Hi!
Time for a Two Two Two again and this time with no less than 5 bonus Two's! WOW!

Two breaks during our road trip:
One of David licking my ear in the paper towel aisle in a grocery store in Karlstad, and one of me dancing on a rainy rest stop outside of Karlskoga.

Two self timer photos from the Greek temple in Söderfors:
One of me catching some sun between the pillars, and one of me sneaking up on a very oblivious David.

Two plants that I've grown myself:
One of my mango tree that keeps growing with incredible speed, and one of my unknown South African tree.
(I thought it might be an Acacia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. This little tree comes from a seed pod I found in South Africa two years ago and planted this spring. Anyone who has any guesses of what kind of tree it could be? It has thorns and the leaves pairs up and closes together in the evenings.)

Two of me in vintage clothes:
One from the day we went on our road trip wearing my wonderful sailor Busnel cardigan, and one in a beautiful new to me 60's dress found on a neighbourhood fleamarket last saturday.

Two from the national park of Tiveden:
One of David when he took photos of me standing on a rock that ripped my pants and cut my leg, and one of me looking tiny in the wonderful John Bauer-esque forest.

Two self portraits taken with the TimerCam app:
One when I was bored during my vacation (something that shouldn't even be legal!) and one Triple Selfie (yes, I definitely should be trademarking this). I'm beyond amazed by how the light and the dusty window and ledges cooperates with the iPhone camera so perfectly sometimes!

Two of a very dramatic sky on the evening we returned to Gothenburg after the road trip:
One that I took after David had to stop the car so that I could run out and snap this, and one that David took of me taking the first photo (I love how dramatic David's photo is!).

Two abandoned houses we spotted from the car:
One that we didn't stop for, and one that we got out of the car to look closer at.

And the last photo is also a teaser of what's to come in my third Road Trip post. I can't wait to show you!

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

Soooooo, when I said I'd be back tomorrow (yesterday) with day two of our Anniversary road trip I clearly lied. Or misjudged my laziness. Some or the other.
As I'm still not up to speed on the editing we will simply have to make do with a somewhat scary GIF from one of the places we visited that day.
So here you go:

And let's start this weekend with some dancing, just for the joy of it!

Until next time:
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