Dernier jour à Chattanooga – Creative Discovery Museum

Après un lever tardif et quelques heures passées à trainer et régler des bricoles, nous avons décolé en direction du musée créatif de découverte, notre activité principale de la journée.

L’objectif du musée est de stimuler l’esprit créatif et la curiosité naturelle de chaque enfant, et de leur donner envie d’apprendre à travers l’exploration interactive des arts et des sciences. Le musée s’adresse à un public assez jeune, et nos enfants étaient tous dans la bonne tranche d’âges. Nous avons commencé la visite par des activités en rapport avec l’eau.

Puis ont suivi des ateliers art, paléontologie, musique, électricité et magnétisme, réalisation d’un dessin animé, construction d’une voûte, etc.

Il y avait aussi une expo “des enfants comme toi, des enfants comme moi” sur le handicap. On pouvait y faire l’expérience de se déplacer en fauteuil roulant, de faire un puzzle en ne se servant que du toucher, jouer au basket en fauteuil roulant, etc.

Viktor a beaucoup apprécié les échecs géants.

Iseline et Adrian ont exploré les jeux extérieurs utilisant des mécanismes ingénieux. 

On a aussi pu observer la vie à l’intérieur d’une ruche d’abeille, ce qui nous a rappelé de bons souvenirs chez Hal.

Cette photo est pour lui. Le texte dit: “Les abeilles se parlent en dansant”.

Le temps est passé vite.

Vers 16h30, on a retrouvé Bob et Gwen dans le Quartier artistique de Bluff view. Le café Rembrandt propose de très bons gâteaux dans un cadre trés sympa. Juste à côté, il y a une très belle galerie d’art, River Gallery, qui présente les oeuvres de nombreux artistes de la région: peintures, poteries, verre d’art, sculptures en bois et en métal…

En résumé, nous trouvons que Chattanooga est une ville bien agréable et dynamique malgré sa taille relativement modeste (à l’échelle américaine). Saviez-vous que les premières bouteilles de Coca ont été produites ici? Jusque dans les années 1880, le coca était uniquement disponible dans des “fontaines à soda” où il était mélangé à la demande. Le fait que le coca est aujourd’hui disponible pratiquement dans le monde entier n’enthousiasmera peut-être pas tous autant qu’Adrian et Viktor, mais c’est toujours bon à savoir…

De retour à la maison, c’était notre tour de faire le diner. Menu franco-norvégien avec du saumon fumé, de l’agneau et un tian, et la fameuse mousse au chocolat d’Eirik. Nous sommes maintenant repus.

Mille merci à Gwen et Bob pour leur hospitalité. Nous avons passé une super semaine à Chattanooga!

This morning all 3 children did their own blog entry about our day yesterday and some school work.

Bob showed us a piece of high voltage cable this morning. The same kind my father (Foffo) worked with up at Raccoon Mountain. This cable is certified for 161 000 volts. That´s pure copper in the innermost ring. Around it was a layer of oil under pressure.

We had a calm day until we drove over to a climbing club at 3pm. Michele had invited us to climb with her and Shae.

I cannot climb because of my bad wrists, so I was appointed photographer and cord holder.

Everyone had a ball. There were no complaints from Iseline about too many activities. The first couple of times she was a bit careful and afraid of the height, but afterwards that was all blown away. The boys also did some great climbing and Hélène enjoyed climbing again for the first time in about 7 years.

We dropped by Northgate Mall which I remember well from my childhood. They had an arcade there in the good old days! A fascinating place for a 9 year old. We didn´t find an arcade, but did find a real American bubble gum dispenser:

In the evening Gwen and Bob took us to a restaurant where we had excellent chicken wings served by a very active and funny waiter who took pictures of us:

I told the boys they were not allowed to watch TV while eating. A hard task when there are 44 TVs in the restaurant, all within view (Viktor counted them) Here are some of them:

In the evening I prepared mousse for tomorrow´s dinner. I haven´t made it in a while and it was good to get into mousse making again. I felt at peace with the universe again.

