Dear Denali,
The first thing you need to know about Daddy is that I knew I was going to marry him from the first moment I saw him standing in the doorway of the classroom next to mine. He was a “young professional” then, wearing a black shirt, awkwardly knotted tie, and voluminous khakis. As Daddy describes it, “If I jumped out of a plane with no parachute in those pants, I would perfectly fine.” I won’t even elaborate on the outfits I would put together when I was a “young professional”. Ask Daddy. Needless to say, we were both trying to be good adults and when I first noticed that Daddy was actually a dirt-loving, soul-seeking, flannel-slouching, wild adult in disguise, just like me, I knew I had found my person. My other. My little piece of Holy Ground (Daddy gave me Salinger, too).
Love is actually like that sometimes, Denali. I know that to be true. Believe, just a little, in magic like that…because it happened to me.
With Daddy as your father, you will need to be prepared. Daddy will push you to extremes, test your limits against weather, wild animals, sleep deprivation, distance from civilization, hunger, and cleanliness – and as an infant, you will win, which will be delightful for me to see, as I have never won like you will – and there will be moments when you want to ask Daddy why he is trying to kill you slowly, but then you will turn the corner of some rock face and see the most incredible arch in the cosmos, or you will find yourself face to face with a snarfling sand shark, playful as a puppy, or you will stand at the top of frozen world, having gotten there over hundreds of miles with your own legs and a set of wheels. Simply by being himself, Daddy will make you unstoppable. I know. He has made me unstoppable. He has given me three lifetimes worth of reasons to believe that I can do anything – things I never believed possible – and you, Denali, are next.
This is because Daddy is a superhuman. And yes, sometimes superhumans can be incredibly annoying because they remind you, simply by existing, that you can, and should be, aspiring to greatness with a smile on your face. But you must never settle for anything less than a superhuman. (Man or woman. We don’t care.) Daddy would never allow it, and Daddy is the smartest person who will ever love you. He is my Seymour without the tragedy, which you will understand when you are old enough to read the first editions your father bought for me for my 24th birthday, only weeks before we found out we were going to be having a baby – you.
With Daddy as your father, you are going to see and do things that sometimes might scare you – muggy jungles before sunrise, oceans teeming with invisible life, dusty streets loud with unfamiliar languages and bad driving practices. When you are ever afraid, I need you to know that, however far Daddy might push you to help you experience and grow, he will never, ever let you get hurt. I am sure of this because I, too, have been afraid sometimes at the things that Daddy and I have done (because unfamiliar is always a little scary), but Daddy has always held my hand. Daddy is always watching and Daddy would always be ready to step in front of any danger, without hesitation, to protect us and keep us safe. Daddy would happily die for us.
Try not to think about that too much, though, because your love for him will bubble up into a frothy, teary mess and you’ll want to cling to his back like a spider monkey for the rest of your life so that you never have to leave the light of his presence.
And that makes you look a little ridiculous.
Love should be like that, though. You deserve that, Denali. If ever you find yourself wondering if someone in your life is right for you, simply ask yourself if they would do for you what Daddy would. If not – if you can’t envision them fending off actual tigers or patiently pretending to battle with a lobster you dreamed was on the ceiling – then they are not enough for you.
And Daddy will find them and let them know it.
Get ready, little girl. In just a few short weeks, you are about to meet the coolest, handsomest, silliest, bravest, wildest, most adventurous man that ever graced this sometimes unforgiving planet, and his five trusty sidekicks – Mommy, Zoe, Shelby, Banjo, and Claire. This family, where animals outnumber people, is so ready for you, and Daddy is the heart of it all. Without him, the sun just doesn’t shine.
But you’ll find that out soon enough.
Get ready to play, roll in dirt, look at horny toads, cry over sunrises, read fine literature, dodge mosquitoes, cry over wild animal sightings, squeal, traverse the continents, wrangle dogs, laugh, build a fort, snuggle, and laugh some more.
Daddy does it all.
He is my everything, and now, so are you.
Daddy makes this family great.
Welcome to the jungle.
The king of it all is the best man you’ll ever know. Love,
Mommy
 The Lonely Planet kindly describes Egilsstadir as "charmless." The author, being a Lonely Planet writer, was likely turned off by Egilsstadir's general lack of humid, poorly lit cafes peddling thick, heady soups made of the precious mountain lambs that I have grown to love (alive, not in a stinky soup). Instead, Egilsstadir is home to a Bonus supermarket, a Netto store, and a Subway, among other luxuries, all of which are decidedly "charmless."
We loved Egilsstadir. After traversing 15 countries with Lonely Planet as the guide, Christopher and I have decided that the brand's main weakness is exclusively hiring young, probably single, party types that infiltrate cities around the world and seek out the one hostel in town where your stuff is most likely to be rifled through by a drunken male Aussie while you try to sleep through the 24/7 blaring of Florence + the Machine at the dingy bar below the bunk beds. Thus, when Christopher and I follow the Lonely Planet's glowing recommendations, we tend to find ourselves scowling at 3 am while listening to people play Never-Have-I-Ever in varying levels of English proficiency. The same would have happened had we listened to Lonely Planet Iceland, but after London's Dead Mouse Hostel (name invented by me, based on a deceased resident that went unnoticed by staff for our entire stay) and countless other examples of college sophomores having fun at our introverted expense, we have wizened up considerably. Hence our preference for Egilsstadir. True, the Bonus supermarket has a drunk pink piggy bank as its mascot, but you can also buy edible food there that will last you a whole week for the same amount of Kronas that you would otherwise spend on a bowl of congealed precious baby lamb parts from a "cafe" stuffed with wet European teenagers and their iPhone chargers. Egilsstadir offered none of that - only Estes Park style mountains, a massive lake (with accompanying story of a mythological monster), and three normal food sources. Charmless indeed.
You would certainly be surprised, then, if I told you that Christopher was not in Egilsstadir to have a break from all things Iceland, perhaps resting our limbs and eating Subway to our heart's content. If you can possibly believe it, PhotoMan had more in mind that spending time in a typical town, which is how we found ourselves cycling mountain roads into the highland, Christopher regaling me the whole way about the wonder and might of the great and terrible...Hengifoss.
Foss means waterfall. Remember?
PhotoMan tricked me with promises of hunting for a giant lake monster that many the Icelander claims to have seen wriggling inexplicably about through icy waters. It's name in English, Wyrm Monster, gives you an idea of what it might look like, reinforced by this video taken quite recently by an Icelandic farmer from his lakeside residence (explanation for the phenom still nonexistent). I, however, am much more charmed by local gas station maps of Iceland that draw out a Loch Ness type sea monster chatting congenially with an Icelandic girl in blonde braids and detailed apron, its many green parabolic snake humps dipping in and out of the water cartoonishly throughout the presumably fantastic conversation. Regardless, we pedaled up and down hill after mountain forested hill, feeling quite as if we had suddenly gone for a pleasant, thigh-burning ride in Colorado, instead of another Icelandic waterfall mission. I dutifully scanned the silvery lake, which we rode by for several up and down stretches, and spotted many mossy rocks that I concluded were chunks of sea monster flesh. Christopher, meanwhile, was harboring secret dreams of capturing a unique angle of the lower falls below Hengi.In true Christopher fashion, our sweaty arrival at Hengifoss was immediately transformed into a sweaty hike up a steep trail on the opposite side of the river from where the groomed trail takes all the nice normal people up to enjoy the sights. As we doggedly walked up, scattering the flocks, I was still wondering at the bridge we cycled to cross the lake. The point of crossing was quite wide, and ten feet in, I was shocked to feel the air temperature suddenly drop at least 15 degrees. I looked left and saw an opening between two sections of mountain, where a glacier or some other giant ice formation was visible. The temperature on the bridge stayed cold for as long as the ice was in view. Getting ten feet from shore on the other side, though, the air began to warm, and by the time we met the road, we were once again encased in the relative warmth of the grass and hills. In Iceland, the temperature can be completely different ten feet from where you are standing, which baffled me as much as when we looked at a Skaftafell weather map for headwinds and saw our next stretch overtaken by a wind pattern that literally went in a circle, like a tornado, but apparently...not. Mulling over these meteorological mysteries in my head, I did not immediately notice Christopher darting about on crumbling rock ledges trying to capture this: Mercifully, I was able to scream and holler over the roar of wind and water to call off my soon-to-be-dead-almost-not-future-husband. Tail between his truth withholding legs, Christopher proceeded to describe the NatGeo photograph that he had secret intentions of recreating, which explained our use of a sheep trail on the opposite side of the river and his harebrained rock scrambling. I swear, you look away for one second... Fortunately, my egregious inattention allowed him to determine the water to be too high for his needs, making it unnecessary for him to set up his camera gear on top of a tenuous rock column and take pictures over the side of a cliff (as if I would have allowed such ridiculous behaviors to take place). What is truly amazing to me, though, is that his iPhone snapshots, shared above, are incredible on their own. We musn't tell him that, though, or we'll be back with the DSLR and filters and whatnot, and Christopher will be swept away by a river.
By the way, Hengifoss is the second tallest waterfoss in Iceland...but Christopher only wanted to photograph the lower falls. Something about rock columns, unique geologic something somethings. (Sometimes NatGeo photographers make my life very confusing and difficult. If only they knew how much their choices impact my day-to-day.) We didn't even go to the actual Hengifoss part. We went back down the sheep trail, had some supper, during which I was attacked by a huge spider, and got back on the bikes to go to camp. So "Hengifoss and the Wyrm Monster" is a misnomer. It should be "Scary, Cliff Side, Unique Geologic Something Somethings and the Wyrm Monster, Sort Of."
Here is camp. Being rather far into the highland, it wasn't a tourist destination. As far as we could tell, these gypsy set-ups were enjoyed entirely by Icelandic citizens on weekend/summer holidays. This little path was just the tip of the RV iceberg. There were people in droves, and they had camping situations that would suggest they were permanent residents. Our little Marmot, so terribly battered by overuse, looked...well...stupid.
As we cycled up for the night, I can only imagine how many iPads were on us. Sometimes, I suspect that people think we are homeless...
I can't imagine why, though. I think we look great.
But That's Not All!
Cycling 500 Miles: Iceland Coast-to-Coast
To Bus or Not to Bus: How We Got to Reykjavik
Godafoss, Akureyri, and the Humpback of Husavik
And More! Don't Miss Out! Come Back Soon!
 With three days left of our Iceland adventure, I'll open with a quote from The Reykjavik Grapevine, Iceland's unpleasantly hip, urban beat, English language newspaper. The piece refers to an electronica song by Pluseinn, a band that I can only hope sounds nothing like the dissonant, garbled squawking that emanates from various Reykjavik alleyways.
"The words say, "Take it easy now," but the tone says, "F#@%, what a boring summer of bad weather we're having." Not every electro jam has to be a feel-good hit and this new three minute tune from Pluseinn...is way more suited for sitting in the coffee shop, staring at the window, and sulking at the clouds than for chugging Crabbie's and throwing your hands in the air like you just don't care. And that's great, you know, because when July is this cold and wet, we need an anthem for commiseration..."
 Not knowing what Crabbie's is/are, I can confirm that we haven't had the opportunity to chug any, but the relationship between Crabbie's and "throwing your hands in the air like you just don't care" reveals enough for me to be able to also confirm that we have not enjoyed a day of summer revelry that would be appropriate for July in Iceland, let alone anywhere else on the planet. I can also say, without any shadow of a doubt, that it is absolutely exhausting to spend six weeks in a land where the sun never sets, while never actually seeing this sun make a much anticipated appearance. By our calculations, Chris and I cycled about 500 miles...in the wind and the rain. Chris and I have swum in various rivers, hot pots, and outdoor public pools...in the wind and the rain. Chris and I have slept outside every day for six weeks...in the wind and the rain.
And the ultimate irony is that the sun never really set. This rather typical I'm-on-vacation-in-a-city photo shows Reykjavik on the nicest day of the summer. Note the faint glimmer around the 98% cloud cover. They say that's sunlight. Another significant detail in this picture is the water spray of the fountain only being blown slightly to the left, as opposed to its usual trajectory, which I can only presume looks like a fire hose spraying horizontally in whatever direction the wind decides it'll take. Shortly after this photo was taken, the rain started again.  Iceland is not all rain and wind, though...or so Christopher tells me. There are also hot dogs, and in both Reykjavik and Ayureyri, we saw big red boxes, rather like London's phone booths, where you could deposit your name and address for Santa and his Yule Lads (not a hilariously effeminate holiday boy band with curiously placed fur linings, as I hoped, but actually just an Icelandic cultural tradition) to write you back at Christmastime. Which is fun. Certainly in keeping with the generally Christmasy vibe that Akureyri boasts year round.
As I babble on without introduction, you may notice the twelve day hole in my saga from us leaving Egilsstadir and us arriving in Reykjavik. You map junkies might even know that Egilsstadir is on the opposite end of the country from Reykjavik, which poses a high school math style question about distance, time, and varying speeds relative to acceleration, dead time, and so on.
The Icelandic saga answer to any issue of time/space clarity is to ignore it completely and continue on with the story from the present day, regardless of time elapsed and amount of Viking-induced deaths of main characters, which is tempting for me to emulate in my present state of mind. I strongly suspect that I am suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency that is making focus an extreme act of mental acrobatics; when complicated by pre-existing ADHD, it is a chore for me to do anything besides cycle, run, or swim laps to burn off sheer restless energy. Christopher claims that my self diagnosing is a bit melodramatic, and that perhaps we're both just a little bored after six weeks in the same country. I just have to look at my Arctic tern head scar to know that Chris doesn't take my medical experience seriously enough, especially when he says there is no scar to look at. I know my truth.
To cope with my disinterest in mental acrobatics, I took up physical acrobatics in Akureyri, to alarming photographic - though perhaps not actual - success. Using my ADHD counselor's sage advice, I will now "gain my interest with something stimulating" and then "make a list of what needs to get done" to make this much belated story hour happen. I'll do my best, folks. Just keep in mind that I am working from a land without sun. It does things to people...strange, skin whitening things... SO, here is me learning to juggle, both one- and two-handed, in Akureyri, followed by a list of things we need to talk about, followed by my death from trying to pay attention and get this story told. Clearly, I am an unbelievable success. Clearly. Christopher can juggle every way imaginable while riding a unicycle, slack-lining, doing magic tricks, and trying to figure out why I order everything from right to left except words and can't understand day/month/year mathematical relationships. I am not the prodigy in this relationship. List of Things We Need To Talk About:
1. Hengifoss and the Wyrm Monster
2. Cycling 500 Miles, thus Completing a Coast-to-Coast Tour of Iceland
3. To Bus or Not to Bus - How We Got to Reykjavik
4. Godafoss, Akureyri, and the Humpbacks of Husavik
5. Hveravellir - Why the Highlands Would Have Been a Better Prison Land than Australia
6. Gullfoss, Geysir, and Grody Smells
7. Back to Where We Started, or Why Couldn't I Smell That in the Highland? So, seven posts. I have seven stories to tell you, just in time for this café to close, sending us out for a bleak cycle back to the campsite in the, you guessed it, wind and rain. To hold you over until new WiFi is found - which could be in an hour, or a day, or back at my dad's house with our dogs in our lap - here are some outrageously fine, fine art photos by Christopher. So it's fair. I'm marrying above my station.
 Hi from Hofn! We've got lots to cover, so let's dive right in.
