Hello hello hello!

So sorry for my week long absence! It was not how I planned it but work and a stupid cold came between me and my photo editing.
I'm back now though and thought I'd finally share the photos from our last day of our road trip.
This will have to be split into two posts because we did so many fun things on this day and visited extremely cool places so it's just not possible to squeeze it all into one single post.
So! Here's part one of our Anniversary Road Trip Adventure!

We had read about an old railway bridge in the little town of Jössefors so we went in search for that first thing in the morning.

David made it all the way down the steep, I was not as brave.

David made a friend.

Such a beautiful place!

Me trying to look like a character in a Wes Anderson movie.

Stopped at a gas station for some (incredibly disgusting) coffee.

We were heading for a car cemetery in the middle of the woods close to the Norwegian border but on our way there we spotted a building that we just had to look closer at.

The jacket still hanging on the wall. I think that made the most impact on me.

The entire second floor had collapsed.

Peekaboo!

Outer wall.

After this we were already high on adventure but little did we know that our next destination was going to be even more incredible!

The Car Cemetery!
I will show you around this extremely weird, and even beautiful, place in my next post that hopefully will be up on sunday!

Until then:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hey!
I'm finally back with the second day of our road trip adventure.
It was saturday and we woke up in Söderfors at the beautiful mansion Söderfors Herrgård.
After a nice breakfast in the gorgeous main building we packed our bags and checked out because we had places to see!

David waits patiently for his wife to finish taking photos.

We had read about a greek temple in Söderfors. Built in 1795 and a replica of the Theseus temple in Athens. It's situated in an English style park in an old Swedish industial town and it's such a weird mix of everything we just had to go check it out.

This place just begs to be danced in, right?

When we felt we had seen all of the temple and my damaged heel had had enough of jumping we went back to the car to continue our journey.
This is the town of Söderfors, by the way.
It's kind of interesting to see how divided the town felt. It used to be a thriving industrial town and the historical parts are still there as in the mansion, the english park, the greek temple. But the rest of the town just feels so lonely and sleepy.

Our next stop was another old industrial town, Gysinge, that used to produce iron.
This place felt a whole lot more lively than Söderfors and lots of tourists come here to look at the historical parts with the river and rapids as the soul of the town.

Gysinge Herrgård, such a beautiful mansion!

And they had fluffy trees! Not many things make me as happy as fluffy trees!

After Gysinge we drove on towards our stop for the evening. But we had to stop in Karlstad to eat.

We found the sushi place Happy Kitchen. Super tasty, as you can see!

And then we arrived in Jössefors. Another old industrial town. We unpacked and rested for a few hours before we took our cameras and went outside for an evening walk in search for the lake Glafsfjorden that we had seen through the car window on our way to the bed and breakfast.

Aaaah, there it is.

We were a little late to find a path that reached the lake so it was hard to capture the fog that lay thick over the forest, but I think these photos are perfect anyways. It was so beautiful there. So still and silent.

Such a great ending to a wonderful day.

Then we went back to the bed and breakfast that had incredibly high ceilings that made me look oh so very tiny.
We were so tired after a long day and the day after was going to be filled with adventure so we needed our rest.

The post from the last day of our road trip is going to be epic. Epic, I tell you. So let's hope I can show you soon! There's a lot of photos to edit before that though, so off I go!

Oh, and today my vacation is officially over. Back to work!
The smell of autumn in the air makes everything so much easier, doesn't it?

See you soon!
Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Last friday David and I set out on a little weekend roadtrip to celebrate our first year as married.
We often travel south in Sweden so we wanted to go on an adventure up the country this time. Sweden is an incredibly long country (1572 kilometers to be exact) so we didn't go very far north but still far enough for nature to look a little bit different.
We started in the morning and had plans to go check out an abandoned factory about an hour from Gothenburg. Well. It had been torn down in 2007 so we kind of missed the opportunity by 7 years...
Our next planned stop though was the National Park in Tiveden. All we knew was that it was supposed to feel like stepping inside a John Bauer Painting and that was exactly how it was. Truly magical!
When I edited my photos from friday I realised I didn't take a single one outside of Tiveden National Park (At least not with my Nikon, there are a bunch of iphone photos that I might show you later), so this entire post is dedicated to this amazingly beautiful and enchanted forest.