One of our faithful readers has sent an email to the editors asking for a state of the voyage update. He wants to know what we have learned so far and what we would have done differently if we had known what we now know.

First of all, time has passed very quickly and it´s hard to realize we have been on the road so long already.

One lesson we have learnt is that we have not set aside enough time for the kids to just play and be kids. This is especially true for Iseline. It´s so easy to be tempted to do as much as possible when you are in a location. “We probably will not be here again for a long time, or ever, so we must…” It´s easy to forget that both the kids and we get tired and need some time to just relax. We have changed our schedule here in Chattanooga to calm down a bit. We had originally planned to do a two day trip to the Smokey Mountains, but decided not to. That was the right decision.

It´s always difficult to think about everything in advance, and we got very stressed with everything piling up at the end. Sure, we could have done more, but I think we found a good balance. When we left I was not happy that we had not done all the reservations for New Zealand and Australia. Right now I´m glad. We have learned that we need to lower our ambitions a bit and it is now much easier to change our plans. If anything I wish we had reserved less. All pacific island plans are e.g. fixed and we might have chosen one less stop given what we now know.

Another lesson is that it is difficult to find time for schooling and that we, the adults, need to count in time to prepare. I wish we had done a few test lessons at home before leaving. The internet school the kids are attending is very good. Unfortunately it is only available for a few subjects, since it is meant for Norwegian children attending school abroad.

On the other hand the kids are learning a lot during our voyage. We have e.g. spoken a lot about space and the exploration of it and also about tectonic plate movements and its consequences (volcanos, earthquakes). Adrian has both as major parts of his science curriculum and it´s more or less covered now by all the kids.

In terms of luggage we have been very positively surprised. We have managed to travel very lightly and have include all essentials. We are traveling with less than we would have packed for a weeks vacation in Spain. We have to wash clothes relatively often, but on the other hand the volume is then limited.

Blogging has taken more time than I had anticipated. I had the ambition to blog every day when we left and have managed to more or less do so, but it has been hard at times. Inspiration does not always come immediately. Blogging consumes most of my time in the evening after the kids have gone to bed.

I blog for all of you out there, but I also do it so we can have a good travel diary when we are back home. This is a once in a lifetime trip and I want us to have a good record of it. I will probably thank myself when I´m at some institution for the elderly and can look at those old web pages on my mind reader.

We are also very happy that we have rented apartments or are staying with people we know in most locations. There are so many advantages of having an apartment over staying in a hotel. You have much more space. You have the option to cook or go out and eat. The prices are also low compared to a hotel.

Another thing that has been good is doing direct flights or putting in margins for airport transfers. We do not take tickets where there is less than 2 hours transfer time at an airport. Losing luggage would be a nightmare and we know from experience that the chance of that goes up very much when you get under 2 hours between planes. No luggage lost so far, knock on wood.

So, all in all, we are very happy. We have been extremely lucky, bordering on the improbable, with the weather That has got to change at some point. Our biggest climatic risk is  going to the Amazon during rainy season. We have read that most of the time you get good periods without rain. Time will tell.

See you around, folks!

Eirik

—–

2. november, 2010

Skrevet av Iseline.

I går dro vi til Raccoon mountain for å se på jobben der hvor Foffo (farfar) jobbet før.

På veien oppover mot fjellet så vi ville kalkuner.

Vi klatra i trær akkurat som aper.

Og vi hadde piknik i skogen.

Klem til alle sammen!

ISELINE<3<3<3<3

2. november, 2010

Skrevet av Viktor.

Grunnen til at jeg, Adrian og Iseline ikke har skrevet før, er rett og slett dårlig tid. Mamma og pappa derimot, har hele kvelden på å skrive. Vi barna må skrive om morgenen dagen etter…

Det var en god start på dagen. Vi dro på piknik i en skog mens barna sparkesykklet. På veien til skogen så vi ville kalkuner. Iseline har tatt med bilder av dem.

