That’s a wrap

For reasons that far surpass my abilities as an amateur travel agent, we came back the way we went: Keflavík>Portland>Seattle>Dallas.  I suppose it makes sense if you consider that you are cutting across the Arctic Circle, but I wonder how Alaska Airlines and Iceland Airlines explains that pathway to a flat-earther.  

You know what- I will just do the traveling and the witty commentary, and I will leave explaining the spherical shape of the planet to someone else.  

We spent yesterday afternoon, the overnight hours and this morning trying to get home.  Here are a few things that have really stood out over the past day or so:

• Last night, we were looking at the horizon in Seattle watching the sun set.  Haven’t seen it do that in a while.  
• This morning when we arrived at DFW, it was still dark outside.  It hasn’t been dark outside for weeks! 
• Also, blackout curtains are magical.  
• We still love the silver line train here in Dallas.  So dang convenient.  Nobody had to peel themselves out of bed in the pre-dawn hours and drive all the way out to the spaghetti bowl of roads that lead to the airport.  Jeff did get up pretty early and drive us to our house from a very near by station.  
• I finished reading my book!  That was the third one I finished on this adventure.  I love that I had some good reading time along the path.  I don’t get enough of that.  
• If you are planning a trip to Iceland, I want to warn you, not a single square of their toilet tissue is soft.  There. You’ve been warned.  Do with that info as you wish.  
• Don’t purchase water while you are in Iceland.  Just fill up everything from the bathroom sink.  It’s fantastic water.  
• Never connect through the Seattle airport.  We did both ways, and the first time, we had to run for a plane.  The second time, we didn’t, but our inbound flight was very delayed and half of our fellow passengers broke out into a jog at the terminal.  I think we can just avoid switching planes in Seattle from here on out.  

That’s a wrap on our 16-day summer extravaganza.  Hope we didn’t miss much in America while we were gone.  We’re under a month away from our tenth anniversary, and after that, we head back to work.  I’ll hop back on here the next time I shove a bunch of clothes into a piece of luggage.  Until then, Skál!  

Here’s the new addition to our refrigerator magnet collection…

And check out our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Snúður

There’s a thing someone told me once that appears to be true of midwesterners- specifically Minnesotans.  As someone with a lot of Minnesotan kinfolk (and someone who lived there until age seven), I think it makes total sense.  When it’s time to wrap things up and head back home (you do this while you are seated), you announce your intention by slapping your own thighs with your hands and saying, “Whelp.”  

That’s where we are- time for *slap* Whelp.  Time to head back home.  

We’re coming to you live from the Foss Hotel in Reykjavík, having arrived here in town just after lunchtime.  Cas and I bade farewell to Kitti and his very kind and good niece, as well as the rest of our tour group.  We all got our room keys here at this very large hotel and disappeared into the relative anonymity of a big hotel in a capital city.  There are seven people sleeping under this roof tonight who have been part of every day of our lives for two weeks.  I don’t often write about my fellow travelers, because none of them signed on to a trip to be my fodder, but this group was pretty great.  It’s always a roll of the dice when you join with a tour group, but I really liked this bunch.  I also really liked that the group was this small.  Change approved.  Small groups are part of our future search criteria.  

Today started in the Shæfellsnes Peninsula, and today was the day that we learned more about Snúður.  Apparently, Snúður is a pastry that looks like a Danish or a hole-less frosted doughnut.  Yesterday, Kitti found a bakery that served a lovely Snúður, then proceeded to make a zillion references to his Snúður.  It sounded like a terrific bit of innuendo.  Never touch another man’s Snúður!  Hey, are you looking at my Snúður?  Today, we dropped by another bakery, and he did his best to convince us all that we should each enjoy a bit of Snúður.  I decided against ordering one- I didn’t want to be accused of anything bordering on bad Snúður behavior.  

Another feature of our day today was a visit to a black sand beach.  It was definitely not your typical summer beach moment.  We were wearing warm shirts, a fleece middle layer and rain jackets.  We had our rain pants over our regular pants, and we had our hiking boots on.  We walked out to an observation point and then back to the waiting vehicle.  Too cold.  We’re all kinds of spoiled on good Icelandic weather.  Also, we have seen plenty of beaches on this trip, and we wanted to be warm.  

That took us all to what our guide called The Black Church.  Funny thing…  When you are talking to a Texan and you say Black Church, this is not what we think of:

Regardless, it’s very pretty and kind of strange.  There may be more churches in Iceland than waterfalls (though more study is needed), but they are routinely painted in white, cream or occasionally red.  Not black. We didn’t spend a lot of time at Búðakirkja- I think the whole group is spoiled on the good weather, and this bit of more typical Icelandic weather brought us down today.  

But that was pretty much it.  We stopped by a bakery and heard a few well placed Snúður jokes, then we wheeled back to Reykjavík.  Kitti dropped us all at the hotel, and Cas and I went about the business of finding a great option for dinner.  We actually got the last reservation at the spot where he loved the fish stew on the food walk two weeks ago.  Man, it’s been a minute since we got here.  We headed that way this evening and celebrated that, as of today, we have been married 9 years and 11 months.  One month from today, we have our official tenth wedding anniversary.  What a great celebration this trip has been.  I have jammed all the dirty clothes I can fit into my luggage and will be ready to head to the airport tomorrow when it’s time to go.  Then, it’s back across Santa’s backyard and into the US Pacific Northwest, and on to Dallas.  Whew.  

Time for one more sleep behind the blackout curtains.  Time for a toothbrush and a little shuteye, last night in Reykjavík style.  Good night, friends!  Check out our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Mr. Blue Sky

This morning, we began the day with a drive instead of a ferry ride.  Apparently, the ferry we were scheduled to go on was not working today, so we hopped in the van with assurances that the view from the windows would be significantly better.  Kitti was driving, the weather was just about perfect, and he knew a bunch of little things to do along the way.  

So there was the Erpsstaðir Creamery.  We got to eat the ice cream there and greet the cows.  A few things, there- I loved the ice cream, but I can’t really eat it with any gusto or enjoyment of the flavor while I am standing anywhere near the cows.  Not that I can’t eat dairy that close to the source- it’s just that aroma affects flavor, and cows in a concentrated area smell a lot like… cows in a concentrated area.  That smell kind of messes with your enjoyment of salted caramel.  So, yeah, I just held the ice cream while I greeted its origin story, then I enjoyed my single scoop away from the cows.  

Our next sunny-sky beautiful stop was the Súgandisey Island Light Beacon.  I think this may have been another sunny day special.  I also think we’re getting lots of those because our tour director wants to show his niece the best of the whole island.  I appreciate that he called in all his favors to the weather gods, and they obliged us this whole time with mostly sunny skies.  Today was no exception- the light beacon was under blue skies.  It was all sunshine as I took photos of Cas at the top of the world, looking down on creation.  

From there, it was time to see Kirkjufell, which apparently means Church Mountain.  That totally makes sense, too, as there is a church about every 50 feet in this country.  The abundance of small, picturesque, Lutheran churches is apparently due to the fact that farmers can’t be gone from their work very long, so they need a house of worship close to the cows who need frequent milking.  So it was off to Church Mountain.  I will give you three guesses what’s near there.  Go ahead.  Ooh- got it on the first one.  Yep.  A waterfall.  In fact, it’s called Kirkjufellfoss.  As a nascent expert in the Icelandic tongue, I can tell you with near certainty that the name Kirkjufellfoss means Church Mountain Waterfall.  You’re welcome.  I’m so good at languages.  

From there, we had a teeny tiny bit of rain fall on the van while we drove, but it cleared by the time we got to the back sand beach and was all the way gone when we got to the hotel.  Cas and I stopped for a glass of wine before our pre-dinner walk, which took us right to dinner time.  And that may be all the gas we have in the tank, today.  It’s been about two weeks of near constant movement and time away from home.  It’s probably time to head back to the house.  I have found that each day, a little more reality encroaches on my thoughts.  Today, I found myself thinking about home maintenance and my next semester of work.  Out, out damned spot!  I am still on vacation in gorgeous Iceland.  But alas, I suppose we have to head back to reality in a few days.  But for tomorrow, we spend one more morning in Snæfellsnes Peninsula before heading back to Reykjavík in the evening for dinner and a final night of Icelandic blackout curtain-induced sleep.  One more blog tomorrow from this beautiful island, friends, then we head back to Texas summer of shorts and short sleeves, or as our tour director sees it, everyday attire.  

Have a lovely evening, and I’ll write again from the biggest city they have in Iceland.  Good night, friends! 

Our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads

We started the day in Ísafjörðor, heading west,  We made our way to the westernmost point in Iceland, which is also the Westernmost point in Europe.  Along the way, we gained a new appreciation for our locally sourced tour director and his amazing ability to drive in harsh, Icelandic circumstances. Our first stop took us to the Icelandic version of Mount Vernon.  It was a museum dedicated to Jón Sigurðsson, who was the leader of the 19th century Icelandic independence movement.  We actually observed his birthday while we were here.  Turns out his birthday is Iceland’s National Day.  He was an interesting character.  He was born in Iceland, but went away to school in Copenhagen.  He came home with a more political bent, and was the sort of father of Icelandic independence.  There was a lot in between, and to drive that point home, our tour director had to come and pull us out of the turf house part of the museum where Cas and I were reading a display about his early childhood.  Time to move on, folks. 

With our visit to the Sigurðsson museum in the rear view, we all headed to the Dynjandi waterfall.  It was kind of strange that none of the signage said Foss on it.  The way I see it, the thing should be called Dynjandifoss.  But I am new here, so I don’t entirely understand the ins and outs.  This was a really pretty waterfall.  It’s apparently often compared to a bridal veil.  I get the comparison.  Check out my groom next to this veil:

At this point in the day, everything was going great.  It wasn’t until the trip to Látrabjarg that things got hairy.  The way out is over some pretty crumbly dirt roads.  Except for when those dirt roads are unavailable.  There was some construction or some such nonsense.  It diverted us from the usual dirt roads to some even crappier roads made from wobbly, pointy rocks.  Fun in a car or a truck, I am sure, but even more interesting in a 17-person van.  Not all heroes wear capes, friends, and Kitti was a hero today.  I made sure to mention that I was properly impressed when we arrived at the cliffs at the end of Europe, and when we got to the hotel at the end of the day, I started up a round of applause.  It was a hairy ride.  He drove some stressful pathways in a confidence-inspiring way.  

But why go all the way out there, you ask?  It’s the puffins.  The Arctic Puffin loves the heck out of that cliff, and to be sure, those things were everywhere.  They’re actually kind of divas,  They will pose for photos and make sure you get their good side.  If you are a little patient with your video-filming, they will take off or land on camera.  Also, they’re cute.  I mean, Cas and I saw blue-footed boobies two years ago, and now, we’ve hit the other extreme with these guys.  Who knew we were bird people?  

It was a very bouncy, very stressful ride to the cliffs at Látrabjarg, and it was bouncy and stressful on the way back.  Also, the to-and-from was about four hours total.  We must have really wanted to see those birds.  And the end of Europe.  And all of the things, of course.  But we have one more Icelandic day in the books and a promise to visit a peninsula tomorrow that will cause me to need this letter: æ.  Oh, Icelandic is a strange language.  Did you know they don’t use the letters C, Q, W and Z.  That would be problematic if Cas wanted to take Qantas airlines to Western Zimbabwe while listening to Chicago, Queen, The Who and ZZ Top.  But hey, at least they have the þ, the ð and the æ all nailed down.  

Look it’s getting late.  It was one of those days when, even as a passenger, I had my shoulders all tense and up too close to my ears.  Mad respect to Kitti and appreciation for the masterful (if bouncy) safe passage.  We’ll chat again soon when Cas and I are on the Shæfellsnes Peninsula.  

Góða Nótt.  Also, here are our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.  

Hello. Hi.

Where to begin with the day today?  We woke in a rather rustic hotel- it’s in a less populated part of Ísafjörðor, where we began as we always seem to with an included breakfast.  I know from other travels that having an included breakfast is pretty great.  It’s always hard to find a reasonable way to grab food at the start of a day in a place you’re not from.  Hotel breakfast is not always the best food, but is is always a huge convenience.  It also gave us a second chance to chat with the bird that lives in the hotel’s reception area/bar/restaurant.  I only caught a glimpse of him, but we all heard the fella.  He said Hello.  Hi.  I believe I heard him say Wow, and a few people swore they heard him say Shit, though I didn’t witness it for myself.  Given that Cas has spent a little bit of time on this trip using an app to identify which bird is nearby by listening to its song, I feel like this is a missed opportunity.  I have no idea what breed of bird old HelloHi is.  Why not figure that out with your fancy app, huh, Cas?  But alas, that ship has sailed.  

From there, we drove a while to Ísafjörðor proper.  This is a reasonably large city by Icelandic standards.  There’s a university here, several shops, multiple restaurants and hotels and about three cruise ships out in the water when you roll into town.  The difference in the pedestrian traffic from 1 pm to 4 pm is no joke.  The cruise passengers loaded back up, and the whole city became much more pleasant.  I am now more convinced than ever that I am not interested in a cruise.  It makes you part of a swarm.  I’m all set being part of a small tour group and pouring a few dollars into the local economy by eating the food and staying in the hotels.  

Also, at dinner last night, we hijacked other travelers’ great ideas.  I was pretty distracted as we prepared for this trip, so I didn’t really pick apart the itinerary like I normally may have done, so when we started talking about what to do on a free day, I was a little bit caught off guard.  Oh yeah- we have a whole day to dork around in Ísafjörðor.  Hmm.  What to do?  

So, we stole ideas.  We went on an e-bike adventure with one of our traveling companions and we had our guide help us make reservations at a spot recommended by another pair of folks on our trip.  We copied off of their papers- stole their ideas.  Where does coattail riding get you?  It gets you on an amazing e-bike tour and eating a fantastic seafood dinner.  

The e-bike tour advertised with an invented scarcity.  They touted the tour and warned that there were only six spots left  Cas booked a spot.  I booked one.  A fellow traveler booked a spot for herself.  Crisis averted- we got three of those six little old spots.  Only three remained.  Turns out, the maximum number was six in the first place.  All totaled, we were half the number they would allow, and it turned out, nobody else threw down the bucks, so we were four all together with the guide.  Honestly, that was perfect.  The guide was younger- a graduate student at the University here in town- and he was guiding the three of us around.  We were all decidedly less young than our guide, and we all felt fully comfortable slowing down a little on the spots where the kid went a little too fast.  

The e-bike tour was so very much fun.  It was a mountain bike trail with an electronic assist for the steep spaces.  I had a few moments where my mind transported back to steep streets in Red Wing, Minnesota, and my first bike that Dad cleaned up and repainted from its original state of disrepair.  The fifth birthday was the bicycle birthday when I was growing up, and Dad was always a great repairer and re-purposer of things.  My bike was the prettiest and most well-constructed like-new used bike in the neighborhood.  I was back there again today, racing down a hill that was just a little too steep to feel 100% safe, and my head was back to my five and six year old self- WHEEEE! 

I guess what I am saying is- if an e-bike tour is an option you are considering on a trip, do it.  Just take my dang advice.  You’re welcome.  

The last thing we did today was head to Tjörhúsið.  When you have two folks on your tour who researched dinner spots in advance, then your tour director says something and your bike guide makes a recommendation, and all three of those recommendations are the same place, you maybe should make a reservation.  Well, we did.  And oh my gosh.  To quote that bird from breakfast today, “Wow!”  The place does a buffet.  And they have a big guy come out to explain.  The big guy is about the size of my older brother, so if you know Jeff (or remember his photos from our Italy blog), that’s the size I mean.  He big.  

Anyhow, the big feller told us how the soup was served- he said we should receive it in Dickensian style, which I assume to mean that we walk up with an empty bowl and sad, street urchin eyes, proclaiming Please sir, may I have some more?  Which I did most of- I didn’t remember my one line of script in the moment, but I did manage to get some exceptional soup.  

He also told us how to move through the line to get as much of the somehow six different things that were the evening’s main course.  The big guy said his parents were in the back, cooking up the food, and we could eat as much as we wished until 8:45, when he would throw us all out.  Fair enough.  We couldn’t eat that whole time, anyhow, but I suspect some folks take that as a personal challenge.  

When we wrapped that up, we headed back to the room.  We leave here tomorrow and see- you’ll never guess- a waterfall.  I know… what are the odds?  Okay, okay- I will dispense with the cynicism over natural beauty.  It’s just that there are so many waterfalls.  They are all spectacular.  I am overloaded on them today, but in a week, I will be back in uninspiring Dallas, hoping for a pretty pattern in the soap bubbles when I wash a dish. And so it goes…  

But for this evening, sleep well and dream of the little puffins who are likely to say Hello. Hi to us tomorrow- the crafty little birds have evaded us on this trip so far, but hope springs eternal, right?  Here’s a great picture that shows how awesome we both look in helmets: 

And here are our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.  