It is euphoric to ride a bicycle and actually get somewhere in a time that reflects that you had two wheels to power you along. The ride to Vik was like that. It's been our only ride like that... More about Vik in a second, but first, I have a revelation.
Between you and me, I have been feeling pretty self conscious about how difficult the majority of this trip has been. Chris has regaled me with countless stories of all his adventures before there was us, and his tales about riding 125 miles a day in Wyoming during his coast-to-coast trip have been cackling at me from the back of my head. Believe it or not, partnering yourself with a superhuman explorer can occasionally make you feel like you're about as adventurous and hearty as that curly-headed blonde girl from the Sex and New York Martini Bars show.
Now add this element - I saw a family pull up in Skaftafell on bicycles. The dad was hauling a toddler in a trailer and the mom had a child pedaling behind her on an attached recumbent. Shortly thereafter, a man with only one arm joined the "I'm Better at Cycling than Lauren" club that was apparently holding a meeting right outside my tent.
 Basically, I have been worrying that I am about as tough and outdoorsy as these sheep butts. That little biker family of mockery-makers did not help the situation. What if I'm hindering the progress, like that member of the Arctic expedition team that gets frostbite first and keeps falling off the line into crevasses? What if I'm Crevasse Guy?
Five miles from Vik, we took a little horse photography break. Chris happened to mention that this was the worst cycling trip he'd ever had for weather, and that he was quite impressed that I always kept pace, even in 40 mph headwinds...because, among other things, Chris is also telekinetic...and I can't even tell when he's stopping the bike.
That was before we saw the show offs in Skaftafell, though, so now I'm worried he's had time to change his mind about me and my prowess since Vik...which I still haven't started telling you about...so I'll set the tone with me moodily drawing lines in the black sand beach there.
Fun Fact about Vik:
Deep under the Mydalsjokull glacier, the highly active volcano Katla is brewing molten lava soup. History shows that Miss Katla serves up her scalding supper about twice per century, and as her last dinner party was in 1918, her next round of festivities is decades overdue.
Vik is Katla's guest of honor. As Katla will start the party whenever she pleases, residents in and around Vik have regular evacuation drills, and farmers are trained to release their livestock to higher ground and leave Volcano Notices on their doors.
The Cold War never ended here.
Some side effects of a volcanic eruption include:
A giant explosion, poisonous ash, noxious clouds, lightning, flash floods from melting glacial ice, and, usually, giant tidal waves from the direction of Vestmannaeyger.
All of which begs the question - Why the hell would you bother living in Vik at all?
Yes, the canyon we cycled through to get there was the most beautiful, serene stretch of the trip so far, and black sand beaches are the softest and loveliest in the world.
But that soft, serene loveliness is a front for the most horrifying geologic possibilities I have ever considered.
Not worth the trouble.
And all the poor livestock! They never asked to live on a volcano...
Vik was sleepy, so Chris was ready very quickly to leave the black sand behind. I, meanwhile, was ready to sleep again without waking up all night thinking I was about to be eviscerated by tarry magma (it was always just the noisy cliff dwelling fulmars conspiring to scare me with their endless cawing).
Off again, cycling with a mild tailwind to Kirkjubaejarklaustur (actual spelling), ambitiously thinking we'd make it in one go. Instead, the wind changed directions, as it is wont to do in stupid Iceland, and we ended up cycling well into the night against a wall until we stopped off to sleep...nowhere...and decided to have another go at the last ten miles in the morning.
Semper fi and whatnot, dominate the pain, conquer mind and body stuff.
We escaped this creepy cairn village (you put a rock on a stack for luck if it's your first time passing; some farmer's farm was dissolved by volcano juice here at one point) and made it to the idyllic Kirkjubaejarklaustur under bluish skies and some interaction with the briefly unencumbered sun.
Nothing more than a hamlet, Klaustur appeared popular with Icelanders. It's pastoral and pretty, and a delicate waterfall slides elegantly down a gray cliff into a 'forest' that was hand planted by residents in the '70s.
It has a fascinating, churchy history, with Irish monks settling the place before the Viking arrival, followed by a convent for hardy nuns. Kirkjubaejarklaustur translates as follows;
Kirku - Church
Baejar - Farm
Klaustur - Convent
Which is accurate. There is a church, there are some farms, and there used to be a convent. Back in the day, ChurchFarmConvent was pretty fanatical in terms of religion. Apparently, two nuns were executed and buried somewhere around there for having slept with the devil.
I'm curious about the logistics of that. Does he call from hell at 3 am after a night out with his bro demons?
Later, in the 1700s, some garbled volcano name erupted and lava was headed straight for poor little ChurchFarmConvent. The pastor, sensing a divine opportunity, gathered the people in his church, where he proceeded to energetically explain that hell hath its ways and that the impending smoky disaster was actually God's way of punishing ChurchFarmConvent for its many sins.
With poignant timing, the lava flow stopped just short of town, and the citizens credited the quick tongue of the pastor with appeasing God just in the nick of geologic time.
And that's all there is to ChurchFarmConvent, which brings me to Skaftafell, our first foray into the Icelandic National Park System ('system' is a generous word; I think there are two parks all together).
Here I am unshowered and being blown sideways by an icy wind that sweeps continuously off of the glacier just behind me. Though I can't spell or pronounce it, I can say that it's the largest glacier in Europe and it is responsible for all manner of destruction, both large scale and small. The water is a small glacial lake with an eerie tide that seems to move in multiple directions. A lone park sign warned about quicksand and getting trapped inside fiery red squares that would then tumble you straight into the 35 degree, quick moving water, where you would promptly die.
Chris tells me the red squares are just pictures reminding you to watch your step, but I have learned to take nothing for granted in this frigid wasteland. (I can say 'wasteland' because the guidebook, written to promote Arctic travel, also uses the word 'wasteland'. Many times.)
No grains of salt to take here.
Like any National Park, Skaftafell was crawling with Eddie Bauer models who clearly used their primo Everest climbing gear once in a decade. We awoke at 6 am to the sounds of our sexy catalog neighbors furiously shaking out their tent pieces. I opened my bloodshot eyes, expecting to be surrounded by my own drenched gear...but it hadn't even rained. Meanwhile, our lovely, fresh counterparts beat those suckers like they were Amish quilts. I don't even know what they were shaking off. The crumbs from the ten course meal that they laughingly enjoyed across two public picnic tables (one of which they had clearly taken from a separate area) at 11 pm while Chris and I sat in the wet grass eating Icelandic ramen?
Supper of Champions. Notice the fruit. We are nothing if not devoted to maintaining the Food Pyramid, which clearly states that hot dogs should be seared in the bottom of a pot and eaten halved without a bread product.
 After living, eating, and working exclusively outside for a month, we've developed our prejudices. Stealing public use areas and violating the sanctity of dawn by obsessing over unnecessary gear rituals hurts my feelings now.
Resting up at Skaftafell, consuming a variety of cake and tea selections at the pleasantly humid cafe, and taking slippery hikes in the endless rain led us to believe that we would be prepared for the cycle to Jokulsarlon, or Glacier Lagoon.
Instead, we enjoyed the most powerful headwind to date, if that's even possible to fathom. We are pretty buff, I might add, and it gets us nowhere but rocky sheep fields. Forget your workouts, kids. Eat 'Cool American' Doritos and hang out inside a stinky tent. Then you can be just like us. Alone in a rocky sheep field.
Furthermore, I would like to add that, aside from the wind, this ride was also marred by my being attacked and clawed in the face by an Arctic tern. As I have forbidden Christopher from taking photographs of them, or generally admiring them in any way, you can view the little 'effers here. I can confirm with quantifiable, photograph-able evidence that Wikipedia's description of the Arctic tern is correct:
It is one of the most aggressive terns, fiercely defensive of its nest and young. It will attack humans and large predators, usually striking the top or back of the head. Although it is too small to cause serious injury to an animal of a human's size, it is still capable of drawing blood, and is capable of repelling many raptorial birds and smaller mammalian predators such as foxes and cats.