We followed the trail towards Stenkälla (translates to Stone well) as that was what we've been recommended beforehand to do. We had no clue of what was awaiting and that made it feel even more like an adventure!

David took photos of me up on that rock for a little project I'm working on. To get up there was easier said than done. At least for me. David jumped up there like it was a piece of cake, but I of course had to leave a little blood behind...

And I ripped my only pair of pants! Oh no!
The things you do for art.

David is a daredevil!
No, he didn't go any further than this. I took photos and screamed "Oh no no no you don't!" at the same time.

Taking a break.

Then we got a little lost.
Maybe it's this way?

Or that way?

No! This way!

And here was Stenkälla. A crystal clear well underneath a HUGE rock.

Kind of hard to understand this photo but to the right is the way out from under the rock and to the left is the water with a perfect mirror effect.

And that is part of the huge rock situated on top of the well. And David is just a teeny tiny human being next to it.

Hi!

David in the root.

David is an airplane.

Where's David?

There's David!

And then we reached a beautiful lake.

And nothing makes you feel smaller than a forest like this one.

Me and my Fjällräven looking at the view.

When we went into the park we had no clue of how it would look there or how long it would take to walk through, we just knew we wanted to see this place. It took us at least 1.5 hours and it was so worth it to be a little bit behind schedule. It was such a beautiful forest.
I am one of those people who hurt myself in the most ridiculous ways possible and earlier that day I was attacked by a rest stop toilet door. I know: ridiculous. I was on my way into the bathroom and misjudged how fast the heavy door would close and got the lower (and very sharp) corner right in my heel and achilles tendon with quite the force. It hurt so much! I stood there, clutching my heel, swearing loudly to myself for a while before I could even stand up straight again. It still hurts a lot but when we were walking around the park it was really bad. And then I banged my shin on the rock...
Yeah. I'm prone to these types of stupid incidents.
When we reached the hotel in the evening my heel was very swollen and red and since I didn't have any bandages I used my tights. Haha, it worked like a charm! The next day the swelling had gone down. Still hurt like hell, but nothing that would stop our adventure!

I'll be back with day two tomorrow hopefully, so stay tuned!

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hi!
One evening, a couple of weeks ago, when David and I were at Österlen we went for an evening walk around the village of Rörum. They have a Waldorf School there with the most wonderful school yard. That's where we headed, because you never get too old for playgrounds, right?
But first, let's stop and look at the wildflowers.

Walking on a tree trunk laid out across and over the stream.

And then you can use this swing to get across the water.

Like this!

Or you can walk over the wobbly hang bridge.

Fairly magical surroundings.

David found another rope he had to try.

See! The lonely house in the field!

I wish my school yard looked like this when I was a kid. Instead it had this weird, red, spiky asphalt that you tripped and scrubbed your knees on on a daily basis. If a playground has the possibility to hurt you it should at least be fun before you get hurt, right?!

Then we found a cableway! David is test person as usual.

And off he goes!

Wiiiiii! Look at that happy face!

After that we walked by the local football field.
David and I hate all sorts of sports and we've visited a football field together only once before. That was in our home town when our relationship was new and we were walking around town when the rain came. It was pouring! We ran towards one of the booths next to the field (I'm sure there's a proper name for it...) and sat there for at least thirty minutes making out in the rain in the middle of the night and it was absolutely wonderful.
So that's our entire experience of football fields prior to this.

Since we were completely alone there we took the opportunity to imagine a scenario where we were football parents to kids playing in opposite teams. The Away team seemed to be having a tough time...

...but the Home team were very happy.

Then we found a ticket window. David tried to look stern and authorative.

And we end this post with a photo of me trying to hide in the bushes.

By the way: Today it's one week until the release of my new jewelry collection 'This Growing Collection'! I'm so excited to show you all! I've got lots of fun things planned and much to do before august 11. Can't wait!

Until next time:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta