Nov 2 Sunday — sunnudag

The Golden Circle

So right off, Iceland is a place of vistas. There are few trees and by November, most have shed their leaves.  The landscape is wide deep fields dotted with animals and farm houses with distinctive colors — like red roofs — placed here and there in the distance like a child’s play set.  Everything is clean.  It is mostly rural, horse and cow farms and sheep farms and great distances to low, sharp, snow-covered  mountains.  The roads are mostly two lanes and the speed limits are more intuitive than sensible.  They want you to go slow.  I imagine that’s due to the eventual snow and ice that would make any trip treacherous.  But our drives were anything but.

Oxara "All Thing" area. Geysir far off.

"All Thing" area overlook. We didn't pack for Iceland but did OK with what we had. Layers.

The Golden Circle contains a few “must dos” and we did two of them, plus some Rick Steves stuff.  The first one up was “Thingvir” but the T is a kind of Greek letter P.  It’s the place where ancient Icelandic farmers finally got together and formed a government called, rather cockily, the “All Thing.”  This happened circa 982 A to the D.  So, yeah, they were getting things in order over a thousand years ago.  Of course, by government, they mean a few chieftains who had a council to adjudicate problems and deliver decisions — usually the punitive kind — at which point the individuals were then to take care of whatever punishment was decided on themselves.  If it was a guy, cut off his head.  If a woman, drown her.  But a lot of it was probably “suggested” punishment.  I doubt too many disgruntled neighbors ever followed through on the decision.  Maybe now and then, you could say to someone, “You know I could drown your wife if I want!”

Where the "All Thing" happened. Can't you hear the cries of "More mead and fermented shark, please!"

This sort of meet up took place along the Oxara River (actual word) which we wandered along, admiring the water and falls (Oxarafoss) and stumbling tourists.  The area is stark and beautiful.

We also saw a rock ptarmigan.  Funny little guy with feathered ankles.

Rock Ptarmigan, which is a great name for a band.

After a few hours learning about the All Thing and admiring a few buildings where the Prime Minister stayed in the summer, we got back to the slow road to Geysir which is, of course, a geyser.

On the way we took Rick Steves’ advice to eat at a farm-to-table  — in the truest sense — restaurant that we thought at first was closed but welcomed us to a nearly empty space where we ordered the steak and fish. I had an excellent local draft beer called Bondi.  The steak was perfect.  The table they insisted we sit at overlooks a feed barn for the cattle, whose relative contributed part of their body to my meal.  They didn’t seem to hold it against me, as they continued eating hay while I ate their dad or cousin and I didn’t even notice a side eye.

Excellent meal of river trout and part of Uncle Bob.

Yes, they are forced to eat and watch us. And vice versa.

After this, we got back on the road for the Geysir park where you wander among the fields of hot water bubbling up from the ground and at some point gather around the main geyser which spurts about every ten minutes or so, though the wait is a guess work of holding out a phone for the hoped-for eruption.  Once we got a picture of that, we headed for higher ground and huffed our way to an amazing overlook that most folks overlook.  From this promontory we gazed out upon the distant valleys to the south but also over to some beautiful river fed farmland to the north.

The whole country is like a New York street in winter.

A view from the other side.

By this time the light was waning — sunsets happen quickly — and we had a two plus hour drive back to the Bnb and, noticing that the sky was pretty clear, had hopes that we would get a light show.

Safely back to the horse farm, Kathy posted herself in the window seat watching the sky.  Nothing but stars and a couple of whispy clouds for a few hours and we really thought we’d be out of luck, but then at about 11:30 all of a sudden, we noticed some tell tale green miasma and went outside to see a full blown, clear sky, light show.  We got plenty of pictures and video as the aurora moves and waves and shifts perpetually.  An amazing bucket list kind of thing.

The camera helps make it more vivid, but in the clear sky, it's stunning.

Constant moving, changing. Lava Lamp dynamics.

Enjoying wine and the lights for about an hour, we turned in around 1.