And me. It is capable of repelling me.
See my Arctic tern head wound? Chris says it's "not that bad."
And he's never been dive bombed on a bike by a Kamikaze sea bird.
 I now have to tie up my reflective vest under my chest a la Daisy Duke and wear my sexy cyclist outfit in order to draw attention away from the red, circular, Krishna-esque beak wound in the middle of my forehead.
Not really. My vest just flaps too much in the wind, which is extremely annoying...and the rest is just the result of being too cold and not having access to laundry facilities.
So, one way or another, upon which I will not elaborate, we got our sorry selves to Jokulsarlon, a blue freshwater lagoon filled with floating chunks of broken glacier. There are no facilities here beyond a cafe open to the endless stream of day trippers. We were thus free to pitch a tent wherever the glacial wind would hit us the least, which was behind a hill just in front of the lake itself.
We pulled our bikes up the gravel road past the parking lot, and there was a terrible stretch where a Mongolian horde of Arctic terns swooped threateningly around while I tried to get past their nesting sight without throwing up in fear. Somehow we survived, making it possible for Chris to spend the ENTIRE rest of the night photographing the lagoon.
The stretch of the Ring Road leading up to Jokulsarlon is the windiest, most desolate and dangerous portion of Iceland. I learned that during the winter, the wind is so extreme, due to the glacier, that it rips up chunks of asphalt and blows them off the road towards the sea (which explains why the shoulder is so bad, or nonexistent). I experienced a taste of that somewhere around midnight, and with Chris off photographing ALL NIGHT, it was up to me to reinforce the tent with various volcanic rocks and return to my makeshift office.
I mock Christopher's zeal, but I have to admit that he had been waiting for this part of the trip for six months, and it took quite an effort to time our arrival with the one day of the summer that actually produced sunlight, albeit between the hours of 12 am and 5 am. He earned the right to go a bit crazy, but I did not approve of riding glaciers in the name of art...
Secretly...it was my favorite place, too.
I wouldn't want Christopher to know that, as it would result in more primitive camping, probably right on top of a glacier, and I don't know that my body could take that kind of beating right now (but Jokulsarlon is the totally the coolest place on the planet). I was surprised to find that the lake, seemingly stationary in photos, has a tide that nibbles unexpectedly at your toes. Fjord is maybe a better word than lagoon, as the fresh water flows out into the churning sea, right across the road. Seals are known to sneak up from sea to fresh water and hunt, but we weren't lucky this round. However, for the second time (Vik being the first), I have seen a mother duck and her ducklings swimming in a river that mingles with an entire ocean just a few feet beyond. Such unexpected sights that Iceland produces.
After no sleep and much wind, we packed up once more, soldiered on, and found ourselves in Hofn. As far as pronunciation goes, Lonely Planet tells me to inhale on the 'h', like a hiccup. In practicing, Chris and I have successfully choked, spluttered, and inhaled bugs. We are sticking with 'ho-fun'. And, really, when isn't a ho fun? We have been "resting" in Hofn. In Christopher's language, "resting" means "going running together" and "making your petrified girlfriend go running by an Arctic tern nesting ground so you can video the birds swooping down at you." Since I'm so rested now, we will be moving on to Egilsstadir and riding 25 miles into the boonies. Chris originally told me that we were looking for an ancient Loch Ness type critter in the lake there, but I did some research and suspect we are actually riding out in the middle of nowhere to see something called Hengifoss.
In case you don't remember, 'foss' is 'waterfall.' We're going to see another waterfall.
This is what marrying a photographer is.
But I can't be tricked. I'm finding me that Nordic Loch Ness...
See my Arctic tern head wound??
Effing birds.
 I don't really have anything to say about pretzel sticks. The 'pr' was in keeping with my alliterative title. We did have some pretzel sticks at some point. They were kind of ok with peanut butter...but the Skippy Smooth here comes in a glass jar and is bland and grainy enough to suggest that the other option, Skippy Crunchy, must just be unsweetened peanut halves in a layer of oil.
It's that time of the trip where you grow disillusioned with the food, smelling funky, and sleeping outside.
It's been a month since we've slept indoors.
 We are now in Skaftafell, a far cry from Vestmannaeyger, where you last heard from us...about 200 miles of a far cry, really, including some ocean travel...so an explanation is certainly in order.
We've been busy planning a wedding, dodging the ever inclement weather, and camping in places without appropriate Wi-Fi services, let alone a bathroom.
So, let's backtrack, shall we?
If you follow us in the gossipy folds of the Facebook matrix, then you surely know by now that Christopher proposed at Seljalandafoss, a misty hollow of a campsite at the base of several fantastic waterfalls. The popping of the question coincided with the popping of DOMA, which was a lovely surprise for us, and adds an important element of equality to our upcoming wedding...which happens to be three weeks away!
 But proposal story first. For once, I will attempt linearity, as my preferred method of Homeric-spaghetti-western-mish-mash may prove too much for the amount I need to relay (in less than three hours, too, since Skaftafell is a National Park and you have to pay for everything here).
It was a dark and stormy night. Really. Gray, wispy clouds floated visibly across the changing sky, physically pushed by the "breeze" that had earlier acted as our first tailwind of the entire trip, shoving us from the harbor to Seljalandafoss in record time. Christopher, positively squealing at first sight of the messy white Seljalandafoss and her neighboring falls, plunked our tent as close as possible to the mouth of a cave into which a foamy foss tumbled. Any closer and we would have been sleeping in the stream.
After delighting ourselves with the pair of Angora rabbits our camp supervisor kept, we settled inside the steamy, red-and-wood camp house and reveled in being warm and dry.
My book was out and my tea in hand when I saw disaster out of the corner of my eye.
A vivid orange 11 pm sun was bursting through a jumble of clouds, and the entire sky was turning a sugary, tropical pink. This Icelandic 'sunset' was on the opposite horizon from Seljalandafoss. As a devoted girlfriend to photography incarnate, I mean Christopher, I saw the shot, too.
You can stand behind Seljalandafoss. It's unique in that way. At that moment, if you stood with a tripod and a lens wiper (my sleeve) behind Seljalandafoss, you would get a picture of a magnificent sunset, one caused by the first sun we had seen in weeks, accented by a sleek, powerful, cliffside waterfall.
And at that moment, I had also just poured a hot cup of tea and gotten my book reader thing to turn on.
It was so warm.
Two minutes later, my clothes were covered in my outsized rain gear, tea and book reader thing resting forlornly by my air mattress, and we were off, squelching sloppily through the Killarney green grass into deep pockets of mud. As we approached Seljalandafoss, we were joined by other insane fanatics with tripods, I mean photographers, who had also been waiting weeks for anything besides rain and sheep.
The 200 foot falls are massive and put off a mist so thick that rain would be an improvement. In seconds, we were all soaking and frozen, which is when I noticed that Chris was using his rain coat to shield his lens...not his down jacket and pants, which were now thoroughly wet through. I, meanwhile, looked like a blue octopus, my head rounded off in a giant hood and my arm flaps dangling limply against my black MC Hammer pants (it was only upon arrival that we realized my rain gear was an XS Mens).
We looked good.
Chris and the others battled the spray while I devised differing ways to use my arm flaps to keep Chris and his gear a little more protected. He, of course, was trapped in that netherworld of light and shadow that engulfs him during photo sessions, allowing him to be blissfully unaware of our ever reddening hands and faces.
Around midnight, the light began to soften and the other sopping photographers began to retreat. I was braindead with cold and started to follow an old man back to camp, but Chris wasn't budging. His gear was all put away, but he was motionless, hands in pockets, staring out at the sunset with a glazed grin on his face. I went back to him and tried to get him to go, but he said, "Let's wait a minute."