You’re a wizard, Harry

Today was a great day for guerrilla tourism and snapshots of the strange and occult.  What ever could I mean?  Buckle up, friends.  It starts with an earlier-than-acceptable visit to the Glaumbær old turf farm.  It was a great collection of turf buildings, which are Icelandic houses with some wood structure and some parts built up of turf with grass growing on top.  The thing you naturally do when you walk up to the front doors of these things is you assume the size of the inside of the thing you’re about to enter.  Ever see Dr. Who?  If you have, you get where I am headed, here.  (If not, here’s a quick bit of info- he has a time travel machine about the size of a phone booth, but when you enter, it’s absolutely cavernous, and he always says the same thing, which is:) It’s bigger on the inside.  

Well, it is.  Much bigger on the inside.  There is a central hallway and a series of rooms.  It’s interesting.  I walked through a parlor of sorts, then to a kitchen, a few pantries, an attic and a long sleep room with many bunks.  There were lots and lots of rooms.  More than I can remember and certainly more than I photographed.  The turf houses were interesting, but also, we arrived at the site of these homes about 45 minutes before they opened.  Here comes the guerrilla tourism- Kitti wasn’t having it.  He was present, so he would go in.  No waiting 45 minutes for the place to open.  He’s an Icelander, and he says it’s time now.  So he hopped over the stone wall and went to the gate.  He opened that gate.  We all walked in.  Then the teenaged employee shuffled out of the information hut and spoke with him.  He showed the passes or explained something or another, but whatever objections the teenager had, it was far too late.  We were already walking around in the turf farm.  Joke’s on you, kid.  

We had lots of time to explore that turf farm, then we were back in the van for a bouncy ride.  The roads in this part of Iceland are nothing to get excited about.  Our bouncy ride took us to a few little stops on the way.  We visited the site of the last capital punishment in Iceland.  It was a very brutal beheading by axe.  There were two people put to death, both of whom conspired to kill the wealthy person to whom they were indentured.  It was a pretty hairy story, and the punishment was probably fair for the time, but they didn’t exactly arrive at the idea for this crime hastily.  They had some pretty rough times leading up to their choice to kill that dude with a hammer and a pocket knife (and arson).  It was really quite the roadside attraction.  Move over, world’s largest non-stick frying pan and biggest ball of twine in Minnesota.  This is a really interesting axe.  

Our next stop was the very strange Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft.  I joked on the way in: But you’re a wizard, Caswell!  But it was a whole lot weirder than that.  Iceland generally operates in a bilingual way.  Everything you see is in Icelandic and English- except this museum.  It’s entirely in Icelandic.  You have to walk around with a guide book, which they have in many languages.  I read the whole thing (not carefully or thoughtfully, but I read it…) and still don’t entirely understand the things I saw.  There were pages and pages of text that attempted to explain all sorts of weird things, but I couldn’t make sense of many.  Nor could anyone else in our group.  Weird things of note: 

• There was a skeleton figure clawing out of the flooring to illustrate some point about resurrecting the dead.  
• There was a pair of Necro-pants that were effectively the whole bottom half of an adult man- at least all of the skin- that imbued the wearer with some powers.  (I tired to capture a tasteful image, but you need to check out the album for it- it’s pretty anatomically correct)  
• There was a timeline on the wall of everyone who was put to death for witchcraft- fun fact- Icelanders almost exclusively killed off male practitioners of witchcraft.  I guess that’s balance for Salem.  

But we didn’t linger too long, there.  We needed to get across a large swath of Iceland today, and so, we did.  We are now safely in the Westfjords.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a free day, and we get a little more sleep-in time in the morning.  We also have managed to book an e-bike tour and a fancy dinner here in Isafjörðor.  

See you on the other side of the fjord!  

Check out our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.

All over the map

Today took us to literally and figuratively all over the map.  We started at Goðafoss, went to the Forest Lagoon, saw Akureyri, and visited the Herring Era Museum in Skagafjörður.  Let’s recap. First, the waterfall.  Goðafoss literally translates to Good Falls.  They were, indeed, some very good falls.  The falls had a wide space with a horseshoe shape that somehow felt like it was more beautiful and less sheer force than Dettifoss.  I mean, the moment you start comparing awesome Icelandic waterfalls, you may be a little spoiled on too much natural beauty.  Who knows?  

But like I said, today took us through a series of different things.  The beginning had us climbing around in hiking boots and making our way to the tippy top of a viewing area where we could watch massive amounts of water speed along their way.  Then, we hopped into the van and headed to the Forest Lagoon.  I loved the Forest Lagoon, but there are some parts that I just didn’t feel fully comfortable with.  I am too much of an American to understand European people’s ease with nudity, and to be clear, this is strictly the locker room I am talking about, but it’s just never been my comfort zone.  I have always had more privacy than most, though.  Growing up, I was always the only girl, so there was never any sharing of bedroom space.  I never did a team sport that put me in a locker room.  You showed up to gymnastics practice already wearing your leotard.  And in college, I went to school close to home and stayed at my parents’ house to save money, so no dorm life for me.  I’ve always had privacy.  So the part where you have to shower there in a big shared shower facility in the locker room before you put your bathing suit on- not my favorite.  I had just showered in the hotel a few hours prior.  Not sure why this was all necessary- and you really should have had me washing up with my suit on- it’s been in a hot tub earlier on this trip.  But it’s not my lagoon, so it’s not my call.  

But once I had adhered to their rules and prepared my skin to get into their geothermal waters, it was pretty great.  We walked into very warm water and shared a few glasses of prosecco While we looked at the mountains and trees in the background.  The weather was very nice- not too sunny, but not exactly warm outside- perfect for this particular activity.  

Cas was braver than I- plunging head to toe briefly into the cold pool.  I managed waist high wading in that one, but we both instantly returned to the warm, comfortable water pretty rapidly after that.  When we got out of the water and dried off, it was time to head to Akureyri for lunch and a little wandering downtown.  Akureyri is a large city, often referred to as the Capital of the North.  It’s 37 miles south of the Arctic Circle, but the walk around town was very pleasant.  The sun was shining- and it will most of the night- and we stopped for a nice lunch.  

After our stroll through Akureyri, it was time for one more stop on the way to the next hotel.  Skagafjörður.  This was once the bustling spot that fed the world herring.  Similar to the American gold rush, the herring industry made this place a real boomtown just over a hundred years ago.  To learn about that, we visited the Herring Era Museum.  We learned about the industry, the laws Iceland put in place to stop foreign companies from making all the profit and taking it all back home, and the Herring Girls, who were some of the early employees in this industry.  With all the men out fishing and doing other jobs, the Herring Girls would clean and gut fish as they arrived, lay them carefully in barrels and add salt to them in layers to preserve the fish for shipping and sale.  All things being equal, I will stick with teaching, thanks.  

But that was the day- it was all over the place.  We did a rugged hike, took a relaxing soak, had a leisurely walk to lunch and learned about women who gutted fish.  Not sure any of that sounds remotely connected, but it all made sense in that it was sequential along our travel path.  Tomorrow, we head to the Westfjords.  It will be interesting, I am sure, and I am particularly interested in the very weird sounding stop we have planned at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft.  But more on that when we get there,  I have had pickled herring today, showered in a shared space with other women and seen yet another amazing waterfall.  I feel like that’s plenty for a Monday.  Have a good night, friends! 

Check out our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.

Ja Ja Ding Dong

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day.  The sun was shining all day- and it will continue to shine almost all night, too.  There were clouds, but they were pretty, wispy clouds bobbing about in some of the bluest sky we’ve seen on this trip.  And it was just about as perfect as a day could be.  We began with a lava field hike to a spot called Skútustaðahreppur.  Try saying that three times fast.  Or one time at all.  I’ve surrendered to the language and decided that it’s just called a lava field.  

Anyhow, it was a very nice hike. We did a lot of hiking today, in fact.  I haven’t headed to dinner, yet, and my step counter says I have walked 17,865 steps.  It also thinks I have climbed 33 flights of stairs.  Joke’s on you- step-o-meter… Most of that was just really steep inclines, not actual staircases.  Regardless, here is Cas at the top of one of those inclines, checking out a lava field. 

