Day 15: Leknes/Gardermoen

Great weather in Leknes this morning! Because we were leaving, of course. With the bright morning sun streaming in from windows overlooking the grassy backyard, we took our time waking up, making breakfast, packing up and tidying our AirBnB.

Sunny morning after yesterday’s squall

On the bright side, the fact that yesterday’s typhoon cleared up gave us some level of confidence our travel plans for the day would be a success, starting with a noon flight from Leknes to Bodø.

Dropping off the second rental at LKN

Unlike Chicago or Minneapolis/St. Paul, the Leknes airport has two rooms. One that holds the short baggage claim belt, rental car desk, check in, and security. The other is the one-gate waiting room. We arrived in plenty of time for our 20-minute flight over the Vestfjorden.

March of the passengers, Part 1

Not tired of these Lofoten views

Different rocky coast look near Bodø, also awesome

After a short layover, our next flight took us to Oslo (or more accurately, the city of Gardermoen, which is about a 40 minute drive outside of Oslo). The views out of the window were not “Lofoten Islands” level of greatness, but the clouds and landscape heading inland to the east were still worth a look.

March of the passengers, Part 2

Thanks SAS! We like you better than Delta/KLM

Back in the land of large airports, we collected our bags and stopped by the KLM counter to see if we could check in, or at least get assigned some seats for the first leg of our itinerary tomorrow (because Delta and KLM are dysfunctional partner airlines as noted previously). The agent was able to reserve seats for us, so hopefully no more bumps! She’ll probably get in trouble for not charging us some lame fee to help us out.

Checking in to the Park Inn hotel at the OSL airport

Walking to the hotel, we realized how exhausted we were. The hotel is a bit of a hike outside the city of Oslo, and since it’s a Saturday everything in Norway tends to shut down on the weekend. None of the places we were interested in seeing were open. Opting for a relaxing evening in the hotel instead, we wrapped up our epic trip with a nap and dinner.

Nap time!

Lounge and dinner time!

Norway has been amazing, and we will miss it. Chicago is now calling us home. Tomorrow we finish with a trio of flights back to Chicago — our 10th, 11th, and 12th flights of the trip. For some reason, flying west always seems and feels easier, so here’s hoping that holds true.

One more thing. As we are posting this blog in the Park Inn bar right now, it is pouring rain outside. Ha! We win tonight, Norway weather demons!!!!