In retrospect, this was probably the point at which Chris intended to propose.
This is what happened instead:
A man and his son appeared on the other side of the falls. We watched, transfixed, as the boy, about 17, started to take off his clothes. Chris was muttering, "You've got to be kidding me," over and over (which is very funny now) as the boy proceeded into the frigid pool while Dad filmed, whooping and splashing as if it were not 35 degrees in Iceland. Soon, the boy was done with his display and Dad produced a billowing red poncho. They flip flopped proudly by us, probably expecting congratulations, while we stared in open-mouthed silence.
Chris reached for his bag again.
This is the second time he, unbeknownst to me, tried to propose.
This is what happened instead:
Dad and Boy made it to the foot bridge over the stream leaving the falls. Instead of going on, though, Boy got naked again and proceeded to collect the coins at the bottom of the stream, thus desecrating the hopes and wishes of countless Icelandic children.
After one more, "You've got to be kidding me," Chris must have accepted that our engagement story was destined to be weird, so he pulled out a copy of Steinbeck's The Pearl while I watched the Nordic treasure hunters, and put it in my arm flaps.
There is an inscription in this book...but it's only mine to know...followed by a word game that, when I giddily solved it, asked, "Will you marry me?"
This is when I looked up, saw Chris on one knee with an open, water-stained box, and started swinging my arm flaps up and down like a kindergartner at recess. Apparently, instead of giving an appropriate response, such as yes, I proceeded to hop around in the mud, laughing, flapping my arm flaps like a handicapped puffin, and shouting, "Really? Really? Really?" in Christopher's face.
You know. Because I'm classy.
And that is how I wound up with a gigantic pearl on my left hand (and Chris a gigantic mud stain on his left knee) and a July 27th wedding date.
Because who wants to wait, or spend the equivalent of the national debt of a developing country to hang out with people you don't know and have them throw food at you?
 After a few more days at Seljalandafoss chasing sheep out of our food bag, making grainy Skype phone calls, and booking an entire wedding in half hour, it was time to move on to Skogafoss. We had spent the days subsequent to our engagement waiting out nearly ceaseless rain and bitter cold, and we were relieved to see a break in the weather. As we cycled past Selfjalandafoss that last time, though, I felt a bit of a pang in my heart.
It's not many people that get to relive their lovely, ridiculous engagement story over and over for days after.
 We got a surprise when we hit the Ring Road. The gusty wind that had been whipping us around on the campsite road was doing something really bizarre.
It was pushing only at our backs. Not at our wind burnt, bug spattered faces. Not at our sides, targeting the wheels with the most weight. Not every which way, making it impossible to find a comfortable grip without being blown severely off course.
The blessed/cursed devil wind of Iceland was pushing us to racing speeds, and we weren't even paying for it with rain or terrible traffic.
We made the 25 miles to Skogafoss in an hour. I think it was the first time we actually had pure fun on the bikes.
Aptly located in the piddly farm town of Skogar (per Icelandic grammar rules, the names and spellings of towns and their attractions change according to context, making map reading a joy), Skogafoss was a touristy little nightmare. The falls were massive and majestic, but Christopher could hardly get a shot without also capturing a twenty-something girl in full North Face regalia 'leaping' into the air with her mouth open so that her friends could take a picture of her with their iPads. (When that is all done, for the record, they immediately get back on the bus that's been bumping Chris in the ass while he tries to work.)
That style of interaction with nature is enough to make me want to sell all my stuff and give the cash to WWF to save us all...but this trip has also carried an added factor that makes encounters with tour buses nearly unbearable.
You see, for the tour buses, Chris and I are apparently part of the tour. We are a spectacle. Cycling up to Skogafoss was like walking the red carpet; suddenly, a gigantic waterfall wasn't nearly as interesting as a man and a woman with geared up bikes. All iPads were on us - us cycling up the dirt road, us parking our bikes against a picnic table, us taking our helmets and reflective vests off, me staring at the cameras with my arms out like, "What? I am not a zoo animal."
We have been photographed as if we were Bear Grylls on assignment in Iceland, not just a couple of raggedy kids in bike shorts. The iPads with hands can't get enough of us.
And when Christopher reveals he's a photographer, it's all over. That tripod comes out and all sense of propriety is erased, blown away in the endless wind. Wherever he goes, the iPads go. Whatever angle he attempts, a group of iPads clusters behind him, jostlin to see his screen and take whatever picture he takes. Because Chris is nicer than me, he feels bad because he knows that what he is getting is not what the iPad hands are going to get, and they are consequently taking odd, unflattering photos.
I think it serves them right for being all up in our business...
Anyway, Skogafoss was ridiculous in all the ways I described, so after our first meal at a real restaurant (expensive, but a necessary treat), we took advantage of that glorious tailwind and escaped Skogar for Vik.
We rode with a tour bus back to the highway.
All iPads were pointed at us.
 We made it to Vik and beyond...but you'll have to tune in again (maybe tomorrow?) to hear more! There's only so long I can sit without exploring. That limit is now.
More stories to come!
 From the foggy shores of Vestmannaeyger, it is with great regret that I telegraph home news of a casualty in our midst. Though fighting valiantly to remain a fully formed member of this expedition, Team Member Three, Last Name Marmot, First Name Orange, has succumbed to wind-induced injuries and will no longer be capable of fulfilling its assigned tent duties without immediate and improvised intervention by Team Members One and Two. To ward off further injury until it can be retired safely to US shores, Team Member Three has been treated with a combination of extra staking mechanisms, a laundry line, and strategically placed duct tape. Though Team Members One and Two are both trained in the worn-out-gear healing arts, they worry that their skills may be outmatched, leaving Team Member One vulnerable to the gale-force winds and horizontal rain that this unseasonably awful Icelandic summer has produced thus far. We fear for the worst - With nothing else to be done, Team Member One is expected to succumb to its grave injuries. Its final adventure is at hand. Stop.
A view from the medical ward - Severe internal injuries caused by a sea storm that raged all night and eventually flattened Team Member One's bone structure into a pancake that wetly folded over the top of Team Members Two and Three.
 For the record, our Marmot was built to stand strong. It's a Marmot, for pity's sake. Sea storms boiled up in the netherworld by Nordic gods with rage issues, though, proved sodden and deadly, even for a Marmot. Up all night, using hands and feet to hold up the remains of our wind battered tent, it crossed our minds to inhabit a nearby thatch roof hut instead...but then everything we owned would have blown away. Braving the elements, we patched up our little guy as best we could and were able to ride out the rest of the storm in the improvised mess, but our gear is largely soaked now and the tent is really in shambles. So, we're leaving tonight to try our luck at the mainland again. Bad weather is expected to follow. I am not in the proper frame of mind to recommend cycling Iceland today, so I'll speak of other things.
Above, you can see the steep narrowness of the trail we followed for puffin hunting. This is also the cliff that sea winds blow over to create a reverse vacuum that murders your high-end outdoor gear and makes you look like an idiot...in case you were wondering.
Sheep, as far as I can tell, are the only members of the Trail Construction Corps in Iceland. Being sure-footed and lacking soundness of mind, sheep do not make the best park rangers, but they do scream very loudly, usually unprovoked, and this adds excitement to any walk. Also, they are precious and look/walk/sound/think just like Zoe, which makes me want to go home.
I am going to quickly round off our time in Vestmannaeyger and share next steps, as we have to get going and pack up our soggy stuff to catch the ferry. I can't think of anything clever to say, anyway, as my brain is muddled by sleeplessness and scenes from "The Perfect Storm", with cutaways from "Castaway." So...
Best part? We held a puffin. A two-year-old, sleepy, silky baby puffin. Almost makes up for the storm.