Our next stop was Húsavík.  Now, I don’t know if any of you out there reading this stuff are big Will Ferrel fans, but he did a movie where he played an Icelander, and his character was from Húsavík.  It was called Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.  It was exactly on-brand for Will Ferrell.  

Cas- in classic Cas style- looked up movies and shows set in Iceland before we left and downloaded a few to watch on his iPad while we were flying over here, and we watched that one somewhere over the Arctic Circle.  It was appropriately goofy and exactly the kind of shallow end of the intellectual pool you need when facing the challenges of international travel.  But, we watched the movie and found it amusing and very cute.  We just didn’t know if Icelanders found it amusing or offensive.  Were they delighted to see the portrayal of their home or horrified by how much of it was wrong?  Really, either thing could have been true.  Turns out, they loved it.  We listened to a song from the movie on the way in and a different song from the movie on the way out of town.  The Whale Museum we went to had a brochure out front for a place you could go and see the costumes from the movie.  So strike up a chorus of Ja Ja Ding Dong, which is allegedly the favorite song of Husávik residents and sing along!  Seriously though, the whale museum was kind of amazing.  There were skeletons from whales- most of whom died of natural causes- and it gave you some scale for just how enormous these beasts are.  

While we were in Husávik, we stopped for lunch.  Cas ordered the fish soup and I ordered the fish of the day, which was wolf fish- which I have never heard of- and we swapped plates halfway through.  We also ordered a few fun, summer drinks, because it was the kind of day when you leave your jacket behind and walk around in a t-shirt.  Summer solstice and all, you know.  Sunny skies and seasonal beverages are appropriate.  Yesterday, we were wearing all of our layers of clothing to stay warm, and today, we would have worn sandals if we had any that could have handled a few hikes.  

After that, we drove for a while and stopped off at a pretty canyon for another walk.  Our guide apparently loves to make extra stops when the sun is shining, so today was a pretty great day for that.  Quick canyon hike in the books, and it was time for Dettifoss.  Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in all of Europe.  I have to admit, it is pretty spectacular.  Cas and I stood looking down at it and he asked if maybe we could walk behind this one, too.  I figured it may present a challenge.  It looks pretty perilous.  But it was a lot of majesty, a lot of beauty and a lot of mist rising from the water.  There was a perpetual rainbow just hovering in front of the falls, and if you went to just the right spot, there was a double rainbow.  Kind of amazing.  

Tomorrow takes us to a herring museum, Goðafoss, the Forest lagoon and a new city entirely.  It’s swimsuit season on our tour, and it’s time to hop in some geothermal waters.  We’ll chat on the other side of the lagoon- until then, check out our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.  

Solstice eve

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice.  That should be the longest day of the year anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, but where we are, it’s absolutely the truth.  Tomorrow, sunrise is set for 1:37 am and sunset is supposed to be at 12:42 am.  That puts the day at a whopping 23 hours and five minutes.  The only way to have a longer day is to spend some or all of it in line at the drivers license office or in a hospital waiting room.  

We’re at a hotel next to Lake Mývatn on the northern side of the island, just in case someplace like Reykjavík was too far south for near constant daylight.  Today was very, very cold.  Especially considering tomorrow is the official beginning of summer.  It actually snowed on us as we rolled down the highway.  Didn’t have June 20th as a snowy day on my calendar, but travel teaches you things, right?  It was drizzly most of the time we were out marching around in the elements, making it extra cold anywhere water hits your skin.  Here’s a thing I know as of today, too: If you pack rain pants on a trip like this and you are truly on the fence wondering if you should throw them on over your hiking pants or not, just go ahead and do it.  If you get the kind that zips all the way down each leg, it takes virtually no time, and you will regret not wearing them far more than any possible regret about being overdressed.  

But this morning, we began with a quick aside to a really interesting building that had been a monastery.  I think it’s a cafe, now, but the building had history- and that really neat Icelandic grass roof.  I have been pondering that for our house in Dallas.  I don’t know how turf roofs fare in hailstorms, but it can’t be much worse than shingles.  We’ve got a pretty in-obtrusive homeowners’ association in our neighborhood, but I suspect they’d have some choice words for any family on the block who rips off a shingled roof and plants grass up top.  Alas, we will adorn our house in the custom of the suburbs.  

The next big ticket item today was a waterfall called Rjúkandafoss.  By the way, I have given up trying to add pronunciation notes.  It’s a lot of work for my brain, and I am probably not getting them right.  I’m just making up how to say these things as I go along.  You’re welcome to copy and paste them into an AI platform and ask the internets what to say.  I’ll wait.  

This waterfall, though.  I mean, wow.  Another wow.  We walked up in 3° drizzle.  I am sure that’s 38° Fahrenheit.  Fun fact- it’s also 276° Kelvin.  Aren’t conversion apps fun?  It was reallly cold.  And I was too dumb to put my rain pants over my other pants.  So was Cas, so I was in good company, but next time we scratch our heads and wonder if we should or shouldn’t, we know the answer.  Anyhow, here’s the waterfall:

I know, right?  

Next, we went to a spot that somehow looked like the surface of the moon.  Not sure why- I kind of lost the thread in the middle of all the tooth chattering- then we were off to this really interesting geothermal space that had steam vents coming up out of the ground.  The sulfur smell is always unmistakable in spots like this, and I have now been to enough that I know to expect it.  There were also bubbling mud pots in the ground, which is disorienting every time we see it.  It looks like a very expensive spa treatment could happen there and I would probably decline then later mock it.  For your pronounciation experimentation I have the name of that geothermal area here- give it a go: Nàmafjall,  Oof, that’s a tough one.  

After that, we saw some pseudo craters called Skútustaðagígar.   Those were spots in a marshy area that got these great crater-looking concave spaces at the topmost part of the hills when hot lava flowed across the landscape  2,300 years ago.  On any regular day in my life, those would have been remarkable, but my threshold for amazing stuff is a little skewed today.  Like- call me when you have a majestic waterfall or a bubbling mud pit.  I don’t get out of the van for a dent on the top of a hill.  What have I become?  It’s all amazing and spectacular.  I need to check my little attitude.  Maybe I am tired.  We have been going at a pretty rapid clip lately, and perhaps, it’s time to hit the hay early and start tomorrow late.  Sounds like the best thing to do on the longest day of the year- start it out with a properly long sleep.  Good night, friends!

Our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.  

The red chair

Kitti- I think that’s how he spells his name- sounds like Kidrrey- you just have to smush the d sound into the rrr sound.  It’s complicated.  It’s Icelandic.  Anyhow Kitti piled us all into the fancy van-bus this morning and drove us out to the “chair with no purpose.”  It’s apparently an art installation called The Red Chair.  I googled it.  It is just a random, slightly oversized chair in a rocky outcropping where you can sit and contemplate the meaning of life or try to uncover the mysteries of the universe.  Cas sat atop the chair and looked practically philosophical.  I tried to strike a more contemplative, eastern pose, as we were headed to the East Fjords today.  Ohm.  Ohm.  So let’s get into it.  

It was another perfect visibility morning in Iceland, which, according to our guide, is super rare.  Sunny skies and perfect views are rare.  It seemed to inspire him to stop more along the way.  I get the sense that this part of the trip is the kind of hit-or-miss part for most people along the ring road.  Today, it was so pretty that we stopped off at all of the things.  This is a beach that is often difficult to access when it’s yucky out, but today, it’s beautiful, so let’s go explore!  He told us that the last time he had been to a particular beach on this journey was years ago.  Today was special.  Apparently, this whole trip’s weather has been special.  I am glad to be here for it.  Aside from Iceland Day (which, we’re told is supposed to be crappy, though we aren’t sure if it’s tradition or law), this whole thing has been uncharacteristically amazing.  Also, check out this fishing village.  And this other fishing village.  Now go look at this neat thing and this great view.  That was our day today.  It was pretty great.  

