Norway

We love it when readers take us along on trips to the world’s loveliest places. (We also get a kick out of the occasional dispatch from seedier destinations.) Siri and Bent Iversen of Northeast Minneapolis recently toted The Rake to one of Norway’s great geological wonders. While visiting Bent’s homeland of Vågsøy, an island off the country’s west coast, the couple carved out some quality reading time as they checked out the great, mushroom-shaped Kannesteinen Rock. It’s “actually bedrock,” explained the Iversens in their accompanying missive. As it turns out, the oft-photographed formation assumed its unusual shape after a thousand years of being battered by the surf.