Vestmannaeyger hosts a tiny, rather dilapidated aquarium attached to the fire station. A single room houses eight tanks filled with the most hideous, ill-formed sea life we have ever seen, representing the rich aquatic history of Iceland. These were the most disgusting animals we have ever seen - gray, gelatinous fish with pointy teeth, all glopped together in a pile of gigantic, rotty fish mess; flat somethings with two eyes of the top of their sand colored heads and mouths that gaped open sideways, revealing internal bone structures; black, spiny crabs the size of my bicycle clawing at lumps of dead squid. It was like M. Night Shyamalan became the director of Sea World. Our skin crawled.
But then we held the baby puffin and everything was alright.
Sensing my recent visit underneath the surface of the River Styx (mixing mythologies, I know), my little friend jovially nipped at my fingers and blinked his eyes contentedly while I stroked his velvety feathers, clearly trying to make me feel better for having just witnessed the many countenances of Satan in person. It was a much affirming reintroduction to the glorious aspects of nature, which we had briefly forgotten existed (we forgot again around 2:30 am when the ocean tried to swallow us up, but tea is bringing us around again).
With that...there isn't much more to say. We are tired and vaguely downtrodden, so we are going to pack up and try for Seljalandsfoss, another waterfall that Christopher tells me differs from the other waterfalls we have seen and will see. It will be a short cycle from the ferry port if we estimated correctly and the weather is on our side (both tenuous, at best). After the light has cooperated enough to suit Christopher's undeniable genius (even I can't be sarcastic about that), we will cycle on to Skogar, a town whose one building is a gas station, to see Skogarfoss. In case you haven't gathered, 'foss' is Icelandic for 'waterfall'. Then, we'll haul on to Vik.
I can't remember, but I'm guessing that there is a waterfall there. Couldn't tell you why.
I'll leave you with a photo of a lava field, sharp and blackened leftovers of the eruption that pulverized houses and created two extra kilometers of land on Heimaey, our current island, in 1973. You know. To end on a happy note.
For the record, nobody died...and my hair looks really good.
 As this coy little puffer might indicate, Christopher and I are demurely proud of yesterday's successful bird watching adventure. Though arduous, freezing, and vertigo-inducing, we can only look at you askance and suggest that, while we know we are mighty heroes of outdoor exploration, we wouldn't want to put you off by being brazen. We are, after all, a lady and a gentleman, and we know the importance of proper comportment.
False. We, like the puffin above, are only feigning being classy and subtle. We, like a more honest puffin will soon show you, are obnoxiously proud of our hard work yesterday, and I am about to brag about it open-mouthed and shamelessly into your unwilling ear. Because that's who we are. Overly excitable clowns. You know that.
SO LISTEN UP!
It took quite the hike to get up to the puffin colonies. The trail is about as wide as a shoe, and basically goes...up. Straight up the side of the ever-so-steep volcanic cliff, with just more cliff and a grumpy blue ocean on the other side. Mind-numbingly high, severely steep, and generally terror-inducing. So fun.
We followed a precarious sheep trail, shaggy sheep included, to a black, rocky cove, but no puffins yet. Back up we went, knees wobbling, following more narrow, dizzying trails across the lip of the dead volcano until we finally spotted some tiny goobers (i.e. puffins) hopping and a-puffin-ing in the grass beneath us.
Nervously scaling more 'trails' (American park systems would never allow people on those slick, gravelly things, unless there were handrails and a thousand signs depicting a stick figure falling to its genderless death...and even then...but we're no fun), we found a rather more active puffin grouping and Chris disappeared for a very long time, doing very dangerous things for photos (mercifully out of my sight), while I shivered in the sea wind, read Midnight's Children, and spied on the goofy birds popping about.
Puffins are not skilled flyers. You would think the wind would carry their tiny bodies, but they can't even take off if there isn't a cliff to jump from. I know; I watched a little guy stuck behind a boulder, flapping its moth wings frantically, hopping higher and higher, flapping and flapping, never taking off, until it finally found an open ledge to leap/slip off. It took a long time. A comically long time. They are nothing, if not entertaining, and they seem delightfully unaware of this fact. They stand so proud; so proud and so mindless.
Christopher was taking photos of a trio on the rock ledge, creeping closer and closer while they cocked their silly heads and puttered around. Chris was focused on getting right below the three above him; what he didn't notice was a fourth puffin. Also clearly focused, the puffin was very much occupied with sneaking up on Christopher while Christopher tried to sneak up on more puffins. It was like a silent film. Chris would slither a few feet more around the rock, while the subject he was seeking out waddled a few more steps closer to him behind his back. Neither saw the other's face, but both were determined to get closer while remaining unseen. Like farcical spies, puffin and man silently circled while I cursed the iPhone charging back at the tent, leaving me video-less. The only thing missing was a ragtime piano ditty, and something falling onto someone's head. Bird poop would have been ideal.
I will be happy forever for having seen that little display.
 It's been a bit! As it turns out, Iceland has approximately three Wi-Fi hotspots, give or take a random gas station (they actually never have Wi-Fi, unless you have a Vodafone, or know what that is). We last left off at Hveragardi, the charming coastal town that I would have gladly stayed in for the rest of the trip. Chris, of course, had other plans, which included making me go to the above "art" gallery on our last night in Hveragardi and look at underdeveloped water color paintings instead of eating dinner first. You can tell by the way I have my backpack cinched, making me look like a depressed forty-year-old dad who let himself go, that I am not impressed with the situation.
The next day, we packed up our gear, which took disturbingly long, and set off for Selfoss, a mere seven miles away, with the hope of going farther along to a primitive campsite on the road to Hella. Unfortunately, this is when a torrential downpour made its appearance. This is in a rare break from the gray sheets.
The rain refusing to let up, we made camp at the unbelievably pleasant campsite in otherwise uninteresting Selfoss, and payed the whopping $4 to sit in a hot tub and warm our bones. It was a nice evening, which now strikes me as a piece of devil trickery designed to lull us into letting our guard down before the next day's ride to Hella.
In short, we had interminable rain and wind again, which was a bit more disconcerting than the day before because we had about 20 miles to ride instead of seven. Cold. Wet. Blustery. Trafficky. But we made it to Hella in relatively good time, which would have been better if we hadn't been charged $40 to stay at a "campsite" that was actually mostly a resort for wealthy Nordic people in dinner jackets. It was clear that our damp, neon presences were marring an otherwise idyllic stay in Icelandic horse country, so we kept our plebeian selves to our tent and left early the next day, stopping only to fraternize with the jolly gardener's sheep dogs. Then I got extremely homesick, so here's a photo of my sheep dogs.
Somewhere on the route either to Hella or to Hvollsvollur seven miles beyond, we also saw Urriga Foss. By Icelandic standards, it's apparently not terribly scenic. By Wyoming standards, though, the misty beast was massive and terrifying and gray. We stopped off to enjoy for some time, during which I was struck by the amount of people who drove up, stopped their cars, got out, took a two second picture of themselves doing peace signs or Vanna White arms in front of the falls, got back in their cars, and then drove away. Two minute interludes, at the most, and I'm pretty sure no one actually stopped and looked at the water in front of them. So odd.
To our credit, we didn't make peace signs or try to display the waterfall as if we had constructed it ourselves as a fourth grade science project. You can also tell how tired I am.
Hvollsvollur is a supply town in the Sundur Valley, in the Volcano Katla Geopark system. It was developed, along with a few other small stops, to support the farmers scattered across the area (in the midst of a volcano's war path, I might add). Though nothing but three gas stations, and probably a school somewhere, Hvollsvollur also has a delightfully Nordic museum devoted to Njal's Saga, Iceland's most cherished epic. For obvious reasons, we had to go.
