Updated 4/3/04 by Mikael

Dear Everybody

Last week we had Leif (Mikael's Dad) + Vera from Houston to visit. Leif had a meeting here in Boulder at the same time as spring break so that all matched up perfectly.

Here are some pictures from the last week:

Signe worked and Leif went to the meeting, so Vera and I had fun with the kids during the day. It reminded me of the 'accompagnying wives program' at conferences of earlier times for all the physisist wives where they would have small outings to monestaries and waterfalls. On a trip to downtown we say some police officers; I aksed them if we could take a picture of their Harley (so Peter could draw it when we came home) and it ended with Peter being mounted on the beast. The climax of the day!

During the last few weeks we have had great weather with 75 F and sun. That kickstarted some gardening and garden-playing. Here Ingrid is trying out a simple swing, it is a bit hard on the behind so I am stuffing a cloth down Ingrids pants.

Peter is nuts about kitchen-work, here he's working on breakfast: bacon 'n eggs. He makes most of it himself, incl. turning on the gas. I have trained him to check that flames appear, so that we won't all be gassed one morning..!

Here the family is 'Skype'ing' Christina in Palo Alto. It's totally free; all you need is a decent internet connection.

Now we've taken on our nice clothes because dinner is to be served at 'Flagstaff House', an upscale restaurant halfway up the mountains. It is somewhat pricey, so we only go there when we can get somebody else pick up the bill. Last time was in 1995 with Signe's parents, Lasse and Margrete. I wonder when we'll go there again..?

Here we are making a stop for a group photo with a view over the city.

Vera with the kids. You have to take such a picture a large number of times to get it right, try and click on it to see another version...

And now for something completely different...

I had for some time been planning a super camping-deathmarch to Utah, in connection with Spring Break. Originally the plan was to be away alone with the kids for six days while Signe was in Switzerland. However, something inside me made me abandon that idea in the last minute and wait until after Leif and Vera's visit to go. That way Signe could come along. In the beginning things went smoothly; we got over the Rockies in fine shape. Later that day we almost ran out of gas when there suddenly were 60 miles between services. We made it though, and rolled into a camping site a Dead Horse State Park, Utah, at 5.30 pm. At this time Signe noticed some weird hair-like stuff hanging out from our exhaust pipe. I pulled it out and we wondered a bit about what it could be; but what the heck - the car worked fine. The camp ground had great views over 2000 feet deep rifts. Here's Ingrid at the field kitchen:

The nice view also came with a side effect: a howling, relentless wind. We barely got the tent hammered down enough to keep it from taking off, and we had to spend most of the time inside it to avoid going crazy in the wind. All night the wind hammered; in the morning I was wondering if we were still at the same location as when we went to sleep. Forturnately it wasn't too cold, the kids slept fine and the grownups so-so. There also was alot of dust with the wind, it quickly got in everywhere:

This is what the view was like! As a photographer it is not in situations like this that you say 'just one more step back, please!'.

They have alot of strange rocks in Utah:

By a coincidence we came by this fantastic 'Wilson Arch'. Execpt for some wind, some running-of-gas excitement and strange material in the exhaust pipe our trip was proceeding fine.

In the afternoon we drove south to a desolate area to find a good campsite. We had heard about a river with a cool rock, but we couldn't find it. Instead the road went upwards, to over 7000 feet. We had noticed that there was snow on the hills behind us, but so what? We found a good spot and made camp - there wasn't any wind this time:

As the sun dropped lower so did the temperature, notice that the jackets have been put on:

The temperature just kept on falling and it quickly became dark, so we took refuge in the tent. We had (after Signe's effort) borrowed two sleeping bags from Betsy, Signe's boss. I had just expected to use the cotton sheets from our bed at home, hmmrrpph. It was a looooong night! Very cold. The kids slept fine, most likely because the grownups spent all of their time holding the sleeping bag down around them while breathing heavily on their backs. I did not dare look over towards Signe, so when I could hear her rustling I pretended to sleep. Several times a thought: 'we can't do this - we'll have to flee into the car and drive on'. Later on we learned that the temperature had been, ahem, 15F. Next morning I started the campfire, we got some tea and toast and our moods rose with the temperature. Ingrid was the last one out of bed (as usual!), she wanted to sit in the car and listen to a CD. 'Fine', I said; Signe said that maybe that would be a bad idea with regards to the car battery. 'Rubbish', was my reply.

We packed everything up and all sat ready in the car, I turned the key - nothing happened. The car was dead. Signe took it OK, Ingrid cried and Peter was cool. I sent wife and kids up to the road to stop the next car. We had to wait a full hour before a car came by. It was manned by some very kind bird watchers from Utah, fine people. After an hour of trying to charge our battery from their car we gave up and they helped us push the car up to the road so that maybe we could roll to a start down the mountain.

It went quite fast downhill, quite eerie to sit in a completely still and dead car rolling so fast. Suddenly the wheel locked itself so I had to step hard on the brakes to avoid running of the road. The car still would't start so finally our Utah friends towed us the rest of the way down to a larger road. There we finally found some starter cables and got the car running.

We figured that it would probably be a good idea to head home, we had about eight hours of driving ahead. On the way I noticed that the car engine had to work harder than usual. As we got higher up in the mountains the situation quickly deteriorated, a hissing sound came from the rear and we had to drive up 12000 ft. mountain passes in the night with our warning lights blinking because our speed was only 20 mph. (Later we found out that the hair-like material in the exhaust pipe was the muffling material going loose and clogging the exhaust, hence the engine problems.) As the final insult, when we finally got home I saw that one of our blink lights was hanging out from its socket down the side of the car..!

All in all, though, I'll still insist that we had a fine and exciting trip. The car cost 500 USD to fix, sigh. Next time we are going camping will be in the last two weeks of our stay in the U.S. Then the nights will be warmer and we are going to drive around in a rental car. I am determined to get the biggest four-wheeler we can find, perhaps a Hummer:

Love - Signe, Mikael, Ingrid and Peter

Mikael (svlgrd@com.dtu.dk)

Signe (sba@dmi.dk)

p.s. My beautiful sister, Merete, has just given birth to a beautiful little girl, Ida!!!!!! We can't wait to come home and meet them. Here she is, along with her big brother - Anton.