The thing is, our guide has a niece.  She is an adult, I am sure, but I am 51 years old, and perhaps the youngest paid participant on this trip, and I see this girl as a student.  Apparently, she is a microbiologist in a hospital in Reykjavík.  So, a proper gown up with a big job.  But seriously, a kid in this crew.  Anyhow, this niece is joining her uncle in the passenger seat.  He’s showing her Iceland.  She has seen only Reykjavík.  I figured he called in all of his favors to the travel gods to show off his job to the kid.  He’s going for uncle of the year.  He may well win.  This is pretty spectacular.  I have some amazing, next-level uncles, but none of them have personally ushered me around a beautiful island.  Very few of them have jobs I would want to ride along with.  No offense to the social worker uncle or the machinist uncle.  Noble work, I am sure, but are you spending your days on black sand beaches or heading to waterfalls on the way to fjords?  Yeah, my job isn’t that either.  Regardless, I feel like we’re getting the best of this guide, just because he is fond of his niece.  Heck, I’ll take it.  

The highlight of the day was Petra’s rock museum.  There was apparently an Icelandic woman whose name was Ljósbörg Petra María Sveinsdóttir (oof-  what a mouthful) who lived out in these parts and tended toward dragging pretty rocks home.  It was less strange than it sounds when you see her collection of geodes and obsidian rocks.  She was clearly one part amateur geologist and one part total hoarder.  It may not have seemed like a problem behavior until you went into the house and saw the collection of pens, matchbooks, playing cards, postcards and keyrings.  It was all a bit much, but rthe rocks were really pretty.  Petra was the perfect moniker for a rock hound, though.  Her house was intriguing.  

But once we went there and stopped by yet another fishing village where Cas and I found a nice spot for a bit of local color at a bar, we headed to the hotel for dinner.  This is yet another one-night stay-over.  We actually spend two consecutive nights at the same place starting tomorrow, and honestly, I don’t know what to do with that.  This is the road-trip of all road-trips. And for international travel, that’s kind of a weird anomaly.  But I am sure that Kitti is calling in all of his favors to the travel gods- the old ones and the new ones- to get the best view for his clearly favorite niece.  We’re happy to swim in that wake.  Wish us good weather and safe travels in the morning.  Let the power of Kitti being a fantastic uncle carry us as far is it can!  

In the meantime, I hope we can all take a moment, find our center, contemplate the meaning of things and locate a little peace.  Let this image inspire you:

Our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland.  Ohm.  

The tip of the iceberg

The Vatnajökull glacier is in the southeast corner of Iceland, and it covers nearly 8% of the country.  Today, we headed out on a path where, most of the time, we had some portion of the glacier in view when we were moving down the road.  The mission for the day was to head to the glacial lagoon for an amphibious boat tour.  There were a few hikes along the way to the lagoon, as well as a quick visit to something called “diamond beach,” which is a black sand beach covered in bits of glacier chunks.  They’re icy and shiny and look a bit like diamonds.  Guess we didn’t miss the black sand beach after all- we just managed to hit a different one than we had originally thought.  

Cas and I have a silly thing we do when we visit beaches where we take a very touristy toes-in-the-sand photo.  When it’s really cold and the beach is to a glacial lagoon, that photo looks a bit different.  

We hiked a bit today, in fact.  I think we were both happy to see that the nature was unspoiled in our path.  The Icelanders had made little gravel walkways to the things you want to see, but the walkways were clean.  There were no garbage cans or recycling bins, but there was also no trash.  If people had garbage, they carried it back out with them.  It was kind of remarkable.  If this attraction was in the US, the whole path would be littered with the Cheeto bags and Granola bar wrappers that didn’t fit in the overflowing trash cans, because those would be full of Gatorade bottles and Monster cans.  I love America, but sometimes, we’re so predictable.  

Next came the amphibious boat tour of the glacial lagoon.  That was a blast.  It was a drivable-on-land boat.  It was pretty similar to a Duck Boat, if you have ever been in a city that had those, but these were not branded that way.  When you go on these boats, you walk in and are handed a bright orange life vest.  I did land the best joke of the day when I donned my vest.  I looked at Cas and said, “Be honest, does this make me look fat?”  That got a rise out of total strangers.  It’s even funnier if you know me and Cas.  I would never in a million years ask that question in earnest- it’s a husband-trapping question for which there is only one right answer. Also, I totally looked as slender and svelte as anyone else on that boat.  

In our sail around the glacial lagoon, we saw a harbor seal, some sea birds, a few ducks and a whole lot of floating glacial chunks.  Big and small icebergs.  We each had an opportunity to hold a chunk of the ice that one of the guides fished out of the water.  800 year old ice, we’re told.  This part of this particular glacier was around that age.  Pretty cool, if you ask me.  Literally and figuratively.  

I did find myself wanting more vocabulary today.  I needed more words.  I have already worn out awesome, beautiful, spectacular, majestic, magnificent and wow.  Maybe that will be my mission during our travels to the next destination tomorrow.  More words for HolyCowLookAtThisAmazingThing.  

I think this was my most unusual thing today.  I have seen waterfalls before, and I have done a lot of the activities we’ve done here, but floating past little chunk-lets of glacier in a lagoon populated with seabirds and seals was a first- I didn’t even really have a thing to compare that to.  

More stuff from the need-more-info files- the glaciers we saw today were sometimes blue.  They’re sometimes blue because that’s the light color they reflect, and when smaller chunks of these larger, blue-seeming things are removed, they look clear.  The more you know, right?  And the ones that look striped- unsurprisingly, that’s volcanic ash in there.  Turns out, there are volcanoes in this country.  Yeah, that would have been everyone’s guess if the guide hadn’t mentioned it.  But still, how cool was floating around amid blue glacier chunks and stripey ones?  

We’re at our hotel for the evening.  We stopped for ice cream on the way back, and Cas joined me in trying a dandelion flavor.  It’s interesting.  A little honey-ish.  Someone else said it tasted like caramel.  More like honeycomb if you ask me.  

We arrived at the hotel in time for happy hour, had a nice dinner and retired to a sunny night in the room for a little blogging.  It’s nearing 10 pm and bright as day out.  Of course.  

Tomorrow, we head to the East Fjords.  Should be a great time.  I need a synonym for great. 

Anyhow, here are our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland Good (sunny) night.  

Don’t go chasin’ waterfalls

This was the day that we we began chasing waterfalls in earnest.  Sure, there were some water falling off of a steep spot at Gulfoss yesterday, but today was one for the books.  We went deliberately to a waterfall, only to find several small waterfalls near it, then we passed one or two on the way to the other waterfall on our agenda.  Heck, we sort of stopped for a moment to see one that was situated in some dude’s back yard.  Our guide today asked if we knew how many waterfalls are in Iceland.  There were several guesses.  I answered, “I don’t know, most of them?”  I think my answer was closest to the truth.  

The day began with the group assembling outside of the hotel and hopping into the van.  It’s a 12 or 15 passenger van, so rows of seats feature two chairs paired on the left and one row of singletons on the right.  It’s quite a comfortable ride.  And in another country, I am happy to let a native do the driving.  I have no interest in trying to understand local laws and customs in a new place.  Too much stress.  I mean, when a tourist steps out in front of traffic, do you instantly stop because that is the way, or do you get all mad and honk because they’re irresponsible?  Not my problem.  I asked our guide if he, as a native Icelander, ever got super frustrated with a million tourists from different parts of the world driving according to the rules they learned in their home countries, and he was too polite to answer.  So yeah, I expect he hates that crap.  

Cas and I settled in and we all made our way to the Lava Centre.  There, we learned about all of the active volcanoes in Iceland.  We learned about each of their most recent eruptions and what tectonic shifting was causing all the hubbub.  It was really a very cool museum.  Next, we went to two different waterfalls with names that you may see in a travel guide, though there are dozens of foss-es between all of the big-ticket foss-es.  Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss.  That was especially cool because you can walk along a trail that takes you behind the waterfall.  It’s a little slippery and precarious at times, but you end up walking 360° around the thing.  It becomes something you see from every angle.  Very cool.  That was super neat.  And today, our expectations of Icelandic weather were finally met.  We were told by our guide that today is Icelandic National Day, or their Independence Day, and he was fully expecting that the weather be more typically Icelandic.  Today did the trick, apparently.  He kind of laughed at us yesterday for our desire to wear sunscreen.  He didn’t think that behavior was appropriately Icelandic, somehow, but I assured him that, as a very fair skinned person in Texas, I have to wear sunscreen to look out the window, so this is just an abundance of caution.  Today, there were no such concerns.  Today, we walked around in cloudsville to the waterfall, then hopped back in the mega-van to another cloudy falls moment.  Cloudy falls #2: Skógafoss.  

