Jutland Exploration

Hi all, Scott here. Jessica is visiting her Gran in England this week, so I thought I would give an update this time!  This is a bit of a hodge-podge post since it includes some not-so-recent weekend trips.

Kayak Silkeborg
The 2nd weekend we were in Denmark, the sun was out bright and it was going to be a very nice weekend. So we decided to take advantage by going kayaking in Silkeborg, about an hour's drive from Vejle. We rented a two-person kayak for the day and went to explore the seemly endless connection of river and lakes.  Here are some photos from the day.

And we are off!

Inlet from the busy river to a quite lake. Our lunch spot.

Oh crap, where the hell are we?

Just relaxing!

Some very nice riverfront houses.

Weekend trip to Skagen
Skagen (pronounced Skay-in) is the northern most town in Justland region of Denmark. It is actually quite a fascinating region that includes a very pointy beach, a strange and very large moving sand dune, lots of fishing, and some nice shops and restaurants. We stayed in a campground on the beach about 10k south of Skagen. The camping in Denmark is a quite unique, the camping spots are very orderly with well-kept hedges separating the spots. Since we didn't bring camping gear to Denmark, we ended up renting a small cabin for the night.

The pointy beach is a result of two seas (North Sea and Straits of Denmark) actually coming together. You can actually see the waves crashing together.

The moving sand dune, Råbjerg Mile, was quite fascinating. It is the largest moving dune in Northern Europe with an area of around 1 km² (0.4 mi²) and a height of 40 m (130 ft). The wind moves it up to 18 m a year. The dune leaves a low, moist layer of sand behind it, trailing back westwards towards Skagerrak, where the Mile originally formed more than 300 years ago. Another couple hundred years and it will reach the west coast.

Not our picture, but shows the pointy beach.

Okay, so it might be hard to see the waves crashing into each other. You will just have to trust the red arrows.

Our walk to the beach, it is about 5km from the parking lot.

Others too lazy to walk take the tractor-buses!

Jess sporting the NFU sunglasses!

An old German WWII bunker on the beach. "Free Room" it says. I wouldn't suggest taking them up on the generous offer since the bunker is filled with sand, trash, and smells like feces.

The Pleasantville-like neighborhoods in Skagen.

Skagen pedestrian street. It is quite since all of the stores close at 1pm on Saturdays. Doesn't seem to make sense from a business perspective but the Danes love their free time.

A delicious fish restaurant on the harbor. They even has sand on the floors! Now how about that.

The fantastic meal, fresh Flounder from just off the coast.

Our little cabin.

The walk to the Råbjerg Mile.

Feet.

Walking up to the top.

Made it!

The view of the land behind the moving dune.

This weekend
And here we are on Sunday evening. With Jessica out of town this weekend, I spent much of my time trying to get college football games streaming online. It was a success! My coworker, Drew, came over and we were able to stream the CSU game. And earlier in the day, I stumbled across some US micro-brews in a small kinda-crappy grocery store down the street from us. It is now my favorite grocery store :) Hell, they even had Fort Collins Brewery. That stuff is hard enough to find in the US.

Thanks for reading. Hope all of our friends in the Front Range were able to make it through the tremendous flooding without any harm.