Det var en fin utsikt. Vi så en del trær, og de var helt PERFEKTE å klatre i! Dette stedet tror jeg Jonas, Adrian R. og Adrian E. hadde likt!

Dermed dro vi der foffo (det vi kaller farfar) jobbet når pappa bodde i USA. Han jobbet med å innstalere høyspentkabler til forskjelige kraftverk. I bakgrunnen ser du det Foffo har laget.

og her er vanninntaket til et av kraftverkene. Som dere ser på bildet er vanninntaket større enn frihetsgudinnen. Dere kan også se at nesten hele inntaket er under vann.

Vi så noen som fisket i elven der vannet fra kraftverket renner ut. Vi så også mange rovfugler som fløy over oss.

Etterpå dro vi hjem og så tre søte rådyr på veien.

Da vi kom hjem spiste vi middag. Desserten ble iskrem, men den spiste vi ikke her, den spiste vi på Dairy Queen, en iskremrestaurant. Der var det et band som spilte gospel, og en av dem spilte saksofon! Til venstre på det nederste bildet ser du mannen som spiller saksofon.

Etterpå dro vi hjem. Det hadde vært en kul dag.

Viktor

Melding! Melding! DETTE ER ADRIAN SOM SKRIVER!!! Melding slutt! Melding slutt!

Dette er det første innlegget mitt fordi jeg har vært (u)offisielt SLAPP!

Vi startet dagen med å gjøre litt skolearbeid, før vi dro oppover mot Raccoon Mt.

Først dro vi på piknik, og vi spiste brødskiver med jarsberg og skinke mens vi drakk cola. Så gikk vi en tur på stien hvor det var uhorvelig mange klatretrær. Her ville Sverre likt å være.

Viktor tråkket Iseline på tommellen.

Vi så littegran på der hvor Foffo jobbet når pappa bodde i USA. Der er det en kjeeeempestor kunstig innsjø som fungerer som et batteri. Det pumpes vann opp i innsjøen om natten når folk ikke trenger strøm. Og om dagen renner det ned over gjennom en turbin, så den lager strøm.

Så kjørte vi nedover mot elva. Vi så hvor pumpen var, og den var MASSIV! Når vi kom hjem spiste vi middag, og til dessert dro vi dairy queen. Der hadde de god is. Til høyre ser du en åttendedel av fatter`n

Dette var en kuuuul dag!!!!!

Adrian

We split up today, with the masculine part of the family going to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville Alabama. Hélène and Iseline stayed in Chattanooga.

It took a 2 hour drive to get to the museum and the boys were deeply into their iPods during most of the trip. I had bought the Simpsons movie in DC and had transferred it to their IPods with the French audio track. To Adrian´s surprise the Simpsons family was speaking Canadian French with a thick Quebecois accent. He ended up watching it anyway. Good language training.

Once I got the GPS app up and running I was surprised to see that the trip would take only an hour, when it had said 2 hours when I entered the address and chose the route I wanted. I quickly realized that it was telling me what the time would be when we arrived. It was displaying arrival time in Huntsville, which is in the central time zone, while Chattanooga is in the eastern time zone. Bad design choice. I bet that functionality is fooling several people every single day.

I have always wondered why GPS designers in their infinite wisdom almost always choose to only display arrival time, and never display what time it is. You want to know how long it will take you to arrive, not what time the GPS will show when you arrive. When it does not show you the time you cannot even calculate traveling time without a separate time piece that you trust to be reasonably accurate. One of those every day things that irritate me. Right up there with all the different ways they have managed to make it difficult to get water out of a shower in a hotel room.