Written down in the 12th or 13th century, the story lays out the true events surrounding an extremely convoluted clan feud that took place in the lands surrounding Hvollsvollur in the 900's or so. Here is what I gathered from the 30 exhibits attempting to tell the complicated story in a coherent fashion: Gunnar and Njal are great friends and great men, both living in the area of Iceland near today's Hvollsvollur. Gunnar is a strong Viking type, representing the quintessential Icelandic pagan, while Njal is a wise and forgiving lawyer, representing Iceland's upcoming conversion to Christianity at the Althing (Icelandic Parliament) in 1000. (Recall that the story's events take place before 1000, so all representations and pieces of symbolism are evoked by the recorder, who put everything to paper in the 1200's and probably made some stuff up, in my opinion.) Unfortunately, Gunnar and Njal both have temperamental wives, and after Njal's wife offends Gunnar's wife at a dinner party by asking her to move over a bit, the wives begin having each other's slaves killed in Hammurabi-style fits of justice. The husbands keep making monetary retributions to each other until the nonsense finally stops. Sadly, a food shortage begins, and Gunnar's wife sends one of her living slaves to burgle food from another man called Otkell. Gunnar finds out and slaps her a good one, which turns out to be a bad choice because when Otkell comes to kill Gunnar, Gunnar asks his wife for some of her hair to make a bowstring and she says "Nay" because Gunnar slapped her a good one. Thus, Gunnar is dead.
Forgetting about Gunnar's fate and shifting wildly into a new story, Njal's sons go a-Viking (literally a word used in the English display) and meet a man called Kari, who joins them in a-Viking-ing. They a-Viking another ship, and find a young boy aboard. Merciful as ever (despite a-Viking and whatnot), Njal adopts little Hoskuldr as his son and goes home to Iceland, being done with a-Viking-ing for now. Hoskuldr grows up and marries Hildigunnr. Her uncle is Flosi, a leader, and he likes Hoskuldr quite a bit. Now, Njal's sons have grown jealous of Hoskuldr, as he has become a powerful chieftan, so they are urged by some non-important character to exact revenge, which they do quite violently. His widow, Hildigunnr is distraught, as are Njal (at his sons' barbarism, ironically) and Flosi (at the death of his favorite nephew-in-law). Urged on by Hildigunnr, who does some gross things with the blood of her dead husband, Flosi decides to enact revenge on Njal's family.
Peace treaties break down, bloody fighting, including some taking place on slippery ice, ensues, and finally, Flosi's men burn down Njal's house with his family inside of it. According to church lore. Njal, his wife, and his grandson chose to stay inside the house as martyrs, and covering themselves with an ox hide, died in the home. When their bodies were recovered though, it was found that they were utterly intact and preserved, save for the burnt off finger of the grandson, who had poked it through the ox hide (why?). Recall, again, that this all occurs before Iceland adopts Christianity in 1000. Anyway.
Remember Kari? No? Well, go back and read again. Kari had married one of Njal's daughters and it was his now-nine-fingered son who had died, so Kari, of course, must exact revenge on Flosi. Kari travels about the world, going as far as Rome to receive absolution from the Pope for all the a-Viking-ing he does (again, all before Iceland adopts Christianity in 1000). Flosi does the same. Kari, after receiving absolution, sees one of the arsonists in a market in Britain, and chops the guy's head off mid-sentence. So much for Heaven.
Eventually, Kari and Flosi both go back to Iceland. They meet at the Althing, money and pleasantries are exchanged, some criminal charges laid down, and suddenly Kari and Flosi have both forgiven each other and their clan feud is abruptly done. The end. Praise God.  Simple as that. According to the display, Iceland's epics are the first written stories to use the literary technique of using characters' words and actions to express their identities, rather than describing them outright. A contemporary of this tradition and devoted student of the Icelandic sagas was Ernest Hemingway (the best author ever to grace this planet).
That being said...Njal's Saga is still incredibly long and painfully confusing. These people were the Borgias of the Viking world, but with maybe even more death and more complex relationships with God.
 And somehow, all of this brings me to today. We are at Vestmannaeyger, the Westann Islands in English. From Hvollsvollur, we escaped the world of melodramatic Vikings and cycled into farm country, passing paddock after paddock of green grass, churlish ponies, and the intoxicating forms of uncannily Zoe-like sheep. The map showed name after many-lettered name; we assumed they were little communities, but we found them to actually be the names of the various farms we passed, there being nothing else in the area to identify how far you had gone or where to turn on the map. The road was nearly flat the entire way and the farm animals were enough to occupy us for hours of happy-go-lucky cycling to the harbor that would transport us to an otherworldly group of volcanic, chilly islands.
This was the ride we made up in our heads to make ourselves feel better for the way things actually went. To give yourself an accurate picture, imagine everything I described above...and then add a 40 mile an hour headwind that stayed with us. The whole day. Every minute. A 40 mile an hour headwind. It took us close to seven hours to complete the 25 or so miles to the ferry. Seven hours to ride 25ish miles. Geese waddle faster. It was excruciating. There's nothing else to be said for it. Our legs were, and still are, dead and we made the last ferry by sheer dumb luck and a half-witted race to the finish that left both of us rather delirious.
Here is the view from the ferry, along with some smokers. Vestmannaeyer is a group of islands that have been created, and recreated, by volcanic eruptions, and other such terrifying occurrences of seismic activity. Our present campsite sits in the crater of a blown out volcano. Jagged, finger-like cliffs stretch up around us on three sides; white seabirds have taken up residence on rock shelves and ledges, and they sail about high above us, screeching interminably while they hunt and guard their nests.
But we are here for the puffins. Ridiculous caricature of sea fowl, hybridization of the macaroni penguin and the toucan, these idiotic little creatures are utterly adorable and painfully unassuming. The traditional methods for puffin hunting, used by the islanders for generations, include snatching them out of the sky with a long pole-and-net system and swinging between the cliffs from great heights and plucking them out of their of their little puffin nests. These are not smart birds.
You can essentially approach them, rather like the Adelie penguins of Antarctica. The Adelie penguins have an excuse for their brazen friendliness, though. They live in Antarctica. No one is there, particularly to hunt them. Puffin, meanwhile, has been eaten on Vestmannaeyger, as well as on mainland Iceland, since the place was colonized by Vikings. They should know better by now, especially when people are netting them like giant butterflies. These are not smart birds.
Oh, but they're sweet. Painfully sweet. They are the sheep of the bird world, and I can't wait to get my hands on...I mean, see one. So, today, we puffin hunt (but not like traditional Icelanders).
I owe you more stories, especially Camp Warden Foxtail. We have been so far between Internet access spots that I couldn't begin to put everything down without having to sit inside for an entire day, and we all know that just isn't going to happen. Perhaps more tonight, though. We plan to bed down here for three or four days, and get some laundry done, which is crucial for my sanity. Until then, a horse picture from Chris.
 A soggy hello from Hveragardi, Iceland, approximately 30 miles from Reykjavik (to give you no perspective for where we are). People. It's wet. This rain thing is very strange for Chris and me. At first, we assumed that the angels were crying or something, because that's what the checkout lady at the Smith's in Green River says happens, but this is apparently rain.
Rain gets everywhere. Everywhere.
We are cold. When we got in at Keflavik International Airport and snagged a cab to Reykjavik, the kind driver explained that, in Iceland, it does not rain up and down (indicated by a vertical karate chop), but side to side (indicated by a horizontal karate chop). This apparently correlates with the sea "breezes" and their whimsical rotations from north to south, east to west. The man then said that he thought cyclists were masochists. Quote. An accurate assessment, I would say, particularly after our first day.
We left the very next day for Hveragardi, bolstered by the general lack of trouble we had constructing the bikes, despite them being in 30000000000 pieces from the plane. Our work was aided by a chat with a man from Toronto (pronounced with fewer syllables than we expected) called Henry, who explained that the hiking was unmatched in Iceland and that people called him O'Henry as a kid, which is apparently a Canadian chocolate bar. Bikes built, we set off, gear in tow and grinning like monkeys.