Skógafoss is kind of cool because you can walk right up to the front of the thing.  The water pounds into a lake below, but is is super shallow and there is a rocky path leading up to it where you can walk nearby.  So we did.  We were all up in front of that waterfall.  It was a day that made us both happy we had packed rain pants and rain jackets.  I marveled at the efficiency of these garments.  Good job, rain clothes.  Really.  

After that, there was a visit to the Skógar Museum, which was interesting all on its own.  It had indoor exhibits as well as outdoor ones, and the outdoor ones featured homes and other buildings in the traditional Icelandic style.  Very interesting.  

After that, we hopped into the van and headed for what we thought was a trip to a black sand beach.  That didn’t work out like you may have hoped.  As we were driving to the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, the winds arrived.  They notched up near gusts of 78 miles per hour, meaning that our priority became to get to the hotel, not to stop on the way.  Our guide says that winds like that will happen often and when they do, the pass gets closed off for safety.  No traffic in or out.  I get it, too.  We had a storm in Dallas where there were 90-mile-per-hour straight line winds.  That sucker knocked over trees, threw down power lines and sent the whole city into a multiple-day panic.  I didn’t want to play van versus nature.  I’ll trust a guy who lives here and has had to make that call before.  

So to keep us on schedule, he carefully navigated the road and got us to where we are sleeping tonight.  We did stop at a scenic outlook for a moment to look down on where the black sand beach was, but it was not a long stop, and honestly, I am happy for that.  You seen one black sand beach, you’ve seen them all. And safe passage is pretty cool, right?  

So, we are at the hotel.  We stopped in the hotel bar for happy hour.  That means wine is a few go-zillion Króna less than regular price.  It’s the Icelandic version of a good deal.  But we are in for the night, now.  Teeth brushed and pajamas on.  

Tomorrow is a day when we have an amphibian boat tour of a lagoon at the southern edge of the Vatnajökull glacier.  After that, apparently, we have some homemade ice cream.  Hey, I’m here for it.  Sounds pretty great to me.  See you on the other side of the glacial lagoon!  Until then, don’t go chasin’ waterfalls.  Just hang out in Iceland for a moment, and several dozen of them will simply appear.  

And here you go: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

The Golden Circle- the tour begins

Great news.  I found the keyboard tricks that do this: þ ð

This is about to become important.  See, today, we went to þingvellir National Park.  It’s apparently a UNESCO world heritage site, making itself a member of the long list of these sites we’ve managed to visit in our adventures.  It was a spot where the Vikings used to have their parliamentary assemblies and marks the spot between the North American and Eurasian continental plates.  Apparently, this is a spot that scuba divers love to visit so they can swim in the waters that flow along this fault line.  Also, let me check with Cas- okay- it’s pronounced thing-fed-ler.  Yeah.  Obviously.  

That was pretty spectacular. But from there, we headed to Geysir.  Your American brain wants to say guy-zurr.  Sure.  But it’s their word, and they apparently pronounce it geezer.  I like to think of it as an old geezer.  They promise that the most active geyser erupts every ten minutes,  In our experience today, it was more like four.  And boy oh boy, does it ever shoot up into the sky.  Just.  Wow.  It was really something to behold.  We’ve had more breathtaking moments on this trip so far, and we’re nowhere near the halfway point.  

That takes us to Gulfoss.  Gul=Gold; Foss=Falls.  I didn’t see any gold, but I was adequately stunned by the pretty waterfall.  Also, the spray from the massive force of water hitting water produced plentiful rainbows.  Maybe the pot of gold was just out of sight. We did a fair amount of marching about near and around Gulfoss.  I had to stop and wipe my glasses, a problem compounded by the fact that my usual move (wiping them off with my shirt) was not useful, as my shirt was a little damp, too.  Regardless. Þingvellir, Geysir and Gulfoss were winners.  

And it was on to the tomato farm.  Cas was trying not to look as un-enthused as he was on this one.  It’s a whole farm where they have greenhouses that produce tomatoes.  They love tomatoes.  Oh, gosh, the tomatoes there are great.  One thing, though, Cas is no fan of tomatoes.  He likes salsa. Lots of love for marinara sauce.  But hand him a nice, ripe tomato and he will politely decline.  Today, he tried the tiniest of small bites and handed me the rest.  That was a spectacular display of politeness for him.  Seriously.  Until it becomes salsa or something, he is super not interested.  Regardless, we had a good time at the tomato farm, we learned a little more about Icelandic horses and their unique gaits, we ate some tomato soup (which apparently gets a pass form him since the tomatoes are all smushed) and we had another beautiful, uncharasteristally sunny day in Iceland.  We keep hearing from every person in the tourism industry here how unusual this weather is.  Maybe it is for folks who live here, but for us, it’s been gorgeous 100% of the time.  Oops.  I just got smug- I tempted fate.  Tomorrow will probably be really crappy.  It’s like saying no hitter in the middle of a baseball game.  Yeah, that one’s on me, folks.  Also, the forecast calls for rain, so there’s that.  

Anyhow, we got to our very nice hotel in the Golden Circle and checked in.  We stopped into our room and got ready for dinner.  We had a glass of wine beforehand and then had dinner with our new group.  There are nine people total, and Cas is one of two men- besides our tour guide, whose name I will attempt to write after I ask him again how to spell it.  It sounds a bit like the word kiddy, but with a little of an rrr sound in the middle of the word.  More on that later.  In the meantime, there are what I can only imagine are geothermally fed hot tubs at this hotel.  They’re outside, and the current temperature in Fahrenheit is 53.  So, if you’re Heather and Cas, what do you do?  

I think you know that answer.  

Good night from Hotel Grimsborgir!

Also: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Horseys

Our time in Reykjavík is drawing to a close.  Today is our last full day here before the tour group assembles and we head to our next destination.  Starting tomorrow, we’re traveling what everyone around here calls “the ring road” with a journey to a spot that everyone seems to know as the “Golden Circle.”  From what I can glean of the Icelandic language, Foss is a suffix that means you’re talking about a waterfall.  All the waterfalls are something-foss.  This one is Gullfoss, the golden waterfall.  In that we’re headed to the Golden Circle, Gold Falls seems like an appropriate name for the falls.  More on that later when I get more information from whatever tour guide we meet.  

For now, let’s recap the amazing day we just had in and around the capital city of Iceland.  We began with a bit of a hustle out the door to meet our transport van that took us to the Icelandic Horse center.  It’s horsey day today, and we were all ready to go out and ride these amazing animals.  

Things I learned today: Icelandic horses are the most pure bred horses in the world because a some point in history, horses and livestock in the rest of Europe were swapping diseases back and forth, so Iceland decided to take advantage of being an island by forbidding other horses to come and go.  As a result, these guys are very specific to the location.  They’re smaller than what you’d think of with your American brain but they are great animals.  Also, we were told that they are so friendly because of evolution.  The ones who were rude or stand-offish to their fellow horses tended to go off on their own in the winter and suffer in isolation.  The friendly ones kept each other warm and tended to make more horses.  Friendliness wins the genetic lottery.  Hooray for kindness!  

We also rode across lava fields.  Lava fields are interesting.  Just a whole bunch of rocky looking space with mosses and some grass.  The guide had a joke: If you ever find yourself lost in an Icelandic forest, you should stand up.  See, the trees are pretty short around here.  No worries, though- the horses are pretty short, too.  Apparently, short horses have great personalities.  As a 5’4” woman, I can see the value in shortness.  

Icelandic horses have Icelandic names.  My horse was a very calm soul named Blesi.  It was pronounced Blessey.  He was pretty chill.  They have you stand and greet your horse- pet his head and chat him up a little before they help you hop on.  I talked to Blesi the whole time we rode.  Some conversational excerpts:

Me: Hey, buddy, why you pulling to the right? You see something cool over there?  I don’t want to complain that my horse has bad alignment.  Also, what this with following so close.  Hit the brakes, kid.  Heaven knows what may happen if the horse in front of you stops short!

Blesi: Hrrmmph! 

Me: Yep.  Makes sense.  You sure are a kind and patient horse, kiddo.  

Cas was privileged to ride a horse called Styrmir.  Steer-mehr for those of you trying to pronounce along at home.  His horse was a little more spazzy than mine.  Styrmir was often seen dropping out of the column of horses and trying to parallel park his way back into line in his preferred spot.  He was a bit of a pill, but Cas was very good at rolling with it.  We rode to a spot in the middle of the lava fields, and all of the horses seemed to know that we were in the place where they could take a potty break.  I now know the sound of a dozen horses peeing, but I will spare you the description.  

