One of the ways to beat the high cost of sleeping in northern Europe, where a hotel could easily cost $100.00 per night, was to use cabins or “huts.”  These came with electricity but without water.  Because Donna-Rae and Gregory were carrying their sleeping bags these were ideal at half or a third the price, the savings which they could use at the local supermarket to buy their dinner.  Often, the quiet of the area around the cabin (they were traveling after the “high” or tourist season, so most campgrounds were nearly empty), with a meal of market vegetables and cold meats, was more rewarding than sitting in a busy restaurant full of people smoking cigarettes charging four times the price.  While they had a tent it was often left packed in exchange for a hut, saving an hour of putting it up and taking it down.  Those cool quiet evenings were instead spent enjoying some quality time in their foreign environment, often sitting on the porch, eating their cold meal watching the glowing red sun fall below the horizon.  During these times they both would realize riding around the world was not all about riding roads and shopping if foreign stores.

     Gasoline while plentiful was costing about three times what it was in the USA.  A $1.00 bottle of beer in Germany was $5.00 in Norway, and a meager restaurant meal could make their American Express cards weep.  Knowing that they had to manage their budget carefully, Donna-Rae refrained from shopping while Gregory stayed out of the traveler and biker bars.  However, Donna-Rae did manage a few small items that she sneaked into her travel bag, and Gregory would buy a beer at the supermarket, where it was one-third of what it was in a pub.  Donna-Rae claimed of her small purchases she needed some memory of the places they were passing through so quickly.  Gregory claimed he needed the beer to lube his aching knees and that while “the bike runs on gas, I’m best fueled at night by beer.”

Crossing the Arctic Circle for the third time, Donna-Rae remembered doing the same on the way to Prudhoe Bay.  From this point north it got colder and the wind blew harder.