We were very fortunate to stay with the Missneback family for two weeks on their farm in northern Sweden. This is a picture of the farm from across the river. The Missnebacks have four very sweet children and welcomed us as part of their family. We met the Missnebacks through the WWOOF organic farming organization. We worked on their farm and they allowed us to stay in a cabin there, taught us about the farm, showed us around this very beautiful area and took us fishing and swimming. We had dinner with the Missnebacks most nights. Peter and Camilla are very friendly and interesting, explaining many things about Sweden to us and inquiring about things in the U.S. Hank, Nadine and I enjoyed playing with the four Missneback children. We hope they will come visit us in Austin.

This area of northern Sweden looks a lot like parts of Vermont: very green with thick forests, big hills and some mountains. The small towns and farms here are more spread out than in Vermont. Population density is very low. During our stay in late June, it never really got dark at night. Although the sun went down, I guess it was close enough to the horizon that it did not get dark. It was fully light from around 3 in the morning until 11 or so at night. Although I don’t think I am man enough to tolerate the winters here, I would love to have a cabin by a lake up in these mountains.

We arrived just a few days before Midsummer Eve festival, which is one of the big festivals in Sweden. The Missnebacks took us to their festival and then to another fiddle festival in the woods that night. The fiddle festival reminded me of Kerrville Folk Festival many years ago, with people camping and generally walking around the festival and joining in music.

We also had our first hospital visit of the trip after Nadine hurt her knee. Given that there is no doctor close to the farm, we drove about 45 minutes to a hospital emergency room to get an x-ray of Nadine’s knee. We waited about an hour to get the x-ray and visit with the doctor, which is a little bit quicker than we have experienced in Austin for visits to the emergency room.