In retrospect, I may have been a little bit too…oh, let’s just say snarky…in my previous post, Everything you need to know about Iceland.
Chalk it up to jet lag maybe.
Or all those bright yellow warning signs we saw coming out of the airport about not wandering helter skelter about the lava fields.
Or perhaps lingering flashbacks from my childhood favorite Jules Verne movie, Journey To The Center Of The Earth.
You know, where James Mason and Pat Boone and that goose named Gertrude climb into an Iceland volcano and end up at the center of the earth.
Where poor Gertrude, who never did anything to anybody, gets eaten.
But I digress.
My point being that I’m feeling contrite because, perhaps, I was too judgmental about our first two days in Iceland.
What with our two and a half hours of purgatory in customs.
And the biting winds that threatened to peel the skin off my face.
And the penetrating rains that would have washed my peeled facial skin away never to be seen again if I hadn’t, you know, hung on to it.
Yeah, like that.
But now I feel like Allan Sherman’s bratty kid at Camp Granada.
You know, the one who wrote the “Hello Muddeh, Hello Faddah” letter home begging for rescue…right up until the rain stops and he can play baseball again.
Yeah, like that.
The point being that, today, on our Ring Road journey from Vic to Hofn – on Iceland’s southeast coast – I began to see Iceland through a different lens.
Which is to say that nobody fell into a sinkhole today. The sun came out. The wind went away. And the scenery was spectacular.
Oh, and we didn’t hit those three goats that foolishly stepped out into the road in front of our RV.
We began our day on the fabulous Reyniskirkja peninsula.
Where gigantic North Atlantic rollers pounded the cliffs. And where you could discern strange, unearthly patterns on the volcanic black sand beaches. And where it truly looked as though we had arrived at the very end of the Earth itself.
It was all so cool that I took 43 photos.
And I didn’t realize until after we departed that I had mistakenly put my camera on “effects” mode.
And that every one of those 43 photos turned out to look like cheap poster art.
So you just gotta take my word for it. The views were extraordinary. But I can’t prove it because all I have to show for it is 43 trashy poster art effects photos.
Still, like Stephen King likes to write, “The world moved on.” And so did we.
What followed was an epic journey through miles of lava fields, toward distant snow covered mountains that gradually began to grow larger and larger.
Until we could see the glacier fields marching relentlessly toward the sea.
Until it reached the Glacier Lagoon. Which is actually called something else in Icelandic, but I won’t even try to spell it.
The point being that, in Glacier Lagoon, the Mama Glacier begins to pump out little baby icebergs and nudging them gently toward the Atlantic.
Where, for reasons that are perfectly understandable, but which I didn’t pay attention to, most of them never get past Diamond Beach.
Which is called Diamond Beach because the sad remains of all the little baby icebergs that never did make it to the sea are strewn up and down the black sand like…well, like so many diamonds.
On the other hand, the sad remains of those little baby bergs that never grew up did give me the opportunity to do something really avant guard, photo-wise.
Like pose my reflecting sunglasses on the glittering shards of a baby berg on its last legs.
Eat your heart out Andy Warhol.
Long story short, we ended up in the town of Hofn, which is surrounded by sinfully fattening sea and mountain scenery.
Where we ate fish (what else?) at a restaurant that has been in Hofn since 1932. Or so they say.
Oh, one more thing.
This is a photo of Rick that I took when I mistakenly had my camera in “effects” mode.
Those of you who know Rick may notice that he looks exactly like he looks in real life.
This is because Rick is, and has always been, a cartoon character in his own right.
I’m just glad I got that off my chest.
Later.
FreeGNV 