Yes, the horses were awesome.  Amazing.  I need new adjectives.  

And when we got back to the hotel, we were hungry.  We decided to find some food that was probably best in the city we’re currently in.  Our future travels will take us to small places where dinner at the hotel may be the only game in town, and I am sure those will be amazing meals, but I am guessing that this may be our last shot at fish and chips for a while.  So that’s what we went out and found.  There are really some excellent fish and chip options near our hotel, and we took full advantage.  We took advantage, ate way too much and had a nap.  Naps are awesome when you’re five hours off your regular time zone and confused by a sun that almost never sets.  

After our nap, we had a little energy to burn, and Cas found a spot on his Google map called Bullseye.  It is a bar where you can play darts.  Whelp, my skill at darts hasn’t improved.  It’s not that I am bad at darts, but I am certainly not good.  Cas won the first game hands down, and the second game was mine for the taking, but this place has electronic timers on things, so my need to hit one 17 was backed up against his need for the whole dang bullseye.  I think I would have had it.  Alas, the time ran out, and we decided to just enjoy the good company.  Also, he conceded, and I took the win.  I’m not a fool, folks.  

Anyhow, tomorrow, we learn what the Golden Circle looks like and head out to see the rest of this amazing island.  That’s all I have for now.  Have a lovely evening, and we’ll catch you on the other side of a waterfall!

Here’s Cas, Styrmir, me and Blessi. 

Photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland

Modes of transportation

Sometimes, when Cas and I go somewhere, we use many modes of transportation in the destination we visit, and today was one of those times.  We flew and we floated.  Our official tour starts in a day and a half, but we came to town early to do all of the add-on activities we could add to the trip.  That’s where the food walk and the “Inside the Volcano” adventure came from.  Our tour company booked them for us in advance of the full-group travel.  And today, we had two things to do.  We began the day with a taxi ride to the small airport inside the city of Reykjavík.  It’s not the one where the international flights arrive, but instead, the one where the helicopter tours originate.  Our geothermal tour was just that.  It was a helicopter ride to a spot close to town where there is a lake and a series of bubbling, steaming hot springs.  The landscape was as strange and foreign as the inside of yesterday’s volcano.  Living in Dallas certainly provides contrast.  We landed and walked around the Hengill geothermal area.  It had bubbling mud pots, a sort of wafting sulfur smell and some of the prettiest (if strangest) landscape you could hope for.  All in all, pretty great.  And the helicopter ride was very smooth.  It was not nearly as loud as you may think, and the six passengers all appeared reasonably comfortable inside of the aircraft.  

Our pilot was named Thor.  I kind of love that his name was Thor.  It’s about the most Nordic name you could ask for.  He was calm, cool and inspired confidence.  He flew us in and out of that space, and I asked him, since he comes to this place several times each day, if he ever got tired of it or stopped saying wow.  He said it it’s different every time he goes there, so no, it never gets old to him.  

You really have to check out the photos in the album on this one. They’re pretty spectacular.  

When we left there, we had a cab ride back to our hotel.  We’re not really taxi people, but most folks we spoke with assured us that, in the absence of our own rental car, a cab ride to and from the airport was the best path.  The confidence we had in Thor and his helicopter was not matched by our confidence in the cab driver on our return to the hotel.  The cab driver talked with his hands a lot- both of them- and he turned to check that we were understanding what he had to say.  And while it’s good practice for polite conversation to establish eye contact and check for understanding, you automatically get a pass on that if you are driving a car.  This isn’t something you should have to explain to a cab driver, for heaven’s sake.  

So, after the helicopter ride and the somehow more harrowing cab ride, Cas and I opted for an afternoon nap.  Day and night are kind of wonky, here, and we’re adjusting as well as possible, but sometimes, the day calls for a nap.  It’s a good thing, too.  We had a few hours in mid day to flop on the pillows and rest before we started moving again.  The evening had us booked on a whale watching adventure.  We walked to the old harbor by way of the main downtown area- so we could stop for a late lunch/early dinner.  I was feeling the need for  cheeseburger, and Cas got a fish sandwich at a cute little spot with a few tables out on the sidewalk.  Today is another beautiful, sunny day in Reykjavík, which we’re told is unusual.  It rained a little bit on our way from the airport to the hotel when we first arrived, but it hasn’t rained since then.  The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, though, so maybe our luck will run out, there.  The sun and the crisp air were perfect, so we took advantage of the outdoor tables on the way to the whale watching excursion.  It was a pretty long walk to the old harbor, but we were happy to arrive.  It was a three hour adventure. The theme from Gilligan’s Island was very prominent in my mind as we embarked on that three hour tour, in fact.  Thankfully, the fates smiled on us and we got back to the same dry land we took off from.  

The whale watching was really, really amazing.  I feel like I am recycling adjectives, but I don’t know what else to tell you.  It’s prime time for humpbacks to be really close to the coast of Iceland.  The guide on the boat said they come in the summer to this part of the world to eat and fatten up, then they head south to mate.  They like to do this seasonally, and summer is the time to dine in Icelandic waters.  

Shortly after we took off, a whale was swimming parallel to us.  The guide seemed surprised that he was that close to the shore, but it was a good start for us.  I was trying to get just one good picture of his tail- proof that I saw a real live, honest-to-goodness humpback whale- and I would be satisfied.  

Now I am of the belief that he was coming out to get us and encourage us to locate his friends.  We made our way out to the spot where the professionals on the boat knew that the whales were feeding.  We were told to look for the spray from the blowholes, then watch that location to see them dive down for food.  We kept our eyes on those sprays, and we were not disappointed.  I think there were at least six different whales the guide wound up talking about, but it was probably more.  I was all excited to take photos of them breathing up at the surface then flopping their tails into the water, when we saw something that I didn’t expect to ever see outside of the television.  One of them was practically leaping out of the water.  The guide over the intercom said he was breaching, which seems an appropriate term for the behavior.  I figured that it was a teenage boy whale trying to impress a girl whale- like he told his friend, “Hold my beer- I’m gonna jump around.”  I think I have worked with teenagers for too long, folks.  But seriously, I hope the girl whale was sufficiently impressed.  We all were.  I mean- just wow:

I see plenty of really cool stuff when Cas and I travel, but this one actually took my breath away.  I legitimately gasped.  Spectacular.  After that, it was definitely time to head back to the hotel.  It was another long walk.  I blame those two taxi rides for the fact that I am ending this day at a scant 15,650 steps.  Yesterday?  No cab rides, and 18,120 steps.  Tomorrow, we have a van coming to pick us up and take us to the place where we will ride Icelandic horses, so they will be doing the majority of the stepping for us.  I could use a little break, actually.  We did stop on the way back to have a light dinner.  Our cheeseburger and fish sandwich were late in the afternoon, so the tapas place was kind of perfect.  It was kind of an Icelandic and Spanish fusion spot, so we had tapas plates of Icelandic foods.  They offered some standard things- scallops (which we loved), lobster, prawns, chicken, etc.  They also had more exotic fare.  We could have selected foal, puffin or kangaroo.  Not what my local menus in Dallas ever say on them, I can promise you that.  We drank a glass each of Spanish wine and had some small portions for dinner.  And for the first time on this trip, we heard music that was sung in a non-English language.  It wasn’t Icelandic, though.  It was Spanish.  Of course.  I mean, it was a fusion restaurant, after all.  

But that’s all I have for now.  Go have a look at the photos, and please play back the video ones of the whales.  We both caught a few frames of that young fella trying to impress the girls.  

tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Underground

So, the new part is only 4,000 years old.  We made our way the the 50,000 year old part.  Of course, I am talking about a volcano whose name is un-type able in an American keyboard format.  I can try to copy and paste it, but it makes my fonts all wonky.  So here it is: 

Yep.  Totally pronounceable to a native English speaker.  

We made our way to a bus stop that took us to another bus that took us to the little house on the side of the mountain that led to the path that led to base camp.  We walked three kilometers from the house to the base camp to then moved from there to the windiest part of the hike, the walk up to the top of the volcano.  It was a pretty difficult hike on the way there, but it was significantly harder on the way back.  Once you make your way from base camp to the tippy top of the mountain (and it’s not actually that tall, but boy howdy, is it ever windy), you use a harness to lock into a rope that runs along a metal foot bridge and takes you to a window washing elevator.  First time for everything, I suppose.  

