Strange and Benevolent: Back to Iceland

Tyler Reporting:

And, we're back!

When I last posted almost exactly 3 years ago, it wasn't my intention to let the blog sit fallow for so long. In fact, just a couple of months after our trip to Japan, we actually spent a week at the end of the Dungeness Spit, living and working as Lighthouse Keepers. That was an amazing experience, and one that could have and should have made a great entry. An entry I had every intention of writing... but life had different plans. First, shortly after the new year, my grandmother passed away. Then, as the world is painfully aware, Covid arrived. Then I lost my job.

So, it was a rough, wild year.

But, life continued to soldier forward. I eventually found more work. Sarah's business kept her as busy as ever, just most of the time working from an improvised office in the corner of our bedroom. The kids suffered through a year of remote learning (well, actually, Stella seemed to thrive with remote learning, in some regards), and then returned to school, masked and physically distance.

Eventually, things began opening up again. Zoom calls with friends were replaced by first outdoor gatherings, then something close to normalcy. We camped. Hiked. Went to the coast. Went to Winthrop and Lake Diablo. Eventually, we even started to get on planes again, traveling both to Texas and to Hawaii. But a big, international trip remained elusive. Until, earlier this Summer, tired of pacing like caged lions, Sarah and I decided to buy tickets to Iceland.

And, we were back!

So, two Sunday's ago, we boarded an Iceland Air flight, to set out on a weeklong trip. Our goal this time: Drive Iceland's ring road. On our first trip to Iceland, the kids were young enough that we largely stuck to exploring Reykjavik and the Golden Circle. This time, we had a car rented, and our goal was to hit the ground running (er, driving). We had roughly a week to do a route that most guidebooks and videos claimed you needed closer to 10 days to do properly.

Day 1:

No matter what way you slice it, the flight to Iceland is brutal. It's only about 7 hours, which isn't bad in and of itself. But, something about the combination of flight time, the fact you inevitably seem to arrive in the morning and Iceland's long days just seems to make jetlag's punch a little sharper.

Still, after flying through a near sleepless night, we navigated the airport gauntlet and made our way to the car rental company, where we picked up our Renault Rifter, and hit the road.

Our first destination was about 45 minutes away. Just a little Southeast of the airport, the Fagradalsfjall volcano has been erupting and we were hoping to take a look at it, and maybe see some real-life hot lava. We pulled into the makeshift parking lot and began our walk across the windswept terrain.

Did I say "windswept"? Maybe I meant wind-blasted. As we made our way up the first hill, Stella was literally blown off her feet. I'm not sure if I have ever felt such strong sustained winds in my life. The kids had to literally grip onto us to avoid getting blasted over, and we had to brace ourselves like football linemen to stay on our feet ourselves.

Stella enjoying the blasting wind.

Reaching our first viewpoint of a vast lava field, Otto and Sarah deemed the situation too squirrelly and decided to rest then head back. Stella and I, still gripped by fever dreams of seeing lava continued onward, first climbing a hairy set of switchbacks, and then cresting several smaller hills. It was only when we saw a sign saying that we'd only covered 2.7km, and still had 3.3km ahead of us that we decided to turn around ourselves, feeling a little defeated.

No molten lava, just endless seeming, smoking lava fields.

Knowing we were all jetlagged and need some food, we decided to get some lunch, so we drove on to Selfoss, where we came across a burger restaurant that felt simple and straight forward. Let's check in to see how everyone was doing at that point:

With burgers in our bellies, we made a quick (if not very productive... don't send a jetlagged Tyler and Stella to do grocery shopping) stop at a local supermarket, Bonus, then hit the road again. A short drive later, we arrived at our first lodgings.

Our Rifter parked in front of our simple cabin, scenically nestled between the grassy hills of Eyvindarholar.

The kids almost immediately crashed, but Sarah and I sensed that we might not have enough food to make a good breakfast for tomorrow, so we set out to see if we could find a store of some sort. Unfortunately, Eyvindarholar is remote enough that there wasn't anything open within an easy drive, but, in exploring up the road, we stumbled across Skógafoss. Skógafoss is a giant waterfall (you'll see waterfalls are a re-occuring theme in Iceland) that you can effectively walk up to the base of. While it didn't help us with our breakfast concerns, the waterfall provided a fun and beautiful surprise for Sarah and I to share before calling it an evening ourselves.

Happy an excited to be traveling together, again!

Day 2:

Day 2 started early. Like 3am early, for the kids and I. Realizing that the three of us were all awake in the middle of the night, I decided to just accept the situation, and climbed up into their sleep loft where we spent the early morning hours watching a Hobbit movie, until the sun begin to slowly rise.

Eventually, with the day properly started, we ate what little breakfast we had while the kids (especially Otto) ran up and down the steep hill next to our cabin.

The little waving dot is Otto.

Skyre, Kleine fried bread and hair-braiding for breakfast.

Then it was on the road again. First, we double back to see a site we'd driven past the previous evening: Seljalandsfoss. Or, as we more colloquially referred to it as: The waterfall you can hike behind.

Fortunately, because we were staying so close to it, and because we'd gotten moving so early, we beat the fleets of tour buses we'd seen parked at its base the day before and had the waterfall nearly to ourselves. Like pretty much every other waterfall in Iceland its scale was impressive, and just getting to hike behind it, and feel it's power and mist so closely was an incredible experience.

On the path to walk behind Seljalandsfoss.

Behind the falls. Kids for scale.

Also, a short walk away, there was a second falls that was hidden up a narrow canyon. But, since it involved hiking up a river, and because it was still really, really cold, we decided to just take a peek at it from the outside.

Tempting.

Then it was back on the road, with a quick stop to see an old storehouse built into a rock formation. Apparently, this form of construction is particular to the southern coast of Iceland, and isn't found elsewhere on the island.

Inside the storehouse, someone had set up a little "shrine" of gnome and elf statues. But, we'll leave that to your imagination.

Since the kids hadn't seen Skogafoss the previous night, we stopped there quickly. This also gave Stella and Sarah a chance to hike up the path next to the waterfall, and see it from the top.

Stella at the base of Skogafoss.

Carrying on down the road, we reached the point on the Ring Road characterized by a string of glaciers reaching out toward the coastline like icy fingers. The first one we came to, Sólheimajökull, had a parking lot and a short walk to a viewing area. But, most of the half dozen or so others we just viewed from our moving car. (Sarah's pictures probably better capture that portion of the trip, but as I write this, I just have access to my own photos.) But, the views were fairly epic in scope, as you realized that the vast sandy plains were driving across were largely created by the rivers of ice lined up across the horizon to the North of us. One glacier in particular was so wide that it was hard to even photograph properly.

Solheimajokull. The first glacier we came across. This one you could easily walk to, but other distant glaciers we saw later in the day were even more impressive in the size.

Sarah at a small view point off the side of the road. The view -with multiple glaciers readily visible- was evocative of that half of the days driving.

We also stopped at the town of Vi, which is known for its black sand beaches. But, unfortnately, it was so foggy and rainy at that point, that we didn't check them out. Instead, we ducked inside Restaurant Suður for a lunch of pizza and artic char.

The final stop of the day was the Diamond Beach. The Diamond Beach earned its name because a glacier dumps its ice into a nearby lagoon, and by the time those icebergs wash out of the lagoon and reach the neighboring beach, they've largely broken down to small pieces that liter the black sand, giving it the appearance of being covered with diamonds.

But, similar to Vik, the weather was still pretty nasty. So foggy that the lagoon itself was barely visible (and overrun with tour buses), be we were still able to stroll down the beach itself marveling at the icy crystals littered across it.