The interesting thing with the GPS system is that it is dependent on very accurate time keeping to know your position. You have to know exactly where those satellites are at a given time. The signal from the satellite contains the time it was sent and with the speed of light being known, and signals from several satellites, you can calculate the distance the signal has travelled. This is also why each and every GPS satellite carries four extremely precise atomic clocks, the most accurate timing devices ever made. The time signal from a GPS signal is accurate within 50 nanoseconds, the time it takes for light to travel 15 meters (50 feet).

The short time I worked for Nokia one of their engineers told me that having GPS on a phone can be used in an unexpected way. When you receive a GPS signal you know the accurate time in the real world. If someone tries to set the date on their phone back in time, to try to use software where their time limited license has expired, they will not be allowed to do so. The GPS signal will reveal their evil intentions. He even claimed that because of this the GPS signal was the most important signal to have in a phone. As an open source advocate I found that to be a sad point of view, but that is a completely different discussion.

Oops, sorry.

We crossed into Georgia, back into Tennessee and finally headed south into Alabama. There were scattered houses and villages along the way and it was pretty clear that this was not the richest part of the US. We stopped for gas after about an hour at a very basic gas station. It was an old worn down log cabin with gas pumps that must have been from the fifties. I have only seen pumps like that in the movies before.

The lady behind the counter was very nice and friendly and having learnt my lesson I went for a full tank.

The museum in Huntsville was great and well worth the long trip. Even though this was the third museum in the air and space genre in 9 days we had a great day.

We thought we got to see our third Blackbird SR-71:

but Wikipedia later revealed that this is an A-12, a predecessor to the SR-71.

There was a very impressive outdoor rocket collection. We could see the full scale replica of a Saturn V rocket from far away (picture taken by Adrian):

They had the German V1 from World War II

and the V2. It was first made by the Germans in 1944 and was the world´s first supersonic missile and the first real rocket (the first man-made object to go into sub-orbital space). It was later used by the US in the first space experiments in the late 40s. This is one of only 20 remaining original V2s:

Rockets galore:

Adrian caught this little critter with his camera:

We tried out the G-force simulator, were spun around at 50 miles per hour (100 kmh) and experienced 4.5G

We saw a gorgeous IMAX movie about the Hubble space telescope. The animated voyage into a 3D model of the Orion Nebula was a high point and the boys were very thrilled.

Inside the museum they had a real Saturn V which was suspended in the roof in horizontal position so we could really appreciate the enormous size. This one of only 3 remaining original complete Saturn Vs:

Look at the wall down to the left with the two astronauts to get an idea of the size. Here are the astronauts:

This is the largest piece of Skylab that was found in Australia after Skylab burned up in the atmosphere in 1979.

They had a moon rock (picture taken by Adrian):

The space shuttle landing simulator was still there and Adrian could try it again 10 years after he last sat in my lap exactly here:

The Apollo 16 command module:

Replica of a part of the International Space Station:

As you probably understand there was a lot to see and do and we had a really nice time at the museum.

On our way back we stopped by the place I used to live on Dayton Boulevard in Red Bank. I learned to dive in this pool 35 years ago (it still looks the same, Aud):

I used to live where the lower balcony is on the left.

Oh sweet nostalgia!

Eirik

—–

Iseline et moi avons choisi de passer une journée calme à Chattanooga. Iseline avait clairement exprimé son ras-le-bol des musées et des navettes spatiales lorsque nous étions à Washington, nous sommes donc restées tranquilles chez Gwen et Bob après le départ des garcons pour Huntsville.

Nous avons passé la matinée à faire du travail scolaire. Iseline avait 2 semaines de cours sur internet à rattraper, nous nous sommes donc attelées à la tâche.

Iseline tenait à ce que nous respections le rythme que ses camarades de classe suivent à Oslo. Il fallait donc inclure une petite récré, histoire de bouger un peu. On est allées essayer le terrain de tennis des voisins:

puis une grande récrée après le casse croûte de midi, que nous avons mangé dehors, où il faisait plus de 20 degrés. Pas mal pour un 1er novembre…

Une fois l’école terminée, nous sommes allées nous promener avec Gwen et Bob sur le River Walk le long du Tennesse, dans un endroit marécageux peuplé d’oies du canada et d’autres oiseaux.

