So, In August I flew up to the remote north of Sweden with Jane (from work) to dig holes and try to find some elusive saprolite. In the meantime, one needs to eat....

Welcome to Sweden, have a Lovesteak (available in a bun or wrap).


This photo is a bit out of order, but it makes a nice overview of where we were. This is the rather flat part (all things are relative) of the country, on the border with Finland. It was essentially hills and swamps. Anyone who has spent much time in northern Minnesota will find the landscape strangely familiar.


The roads up there were very long, very straight, and very empty.


Officially working. Batil (improperly spelled), our master of the backhoe dug some rather spectacular pits. This one (which no one entered so no calling OSHA) was something like 7 meters deep. We never did find the saprolite though.


Between standing around and peering into holes in the ground, we stayed at a local youth hostel (I can not recall the name, but it is near Parkjora). This is possibly my all-time-favorite hostel rules sign. The first one is pretty straightforward, clean up after yourself. However, next comes the more enigmatic, Please don't take your meteorites indoors, followed by numerous other meteorite related rules.
It ends up that this is one of the premier meteorite locations in Scandinavia.


The forests up here (we are at about 68 degrees North Latitude here) are breathtaking. You can see for miles through the trees. Now we know where the Moose evolved!


I rather liked the backhoe.


At last success. We found the saprolite. Here is my knife stuck into a corestone. For those who are not aware of it, saprolite is essentially completely rotten rock. It looks like solid rock, but is quite soft.

The sunsets are also quite lovely, and rather late.


And of course, I can not forget about the reindeer. They were everywhere. Much to our astonishment and delight, they were in fact more abundant than the mosquitoes. Here are just two of the numerous critter that littered the roads. They are super cute.



Finally, we had to fly back home. First from a tiny airport, in a Beechcraft KingCab, to a small aiport. Then from the small airport (in a 737 I believe) to a medium sized airport. And finally from the medium sized airport (in an Airbus of some sort) to a big airport.