With the urge to talk about EVERYTHING at least partly satisfied, I wanted to show Tree my view of Tromsø (i.e., from a bike on a mountain). But when we woke up the next morning, the whole valley was covered by a thick gray blanket of fog, so we couldn’t see a thing. Luckily, mountains usually run from the valley floor and up above it, so I decided to launch my plan for the day anyway.
My splendid plan was to take Tree up to Bønntuva, some 776 m asl just outside of Tromsø. From there, my idea was that we would gaze at the grandeur of my new hometown and then flow down seemingly endless singeltrack. I missed out to include the fog in the first part of that plan. We did indeed get above the misty cover, Tromsø never did.
The second part of my plan did, however, work out splendidly: the trail from the summit to the valley bottom is a natural born crowd pleaser and that day, it excelled.
Later on, when we had already got down to the valley floor again, Tree confessed that she had bit more than just a little bit nervous going on a bike ride with me and Martin. She actually had pretty good reason.
Oops..
Because the last time we went biking together (her premier on a MTB), I and Martin took her to the top of Gran Canaria (2000 m asl) and had her go down trails that offered lots of opportunities to fall to your own death (that story still remains to get told. A Swedish version is available here). We didn’t really plan for it to be that way, but, well, we are who we are and so we should probably have known that we would end up doing exactly that.
Sorry!
On the trail from Bønntuva, there were no falling to your death experiences, just plenty of opportunities to fall into blueberry bushes.
Lina ended up having quite a few souvenirs in the form of bluberry stains from our little adventure, but her smile was as wide as her face when we approached the valley floor. My grin reached beyond my earlobes. Not only had I had the privilege to talk about life, the universe and everything else for hours with one of my absolute favorite people on this earth, I also got to go riding with her. What can I say but Woo-diddeli-doo?
And then, the lovely Tree had to go home. Damn. I really wish I had a teleporter (or at least a very long pneumatic tube system). I think I’m going to wish for one for X-mas.
