and friends.

Anders gets to do some wave boarding towed behind Elaine and Steve's son, Mark's speed boat.

Elin is videographer and spotter for Anders' water skiing prowess. He is quite good at it.

The spectators gallery, L-R: Carol, Jim, Bev's sister Carol, Anders and Steve.

On Sunday was the hike up Tumbledown Mountain.

L-R: Carol, expedition leader Ian, Anders, Elin, Anders, Gunnar, Laila, Lois and yours truly.

The Day started out nice and sunny. The Loop Trail starts out quickly into a vertical climb broken only once by a somewhat level granite out cropped area then changing to a much steeper climb to near the summit.

Ian checking out the GPS unit readings.

Laila, Carol and Lois.

Steeper and rocky the higher we get but easy to gain one's footing and handholds.

The views start coming into play though the various openings along the climb. Here we can see the clouds moving in sooner than we hoped from the weather forecast before we left.

Carol, Laila and Elin.

With the clouds and rain moving in we decided to forgo the trail to the top of Tumbledown and instead headed to Tumbledown Pond for lunch before beginning our descend.

As it turned out once we sat down to eat our lunch the rain arrived and came down quite vigorously. By the time we all made it down the Brook Trail we were soaked to the bone but nonetheless happy with the day's excursion.

Reporting live a short distance from Tumbledown, your humble blogger.

Monday morning Lois, Jim and the visitors left for a few days on Mt. Desert Island visiting with another relative, John and his wife, Linda - hiking, checking out the sights and eating lobster on the island, then it's off to northern Aroostook County for more visiting. They'll be back here the middle of next week before returning home to Sweden.