Last Sunday I spent much of the day in Akureyri, writing the last blog post and incinerating pizza ingredients. All that molten cheese must have awakened the volcano gods, as we shall see in a bit.
While I was writing, Jon was teaching Axel how to drive. Icelandic gravel roads are probably a good place to learn: they have massive unpopulated stretches, wide visibility, and little to crash into. On top of that, Axel got bonus lessons in how to drive a stick-shift as well as how to drive across rivers. That last bit made me very glad to be back in the living room, writing and eating burnt pepperoni.
The next morning we set forth for Reykjavik, the final stop in our Icelandic adventure. Because of logistical snafus, I ended up with a ticket to fly there, while Jon and Axel drove the Dacia Duster all the way back. On the way they played six disc golf courses, leaving at 9 am and not getting to Reykjavik until 10 pm. I had a much different itinerary.
At 10 am I strapped on my backpack and found a Hopp electric rental scooter. The first stop was the Akureyri thermal pools for one last bid at their hot pots, cold plunge, and steam room. I am addicted to Icelandic municipal pools. From there I blow-dried my hair and scootered the rest of the way to the front door of the little Akureyri airport. Then it was a scenic 45 minutes flight to Reykjavik, and, finally, another Hopp scooter to our next housing. I find it amusing, the combination of electric scooters and airplanes.
The next place was an apartment, a 4th floor walk-up, but right on the main street with views of the fjords and Reykjavik skyline. The apartment belongs to an artist named Pall. There were cool old paintings everywhere, a jumble of a kitchen that felt like it belonged to Molly Weasley, and a sign that said "Home is where the booze is." Needless to say, I loved it.
Me in the living room at Pall's place, also, sporting a new Icelandic sweater.
Note the picture on the wall, looking a bit tilted. On the first night I felt a shudder as I was washing the dishes. Axel said, "was that an earthquake?" I said that it was either an earthquake or someone downstairs slammed a door really hard. Then, a few minutes later, the whole place shook and we were both certain it was an earthquake. A half hour after that the house shook so hard and for so long that the two of us dashed to a doorway. I squeezed Axel and started to reconsider the merits of the fourth floor walk-up.
It turns out that biggest quake was a 4.8 centered about 30km away on the Reykjanes Peninsula. There were several more small shakes over the next few days, and as I was on work phone calls I started telling my coworkers about it. It is hard to keep droning on about software while the computer is shaking off the desk.
Over the next two days, as I toured the Reykjavik thermal pools and coffee shops, I would ask locals what they thought of the shaking. The consensus was that "some volcano was waking up," but also that earthquakes, while not a daily thing, are definitely a regular part of life on Iceland.
Talk of volcano was very exciting for Jon. When we first chose to come to Iceland we searched for active eruptions, but there were none. At the time I said to Jon something like "there is, on average, an eruption every three years, maybe one will begin before we get there." By Wednesday morning, two days before we were to leave, one had not yet begun.
Then on Wednesday night, as I was working, Jon and Axel went out for fish and chips. Jon came back, eyes sparkling, and announced, rather officially "It is the talk of the town; the fires have begun again. At 1:18 pm today, the eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula have commenced."
At the dining table Jon and Axel set up shop, charting last year's Reykjanes flows, looking at trail maps, and reading information about how to avoid poisonous gases while eruption-hunting. They reserved a car and then Jon went to sleep like a kid on Christmas Eve.
First thing in the morning, off the volcanic explorers went, in search of the hot stuff. I had to work at 2pm, and I also was not super excited about barging in against some safety guidelines. Maybe if my lifelong dream was to see some lava I would have taken the day off and taken the risks, but that was not the case. I did have a dream to scooter to a new Reykjavik thermal pool though, which is technically heated by lava. Close enough, right?
The boys were successful at finding the lava and Jon was as full of wonder as I have ever seen him. He is not often giddy, but Thursday Jon was giddy. I predict a lava addiction in his future, which is fine by me. I hear the surfing is good in Hawaii.
Here is the whole week in photos and videos:
As Friday morning dawned, or, I should say, as we removed the sleep masks and drew back the blackout curtains, we prepared to leave. We hauled all our suitcases down the four floors of Pall's attic to the streets, where we then caught a bus to Keflavik airport. From there is was a seven hour flight to Seattle, then a few more hours to Sacramento. Jon's bike bag, once again, went missing enroute, so we filled out paperwork and then shuttled to a hotel and fell right to sleep.
The next morning we woke up to a sunny August day in California's agricultural heartland, ditching the sweaters and boots for tank tops and sandals. We ate too much at the free breakfast, hung out by the hotel pool, and killed just enough time to get word from the airline that the bike bag had arrived in Sacramento. After retrieving the 4Runner from its unconventional long term parking spot (a story in itself- ask me sometime), we went to get the bike. Finally we went back to Pat's Place for Cats to pick up our precious Odessa. Watch to final video here to understand why we do not travel with her.
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