That was our ride down into the lava chamber.  If you have never been inside a lava chamber before- and most people haven’t, I suspect- it’s worth a look.  You will be super tired and have sore legs at the end of the day, but you will not have regrets.  It had that quality that I truly love in a tourist attraction: other-worldliness.  One of our new companions from the window-washing elevator said it reminded her of an episode of Star Trek.  I get it, but I did feel a good deal cooler than Captain Kirk trodding around in my hiking boots in that lava chamber.  The colors were unreal.  The stones were interesting.  You could see where lava had been before it cooled into the rocks we were seeing.  And on the way there, there were no trees anywhere in sight.  In fact, there were no trees in the area we traveled into on the way.  We had to get about 30 minutes into our ride back to Reykjavík before we saw a single tree.  

I am usually pretty good at explaining things, but on this one, I am at a bit of a loss.  How do you describe a stone chamber in a volcano that was hollowed out when lava spewed out 4,000 years ago?  It was colorful, pretty, barren, strange, damp and strange again.  That’s a heckuva list of adjectives, isn’t it?  

When we got back to the hotel, we opted to sit still for a little bit.  We went to the patio behind the lobby and just enjoyed a little more of what I am told is uncharacteristically nice Icelandic weather.  We were really beat, but we also needed dinner at a certain point, which led us to go out walking.  There’s a piece of good news.  More walking.  I topped out over 15,000 steps yesterday- just sayin’.  Proximity to the hotel did figure into our restaurant choice, I can tell you that.  We found a spot that said they were all booked up with reservations, but we could sit at a pair of seats that faced the street and eat looking out the window.  That was actually what we were going to request, anyhow, so we took it.  A couple glasses of wine, a few lamb shanks and a pastry-topped fish stew were our menu picks, and we were not disappointed with the food or with the people watching.  It’s pretty neat to look out the window at a spot in downtown Reykjavík and watch the world go by.  We tried to guess who was local, who was American, who was from different spots- it’s kind of a fun game with no way of knowing if your guesses are correct.  There’s a ton of tourism in this city, though, so you know there’s a good chance you’re not looking at a native.  

After dinner, we had a pretty easy time falling asleep.  We’re just getting our things together now and heading out.  Something about the way the tour was booked and our insistence on being early meant that the preferred hotel for our tour operator was booked up for the first few nights we’re here.  So they put us up across the street.  We’re just going to eat the complementary breakfast here then roll our bags across the street to our new spot.  Oh, and we’re going to get into a helicopter in a bit, too, so there’s that.  We booked what they are calling a geothermal tour, and in order to do it, you need to be above ground looking down.  Interesting turnabout, as yesterday, we were below.  Then this evening, we’re in for a bit of whale watching.  We sincerely had to come a few days before the tour starts in earnest just to do all of these amazing add-on activities we couldn’t pass up.  

But it’s time to get moving, now.  Spent enough time under the surface, it’s a day for flying and sailing about.  Here’s one for the Christmas card, though- what an adventure:

And our photo album: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland 

Icelandic cuisine

We started the adventure in Reykjavìk with a food walk.  That meant we were in a group of like-minded people who all wanted to eat the local fare.  We started out in front of the Harpa concert hall, which provided a good meeting spot, and we made our way to the first of five restaurants.  We walked around town, seeing the charm of the city streets and the architectural style while we ate different local specialties.  We learned that most meals in Iceland come from the ocean or from their abundant sheep population.  Lamb is excellent, here, and apparently, there are far more sheep than people in Iceland, prompting a warning from our guide, Kerìtas, that anyone in our little group who rented a car and was headed out on the road around the country ought to heed- the sheep are apparently as stupid as they are plentiful, and they are rarely constrained to a single space, so please exercise caution when driving.  Fortunately, Cas and I are letting someone else drive and be on sheep-watch while we travel Iceland.  

On our food walk, we tried a few country-specific specialties, too.  The Icelandic hot dog is very good.  It’s mostly lamb with a little beef mixed in, and it’s served with the Icelandic version of ketchup, some mustard, their house made remoulade sauce, grilled onions and raw onions.  We were told by a stranger on the Iceland Air flight and by our guide yesterday that we must try one with everything on it.  And so we did.  It was pretty spectacular.  There were a few other things of note in our food adventure.  There was an especially yummy fish stew paired with a grilled fish we both loved.  There was a pretty great ice cream with flecks of their locally made rye bread (which is sweeter than what we know in the US), and of course, there was the shark.  

Hoo, boy, that shark.  I had built it up in my mind pretty effectively.  It all started when I watched a Rick Steves special to familiarize myself with the country we were to visit.  Rick Steves gives a good overview of a place, infused with his own hunky-dory worldview.  He’s good, but kind of a square.  When I saw his reaction to Iceland’s fermented shark, I knew I was in trouble.  Rick didn’t balk at anything else in the whole country.  Then came advice about shark from friends and family who had also been here.  Avoid, avoid, avoid.  So what did Cas and I do?  We tried it.  Our guide assured us it smells worse than it tastes.  Which prompted me to smell it.  Big mistake.  It smelled like I had gone apple bobbing in a vat of Windex.  We were also instructed to chew 5-10 times, then swallow.  I got the little jar of shark-cubes presented to me first, then handed it down a long table.  I picked a small chunk.  I was willing to try, but if presented size options, you take the advantage, right?  Okay- we all held up a shark-cube on a toothpick and said Skál (cheers), then ate.  And it wasn’t terrible.  Not an experience I would want to repeat, but all in all, if it was the only source of protein on a faraway planet, I would survive.  Not a ringing endorsement, I know, bit better than I had been led to believe.  We followed it with a shot of “Black Death” which is a schnapps flavored with caraway seeds.  Not great, either, but somehow the perfect pairing for the situation.  

When we finished our food walk, we were right next to the Hallgrímskirkja Church, the very iconic Lutheran house of worship which is preceded by a statue of Leif Eriksson.  You can go in for free, sit in a pew, enjoy some music if someone is playing the enormous and beautiful pipe organ and have a peaceful moment in the beautiful space.  It’s the opposite of all the churches and cathedrals in Italy we have seen.  It’s plain and sparse, but that is its beauty and its strength.  The arches and design are center stage, leaving the person standing in the middle of it all to contemplate structure, beauty and faith.  It was not too pricey to take an elevator ride to the top of the bell tower, so we did that.  It afforded us a beautiful view of the surrounding city and the shoreline.  Really, that would have been a perfect way to cap off our first day in Reykjavík.  

Except that we managed to come on what our guide assured us was the prettiest day of the year.  She said all the locals were going to spend as much outdoor time as possible, so we joined them with a glass of wine in an outdoor space adjacent to a food court of sorts.  There was a playground with some active kids nearby and tables full of folks, sitting out and enjoying the weather.  But we were wiped out.  We had enjoyed a little nap in the afternoon, but with a five hour time difference and each of us in a body that had been on three airplanes in recent history, we were both ready for some serious sleep.  We made it back to the hotel, brushed our teeth and hit the pillows in our room that hid behind the very necessary blackout curtains.  For context, my weather app says sunrise this morning was at 2:29 am and it will set at 11:57 this evening.  Our guide yesterday assured us that it never really sets this time of year, but we were in bed sleeping (or trying to sleep) when it was prime time to see if she was right.  Aside from a strange bout of being awake at 3 am, we slept pretty well.  And it was a good thing, too.  We have an Inside the volcano adventure today.  We will be walking around inside an actual volcano, but we should be absolutely safe, as the last eruption of this particular one was 4,000 years ago.  Also, I suspect they have a pretty good way to predict eruptions in this part of the world.  

We’ve had a nice, Icelandic breakfast with skayr- the cheese based food that feels like yogurt along with the rye bread they make here- we’re told the recipe calls for geothermal cooking, and we’re totally into it.  Also, it’s a bit sweeter than what we’re used to for rye bread.  It’s quite good un-toasted with butter.  

We’ve got a little time right now to pack our day-pack with our layers we’ll certainly be needing for a trip inside a volcano.  I’ve pored over the travel guide on this one, as I have never been inside a volcano before.  I mean, what do you wear, pack or bring?  It turns out, you bring layers of clothes to wear.  When not gurgling up lava, these things can be cold.  Who knew?  So that’s the update.  We’ll get back here when we have compelted our volcanic adventure.  But for now, I can be maybe the first to tell you- go ahead and eat the shark.  It’s not great, but you have to try, don’t you?  

Here’s the photo album you’ve come to expect: https://tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland