Fat Boy Burger, Part II
Date: May 11th, 2009
Location: United States of America
by John Huston
This is John calling with the Week in Review, titled "Dreams Come True, Part Two." Tyler and I are back in the United States and enjoying our first few days at home. This blog will recount our final days in Oslo which contained two full circle "dream-come-true" moments, amongst others, but two significant ones. The first is the celebration at the Fram Museum, the origin of our company and inspiration in some way and the second is a wonderful meal at the Bergans of Norway headquarters where we fulfilled our dream of eating a fat boy burger.
The Fram Museum in Oslo which is set on Oslo Fjord is one of the most special places in the world for Tyler and I. This museum houses the polar ship Fram, spelled F-r-a-m, which was sailed by our polar heroes for Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, and Roald Amundsen of Norway and these historic figures undertook some of the most significant and successful polar explorations 100 years ago. And the way they went about approaching those massive challenges has been a huge inspiration to Tyler and I. Specifically we looked at several models of success in polar exploration history and then adapted those people's mental approaches to those challenges, i.e. preparation, Amundsen's look at details, and kind of standing on the shoulders of the existing polar exploration library of knowledge to form our own approach to getting to the North Pole on our Victorinox North Pole '09 Expedition.
The Fram Museum houses the entire ship, so this entire polar ship which is about 90-some feet long, maybe a bit longer, is inside a building. And it's open to the public and for special events, open to people like us where we invited our friends, families, sponsors, and some wonderful people who live in Norway to join us for a dinner and slideshow on the Fram. It was a special evening and Tyler and I really felt that the vibe of success was in the air, and it was something very special to stand and celebrate our success where our heroes had walked and sailed 100 years ago. Fram in Norwegian means forward, and of course, our company is Forward Expeditions, so there is no more perfect place to celebrate. We tried to do it nice and slowly because such huge events don't happen very often in our lives. And we were most happy as well to celebrate with the people who support us and that was one of the big thrills of arriving at the North Pole successfully on April 25th.
The next day Tyler and I drove out to Hokksund, Norway, about an hour outside of Oslo, to visit the headquarters of Bergans of Norway, our official performance outerwear sponsor and makers of excellent camping equipment as well. We talked about the equipment, talked about the expedition, and then went to fulfill our dreams of eating a Fat Boy burger for lunch, and to do so in the sun next to a babbling Norwegian river or creek was just a perfect setting. The Fat Boy burger, if you don't remember, is a huge half-pound burger, lettuce, tomato, onions, mayonnaise, a little catsup, bacon, a fried egg, topped with onion rings (forgot that one little detail earlier), and it has been one of the objects of our food fantasies during the expedition which has been quite intense and all-consuming at times. So we made a goal of getting to the North Pole and then going to get a fat boy burger and relaxing and tasting different foods, and to do so was just a big thrill and a lot of laughs, so that was good fun.
Coming next - Tyler and I return to the States. We'll talk about the transition back to our home lives, which is not as easy as one might think. OK, thanks for listening and Tyler and I will talk to you next week. Bye, bye.
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