Nous sommes ensuite allés voir le barrage de Chickamauga Dam sur le Tennessee, 11 km en amont de Chattanooga.

Les hérons bleus ont élu domicile ici, où ils n’ont qu’à se servir en poisson.

Nous avons retrouvé les garcons vers 19h, ravis de leur sortie espace.

A +

Hélène

We had a lazy morning with another great breakfast Gwen prepared for us. We could get used to this.

Our activity for the day was Rock City up at Lookout Mountain. A place I visited for the first time over 35 years ago. Fascinating place for several reasons.

Rock City is basically a trail among rock formations and a botanical garden at Lookout Mountan where you get a bonus great view.

The area has been called Rock City since at least the American Civil War. The current trail started out as a private garden in the late 20s when Frieda Carter planned the trail and started putting out German garden gnomes (!) and 400 different species of local plants around it. Her husband, Garnet Carter, understood the potential of what she had created and together they opened the trail to the public in 1932.

Lookout Mountain was hard to get to and they needed to attract people to go there. This is where Garnet together with Clark Byers started an ingenious marketing campaign. First they used the old claim that it was possible to see 7 different states from Lookout Mountain for all its worth. Then they started painting barns.

They offered farmers with barns close to highways a free paint job and Rock City souvenirs in exchange for painting “See Rock City” on the roofs of the barns. In total they had over 900 barns in 19 states painted. It was a stroke of genius. Soon people were calling and coming from all over the US to see the attraction.

Here you can see how all those barns were painted:

On our way up to Rock City we realized we were entering enemy territory controlled by The Church of Latter-day October 31st-ians:

This is a quite conservative church, given that they resist change so much, so two exclamation marks is a very strong message from them.

These really cool wooden statues were by the Rock City trail:

We worked our way through the trail.

You don’t mess with Viktor:

The kids loved the swinging bridge, which was very much swinging. Iseline even jumped up and down shouting “trampoline.” Her father, who is afraid of heights, was not as comfortable.

There is a great view from “Lover’s Leap,” (to the right in the picture) the point where it should be possible to see 7 states. Viktor was a bit disappointed by the monotonous landscape. “It all looks like one state, dad.”

Adrian hanging in the air the way bricks don’t:

When we reached “Fat Man Squeeze” we couldn’t help but make fun of Iseline’s comment at the caves at Pinnacles National Monument. Would mom’s bottom get through this time?

At the end of the trail there is a cave called fairy tale caverns which I loved as a kid. It’s decorated with scenes depicting different kinds of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. It’s strange how places, images and especially smells bring back memories. I was right back there as an 8 year old kid.

Iseline loved it! She had started to complain at the end of the trail that we were once again doing some boooring stuff. At one point she sighed and said “I think you have forgotten how small I am.”

Now she brightened up. I did the rounds in the mother goose part of the cavern with her twice and in the process translated each and every nursery rhyme into Norwegian for her.

At the exit we met this guy:

We’re all ready for Disney World now.

We drove down to the Tennessee River and met up with Gwen and Bob at a nice café and grabbed some energy boosters:

Back at Gwen and Bob’s place their daughter Michelle and her two children Cory and Shae came over for dinner. Here they are:

After dinner it was at last time for day two of trick or treating. Adrian loved my hot dog costume so much I let him use it. I went dressed up as a grumpy old Norwegian.

We drove over to the enclave controlled the the 31st-ians. A place actually called “The Enclave.” There was no doubt when Halloween was celebrated here:

The place was packed with children in Halloween costumes and most of the residents were sitting outside their homes handing out candy:

Some took Halloween decorations a bit further than others:

The kids were blown away. This was real American Halloween. We became 31st-ian converts!

Gwen and Bob are friends of a family living there and we were invited inside one of the very large houses in this area (the one in the back in the photo above). We were very impressed.

