I walk on dead people

I guess my appeal to Mr. Weather Man worked, because we are getting some really nice weather right now. Not hot, but when you are in the sun, you are ok in a t-shirt. Refreshing, cool breeze, dry air, great weather for wandering about outdoors.

Today I went walking. The theme was "dead people". It was a gorgeous day, about 68 degrees, perfect for walking on graves. (Ok, I didn't actually plan it this way, but that's how it turned out. Everywhere I went was some sort of memorial to a dead person. I just went with it.)

After walking through Asker's historic district, (small, but with some gorgeous old farm houses) I headed over to Asker Church and wandered around there for a bit. It has a lovely cemetery with really nice views of the hills around. The cemetery itself covers rolling hills around the church. I didn't find any graves older than about mid 19th century. I think that the present church (around 125 years old) replaces a much older one, but I can't find any verifiable info on that right now. The sun just sparkled off the spotless marble and granite headstones, and flowers blazed everywhere. The trees are ancient. As far as a graveyard goes, this is one of the prettiest I have ever seen. Very, um, livable.

The area around Asker is steeped in history. Right across the road from the church is a series of old burial mounds. I climbed right up on them. One has signs of people trying to dig down through the top of it, but they didn't get very far. The biggest is at least 25 feet tall, very vertical, obviously man made and old. There are alot of burial mounds around the coastal areas. (Some of the more well known in this area lie around Tanum Church, near our old house. That is a really neat area to walk around on a summer day as well.) The burial mounds lie in a field right off the road, and houses butt up right against them. Also in the field is a monument to Norwegian soldiers killed in WWII. All died between 1940-1945.

After that I wandered back into town via a circuitous route and got some groceries at the local "frukt and gront" stand. The town is perking up again after the summer holidays. Norway empties out in July and August, so it's nice to see kids playing on the plaza and hanging out. I'll be out every day trying to soak in the last days of good weather before it goes to cold and blah. I expect that to happen any minute now.