Travels with Hope

With only a half hour drive to Dalvik today, where we will catch the ferry, we puttered around, took in the scenery and finally relaxed at our cottage while awaiting our ferry to Grimsey Island in the morning. So imagine this, if you will. You make one stop on your way to the town with the ferry, and its at a brewery where you hope to take a tour. Siggi, the owner tells you there are no tours today because he's short-staffed. "But take a look around," he says, "and ask me any questions. I'll pour you a beer while you look." The tour normally costs a lot but he shows you (and tells you) for free. You find a cafe for a lunch of fish soup and homemade beer bread and eat in front of the cafe. A sign in the window says "Let it snow." The owner is Bjartni, a jovial man who loves to talk, tells you about puffins and shows you a video of a nearby waterfall. As it so happens, Bjartni also owns the cottage where you will stay ...

What a leisurely day this one was. We even let Doug sleep in while Ron and I found coffee and pastries. Delicious unnamed pastries. Late morning, we drove down the Eyjafjörður (the ð has a th sound) Valley south of Akureyri, looking at old churches. Eyjafjörður is a 60 km long valley that is fertile and well-cultivated. Mountains line each side and between them, the Eyja­fjarð­ará river flows out to the Greenland Sea north of Iceland. The churches were all a bit unique. Historically in Iceland, farmers would commission churches to be built on their land. Which means that to get in them, you have to go to the nearby farmhouse to get the key. Grundarkirkja Built in 1905 on a spot where a 12th century church stood. For an unknown reason, this farmer, Magnus Sigurdson, used a Russian style with onion-shaped domes. Saurbaejarkirkja One of a few remaining turf churches in Iceland, this church was built in 1858. Möðruvallakirkja Built in 1847, with a bellho...

If yesterday was the day of many waterfalls, today was the day of fjords, Icelandic horse farms (not just farms that are in Iceland, but farms raising Icelandic horses), and all-around sighs of contentment. We drove along several spectacular fjords of northern Iceland, through one-lane tunnels (with occasional turnouts to meet cars), and through horse and sheep country. We stopped to eat lunch in Siglufjörður, a fishing town at the north tip of a peninsula beside a fjord of the same name. We ate outside along the wharf in our fourth day of sunshine and blue skies. My description (and these phone pics) cannot do it justice. It looked sort of like being high in the Alps with mountains all around, except that it also overlooks a fjord. (This part is especially for my daughter, the horse lover): The Icelandic horses are a special breed, found only here. Icelanders keep other horses out of Iceland and if an Icelandic horse goes els...

Here are a few takeaways that I gleaned from today. 1) Even after viewing and/or hiking to numerous waterfalls, they never get old. Each one is unique, each one inspires awe. Which is good because there are so many falls running off the glaciers around Iceland. 2) If I ever develop the ability to travel through time, I hope I get a choice of time and place. I will most definitely NOT choose the Viking era. They were always mad at someone, locking a potential son-in-law in a sauna and boiling him to death, chopping off limbs, drowning someone in the ocean, or heaving them over cliffs. Every spot we stop has a story to tell. 3) Despite those depressing stories (are we better only by degrees?) the travel today around the Snæfellsness Peninsula and Snæfellsjökull National Park was good: climbing craters, hiking waterfalls, and eating fish soup and homemade bread on the terrace of a delightful (unassuming) cafe by the Atlantic Ocean, with kittiwakes and cormorants serenading us....

Our first full day in Iceland was amazing--and sunny and dry. But before I tell a bit about the day I have a health care story that was also amazing. Doug developed a uti and was getting increasingly miserable all day. When we got to our guesthouse in late afternoon, the woman told us the closest clinic or ER was 40 miles away. But, she told us, talk to the pharmacist, see what she might say. By this time it was after hours on Friday evening so we were resigning ourselves to a long drive to get help. The pharmacist told us to call the town doctor and gave us his number. The dr. met us at his office (right across from the pharmacy) and gave Doug a prescription, then refused payment. He said it would be more paperwork than it was worth. So now Doug is on his way to relief and it didn’t even cost us much. Gullfoss -- this powerful waterfall rolling off the glacier is quite spectacular. Even better is the story of the woman, a local farmer, who saved it from being harnassed for power. In t...

What do you do when you get to Iceland mid-morning after a sleepless night on the plane and your hotel room won't be ready until late afternoon? You climb a recently-active volcano, of course. Why take it easy? Besides, there wasn't much open today. It's Ascension Day, a national holiday. It was extremely windy on the volcano and quite steep. (For Jenelle's reference: the wind was as strong as our hike at Pt. Reyes in March.) I made it about three-quarters of the way up the volcano, close enough to see the lava flow.Then I looked up at the next part of the trail (which was even steeper) and said "enough". I waited at that spot while Doug and Ron climbed higher. That's them trudging along, the two black specks in the center. In the foreground is the lava flow. Fagradalsfjall is a tuya volcano near Reykjavík. It's last eruption started March 19, 2021 and ended in September. Iceland is an island of ice (glaciers) and fire (volcanos.) ...

Gilda is settling into her new home in Seattle. Tamra and Soren's Devon Rex cats, Padma and Pru, are curious about their new housemate. Having settled Gilda into her new home, we're off to the airport, ready to see Iceland. Hoping we see puffins somewhere along the way.

Before we get to Iceland, we're driving to Seattle. Gilda Radner-Tortuga is going with us, riding in her tank on the back seat. Gilda will become a Seattle resident for the next phase of her life. The car ride raised her anxiety level a little and she tried to crawl under her water bowl. The view of Mt. Shasta is always worth noting, no matter how many times we've seen it. Our California landscape has so many amazing variations. From the volcanic remnants of home, we're off to see the volcanic landscape of Iceland.