It was five miles before I begged Chris to check my bike, at which point we discovered I'd been cycling uphill with the rear right brake deployed the entire time.
After Chris lauded me for keeping up with him without losing pace or my temper, we headed to an Icelandic pharmacy to repair my rapidly degrading knees. It was after another 15 miles that I found that the pharmacist/doctor/man had given me two codeine and a massive Ibuprofen, with more narcotics to spare (apparently they don't have a meth problem in Iceland). With me quickly dissolving into nonsensical dreaming, we pulled off at a gas station in no-man's-land to have a cup of tea and enjoy their interior decorating, which consisted entirely of soccer scarves from every team on the planet, even Tottenham of North London, which I thought was generous. We thought we might keep on, but fog stopped us mere miles later, and we pulled off at a scaffolding enshrining two totaled cars and a cross that reminded us to buckle up or drive sober or phone free in Icelandic. Basically, extremely comforting in the fog in a foreign country. (It was at this point that we adopted our cycling club name - Team WTF) We stopped in a lava field and I slept off the codeine (deceptively called Parkodin in Icelandic) for fifteen hours.
The fog obscures much of the backdrop, but the general ambiance helps me understand why elves and trolls are thought to be real here.
Bolstered by unexpected druggings, we rode the next ten miles to Hveragardi, an unbearably charming town of a thousand at the base of Lord of the Rings type mountains. A fast downhill on the way into town, as well as later scanning of a topo map, indicated the nature of the climb we had from Reykjavik, ever complicated by riding with a brake on. Christopher's dad, an avid cyclist, would be horrified by my elementary mistake (but I like to think impressed at the strength of the tree trunks I have for legs).
Hveragardi is the sight of much geothermal activity, with earthquakes more than occasionally changing the landscape to reveal newer and greater vents. Though beautiful and unbelievably neighborly, the town also intermittently smells like hideous gas (sulphuric in nature) and poo (caused by the abundance of geothermally heated greenhouses, and thus a widespread need for quality, Icelandic pony fertilizer). Add the fact that the sun never sets, and children safely roam the streets with dogs and bicycles at 11:00 at night, and you have a veritable wonderland of the lovely and the strange. See?
Here we have Christopher's delightful rendering of what I believe is a tributary of the River Varma, which runs through Hveragardi and produces the small-ish, yet impressive waterfall in the photo of us from above. He took this photo at about 1:00 in the morning, which gives you a sense of the perma-twilight state of an Icelandic summer. This piece of river is far above town, though, along a rather strenuous hike we took up and into the mountains in an attempt to access what is called on our map a "hot river."
The walk from town to the car park alone was a bit long, winding us through geothermically active fields and past farms grazing the cartoonishly majestic Icelandic horses, and when we arrived, I was delighted to note that the sheep truck that had passed us much earlier was now depositing its brood to graze in the mountains. Much bleating and hopping ensued. While the new sheep adjusted to the existing herd, we began to tackle what proved a steep, satisfying hike through the pages of The Hobbit until we reached a small stream visibly steaming and dotted with people up to their chins in flowing water, roasting like macaques in various hot pools. Even a dog had joined his family in the pleasantries, and was happily cooking with his people while his dog brother paced nervously on the shore.
Chris settled in front of a small waterfall like a fishing grizzly, and we didn't move again until it became absolutely necessary (as in, when the light changed ever so slightly at 12:30 in the morning, and Christopher's photography instincts kicked in). In a word - bliss. What a lovely way to heal our bodies before we hit the road again.
Which we do tomorrow. Despite rainy conditions that we can't seem to shake, we'll be going anywhere from 10 to 35 miles. We may land in Hella, providing us with Internet and proper camping. Or perhaps we'll take a primitive campsite beyond Selfoss and break the riding up. We'll go with the wind. Iceland will tell us what to do (by cooperating or soaking us to the core).
She's a Viking, this place. A life force if ever there was one.
Stories and vignettes to follow. I've take copious, rain-spotted notes. Teasers? Camp Warden Foxtail. The American Woman, as Interpreted by British Teens in a Bathroom. United Nations School Something of New York Something, or How a Bus of Teens from the Inner City Disrupts the Peace of Grown Adults Paying Their Own Way to Travel.
Good stuff ahead. Stay tuned.
 So, instead of updating our blog or focusing all of our excess energies on preparing for this cycling trip to Iceland (which I swear is still going down)...we bought a house.
It went like this. We took the dogs for a walk in Green River. We saw a green house from heaven. We called our liason for a showing, which took place after supper that same night. We then put in an offer. Some ADHD magic took place over the next week, and we moved into our first home about a month after finding it, paying a solid $136 in closing fees, to boot.
That's everybody's home buying experience, right? ...I just listened to NPR. Apparently nobody in America comes out ahead after buying a house... We, meanwhile, are paying half of what we paid in rent and are out....well...nothing.
I don't know how these things happen to us. Meet Carolina Jubilee. She's an utter delight. Notice the massive cliff/hill in the background. Just one of our many scenic views (seriously...everywhere you turn is national park quality Red Desert river country, sans the tour buses and regulations). Shelby very much enjoys chasing the deer that are peacefully grazing our property straight up the side of that cliff. We'll have to do something about that...
Anyway, it was the last day of school yesterday, which, for my part, entails slapping a smile on my weather beaten face and pretending that a kindergarten graduation/after party is simply another part of my effortless teaching job. Teaching kindergarten is like inhabiting Amy Vanderbilt's body, manners and personality in tact, but with a much wider variety of job descriptions - nurse, riot police, therapist, stereotypical 1950's housemaid, janitor - all of which must be completed with grace and a smile. I was very much ready for sixth grade (and a Xanax) by the end of yesterday's hard earned festivities. I carried that attitude home, and was convinced that the next day (today) would be a simple act of saying happy goodbyes and turning in my keys.
Consequently, I was very much surprised when my intentionally humorous farewell speech about Irish exits and swallowing your emotions to bolster pre-existing ulcers turned into a garbled mess of tears and utterly honest expressions of love and appreciation for my awesome coworkers.
I was that girl. Uh huh. I'd rather not go into details. So much for Irish exits. Teaching has melted my cold Gaelic heart...ulcers still intact...  Which somehow brings me back to Iceland. Folks, this thing is happening. The panniers are packed. The cycles are outfitted, mine with a fine set of aero bars that were the talk of the REI bike shop of Salt Lake City. "Aero bars on a touring bike?" "Well, isn't that something!" "That's out of the box thinking, there!"
We're gone on Tuesday. I don't know what else to say about the matter. Iceland isn't exactly Destination Numero Uno, which makes it a bit challenging to research. A colleague told me that she reads a story with her fourth graders about the baby pufflings in Iceland. She said that their first flight is supposed to land them in the sea. Unfortunately, the lights of Reykjavik reflecting off the ocean confuse the little puffling puffs, and many crash land in the city streets. There is a happy ending, though. The 100% literate Icelandic children are allowed to flood the streets, scoop up the pufflings, and release them back off the cliffs to live happy, multicolored, fish-eating puffin lives.
I have yet to confirm the validity of this story, but I hope with the entirety of my being that there really is a time of year where 100% literate Icelandic children race around saving baby pufflings from doom. I kind of need this to be true on a very guttural level.
I mean, really. Children. That can READ. Saving PUFFINS. What more could I ask of this world? Come back soon to read. Please. I promise greater fidelity to this little enterprise, and perhaps a few more details on what two teachers with bikes my actually do...besides bike...on a partially frozen island with no night time hours. This will hold you over until then. With an athlete like me, what could possibly go wrong?
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