Adrian tried out some American candy:

Another great day!

Eirik

—–

Finally the day the kids have been waiting for so long had arrived. Halloween is normally celebrated on October 31, as most of you will know. However, it turns out that some adults believe that it is better to celebrate it on a Saturday, so the kids can stay up late without worrying about school the next day. Since there is no holy committee of elders who decide in these matters the city of Chattanooga has been divided by its citizens into random pockets of Saturday Halloween and October 31 Halloween.

Not too long ago this situation would probably have led to anarchy, vicious fighting with many dead and wounded, tragically split families, vendettas spanning generations, and the establishment of two rival groups; the Church of the Latter-day October 31st-ians and the Reformed Church of Saturdayians.

The neighborhood we are staying in is celebrating on Saturday,  October 30.

We got up early today, some of us at least before 10am. After a good breakfast we headed over to a costume store with an impressive number of choices. We were prepared to wade through hanger after hanger of costumes and the hassle of pulling them out and then putting them back again. No such thing. These guys were professionals, just find your costume and give them your size and the costume reference number. It was still difficult to choose:

After some tough decision making all three kids found what they liked the most. I scanned the adult costumes, and there was no doubt in my mind which one was the best for me.

Someone in the store must have been in a real hurry to get things ready for Halloween, as we found this slightly misleading sign when looking for accessory stuff for the boys. Or maybe Chattanooga is more progressive than i thought?

After securing the necessary stuff for the evening we dropped by Michelle’s house. She is the daughter of Gwen and Bob and had 3 kick scooters lying around. The kids were ecstatic .

Gwen and Bob then took us down to walk a part of the Tennessee Riverwalk, a really nice walking path along the Tennessee river. The weather was perfect and we all appreciated the great views and the blue sky.



We also saw some turtles on a fallen tree:

I had tried to call Iseline’s best friend, Johanna, earlier in the day and had left a message. As we stopped to have some ice cream her father called me back. Iseline was very happy to talk to her friend for the first time in a month.

She told her she wanted to take the plane alone to Norway to be with her. Later in the day I understood that Iseline had actually dreamt this. When we got back Iseline made a drawing for Johanna showing her dream. Iseline made me promise to put it up on the blog so Johanna could see it. Here it is:

After a late lunch it was time to test the costumes and attack the pumpkins:

We were happy with the results. Adrian single-handedly carved the scary face.

Trick or treating could commence.

The kids got a good catch of candy. The best part is that tomorrow night we are going to drive into one of the enclaves controlled by the Church of the Latter-day October 31st-ians and do it all one more time!

Eirik

—–

New transportation day. We got up early and Hélène and I worked hard to get everything ready while the kids tried to wake up. We skipped breakfast at the apartment to gain time, but this time we brought sandwiches, so we weren’t dependent on finding food at the airport.

DC rush hour was a nightmare. The GPS app wanted to take us straight through the center of town but we staged a mutiny and drove out to Virginia and made a half circle instead. That was probably what made us catch our plane.

Mandatory photo, Marius. Today we flew a Boeing 757:

and it had, ta-da:

Once we landed in Atlanta it was time for the hunt for baggage and rental car ritual. In Atlanta you need to first take a train to the baggage claim and then get another train for the rental car center. All while you need to count and recount the number of pieces of luggage and the number of kids and stay uncomfortably close to people you have never seen before.

We found the rental car desk for Alamo and I got my iPad ready as usual. I don’t want to neither kill trees nor carry a lot of paper around , so I keep all our tickets in PDF files on the iPad. So far that has not been a problem. In fact I have never needed the iPad until now. All I have ever needed to do has been to give my last name and a credit card. The new paperless world actually works! Well, until today, that is.

The woman behind the counter asked for my last name, driver’s license and a credit card. Standard procedure. Then she asked me for my prepaid voucher. Happy as a child I showed her the iPad, which was ready with the right page being displayed and everything. For the first time I actually got to use it. She was not impressed.

– Don’t you have a paper voucher?

– No, I don’t have access to a printer, so I only have it here on this iPad

– I need a paper, sir! That voucher is like money to me. I can’t give you a car without it.

– Well, how do I get my car then? Do you have a printer here that I can use?

– No, sir. I will probably have to send you back to the airport. You will need to find a solution there.

– But I had the same kind of voucher for Alamo in Washintgon DC and they didn’t need a paper.

I could tell by her body language that she was not happy with that remark. She jumped in her chair and snapped aggressively:

– Well, I need a paper here sir. Washington DC, that’s another city.

The last part was said with a stress and a sarcastic tone mostly found in movies when the hero finally gets his revenge and has a gun pointed at the bad guy. This was starting to get very uncomfortable.

Help would soon be on the way, though. Hélène serendipitously found the cultural key that would turn the whole situation around in a manner I have seldom seen at a rental car counter. What happened was that we started to speak in French about how hopeless this was and what we should do now. Héléne said to me “Il faut demander a parler avec son superieure.” In English: “We should ask to speak to her superior.” Only afterwards, when we were on our way in the car did we put the pieces together.

The woman behind the counter obviously understood what that last word meant and probably realized what a mess she was potentially getting herself into. The transformation was instant. Before our very eyes this mean duckling turned into a beautiful and fragile butterfly.

She said she needed to talk to her manager to see what could be done. “I don’t want to have to send you back to the airport.” She left and soon came back with a smile and took me into the back office. Here I got access to a computer and could log on to my email and print the voucher on one of the three printers they had. When we got out she upgraded us to a better car type for a symbolic fee. She even apologized that she had to take a fee, because of the rules she had to follow.

All this was done with a big smile and a friendly voice. If I had been blind I would have sworn that they had swapped her out with someone else while I was not paying attention.

But the miracles were not over. She gave us a choice of three different cars. Then she said, “you know what, I’ll come out with you and show them to you.” She then went with us all the way over to the rental car garage while she sweet talked with us and the children. “Oh, you’re taking them around the world for 7 months? That’s fantastic, it’s the best education in the world.”

This woman was hellbent on making sure we did not put in a bad word with her manager. She gave us a tour of the three car types. Opening up all doors, telling us about pros and cons and even moving one car so we could get a better look at it!

I have used the “May I talk to your manager” trick ever since my friend Haavard demonstrated it to me in a bank 22 years ago. But I have never seen it work like it did today. It does work better in a society where there is a very strong culture for hierarchical management and where it is relatively easy to fire people, like the US. But that doesn’t fully explain what we witnessed today.

Maybe the trick is to use a language they don’t understand and then sneak in a word that resembles a word for manager. Then they won’t know if you just said “I know her manager. He is a friend of my father, the French ambassador. If she doesn’t get her act together I can get her fired in a few minutes.” or something even worse.

We were very happy with our nice car and cruised the highways through Atlanta and up towards Chattanooga. We set a new personal highway record in Atlanta. Seven lanes in each direction, plus half a lane for emergency stops:

It was great to arrive in Chattanooga at the house of Gwen and Bob, my American parents.

They had put pumpkins out on the porch, one for each of the kids:

They are heavy.

We were then treated to an absolutely fantastic fish dinner with some of the best corn-on-cob I’ve had since I lived here 35 years ago (man, I’m old…).

Iseline claimed she didn’t like corn and refused to have any. We made her taste a little bit and then she only wanted to have corn.

The kids really needed to move after a day of transportation. First they attacked a tree in the garden

before Gwen and Bob brought us to downtown Chattanooga where we walked along the river and over a pedestrian bridge.

The kids burnt a lot of calories and only stopped running when they could climb statues:

Once we were back is was time to go to bed for some and time to blog for others.

See you around folks. We’ve been on the road for exactly a month now and tomorrow is the big day!

Eirik

—–