* * Day 13 in the Land Where Hotels Are Like Dormitories

It was a quiet day in the Land Where The Hotels Are Like Dormitories and Don't Have Internet Service.

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Our immediate destination, the Sn National Park, was near our little hotel. But first we stopped at the village church, an historic building with a turf roof with grass high enough to need mowing, where I had briefly visited the day before. 

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We had a nice, long conversation with a couple from France who were primarily on a bird watching trip. Both had expensive cameras with foot-long lenses. Our conversation started when I parked the car between her and the church and I needed to move it  for her to get her shot.They were from an area of central France that we had bicycled through 15 years earlier. They had been to the States many times, especially Alaska, to take photos. I gave them a card and promised if they sent me an email, I'd reply with some of my dad's photos.

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On our way, we soon stopped at the Sn National Park Visitors Center. The central feature of the park is the massive glacier that dominates the south-east part of the island. As I mentioned yesterday, the various glaciers almost reach the sea, but none actually do. This it allows for a narrow coastal plain where Highway 1 can make its way entirely around the island. The portion of Highway 1 in this area was the last to be completed, only in the 1970s, not because of any significant elevation challenges but because there is perhaps a 30-kilometer area where the coastal plain is so flat that the rivers spilling from the many glaciers meander their way to the sea in a vast series of constantly shifting ribbons. Not only did many bridges need to be constructed, but the rivers needed to be channeled with berms to point underneath them. Many of the bridges are still one lane only, so oncoming traffic must yield if the guy on the other side gets there first. Some of the bridges have a slight rise in the middle, making seeing the other side difficult. One longer bridge had a half-dozen wide-outs on it where oncoming cars could pass each other. 

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We took a side road that stopped at a trail-head for views of and access to one of the glaciers. The river of ice ended below us in a muddy terminal moraine lake, filled with small icebergs. There were several groups of people walking on the ice, equipped with crampons, helmets, and ice axes. It was an impressive scene! 

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We drove on. The Park's visitor center parking lot was jammed with cars; we were lucky to find a space. We wondered what it looked like in the midst of the busy season, still a few weeks away. We went inside and learned that the immediate area had several nice hikes, so we made a picnic and began our trek uphill. We stopped at a grassy field with an expansive view to the south and the braids of rivers. It was a pleasant, partly cloudy day.

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We continued to our destination, a waterfall called XXX. It was a small falls, distinguished by the vertical walls of hexagonal rock around it, a peculiar geological feature. We were on an overlook a hundred vertical feet or so above the base of the falls. Jane decided she'd had enough, so she headed back and I walked downhill to the base of the falls where I took close-up photos of the rock. I then retraced my steps back to the overlook and set off on a longer trail, upwards and towards the next valley.

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An adorable woman stopped to chat with me as she was running the trail. She was headed downward and I was going up. I stopped to let her pass, but she said, "You have the right of way." She sounded American. I said, "I always figure the person going up needs the break!" She was out for an afternoon run. She and her Icelandic husband were proprietors of one of the companies that takes tourists for walks on the glaciers. She was from Wenatchee, Washington, an area I was familiar with from my years in Seattle. She said she and her husband worked their company in Iceland during the summer months and then returned to Wenatchee for the winter, where he worked at a ski resort and she worked in website design. She told me business was good, in fact the parking lot was woefully inadequate for the summer crowds. She said, "Icelanders are a stubborn lot, and they refuse to accept the fact that more and more tourists are coming."

About her split homes, she said, "We usually go back to the States in October, but next year our oldest will start school and we'll need a new plan." I told her I was headed to Seattle in August and had signed on with a touring company to climb Mt. Rainier. She was delightful and it was fun to share some stories with her and make her acquaintance; a happy chance encounter.

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I climbed further and eventually found myself at an impressive overlook of another glacier. Far uphill to my left, the glacier in brilliant white spilled from the high ridge to a slope and then to a flatter valley below me. At the base was another muddy, iceberg-filled pool. The river wound across the plain, was channeled under the Highway 1 bridge, and then became a braided knot of streams pointed southward to the sea. I took some photos and then began my descent. 

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In the distance, there was a steeply-sloped mountain as grand as the prow of an ocean liner. Low clouds were moving in and a few sprinkles of rain dotted the trail. I had tweaked my right ankle a few kilometers earlier and it hurt to walk. But downward I continued. 

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There was still some sunshine on the picnic table at the visitors center where I found Jane, rested for a few minutes and had some food. Then we motored on, continuing westward towards Reykjavik. Within a half-hour, we encountered the rain clouds and the sky let loose with a heavy rain. I felt fortunate not to have encountered the rain while still on the trail. After three days of bug splatters, our windshield finally became clean again, rinsed by the rain. 

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Our destination for the evening was a hotel Jane had booked while we were back in Akureryi. It was by far the largest hotel, with perhaps 50 rooms in two buildings. It was expensive, around $125 per night, and for that we got a small room with two tiny beds, no refrigerator or kitchen, showers and bathrooms down the hall, and no Internet service. But they did have a complimentary packet of shampoo! Oh, small things!

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Since I can't post this now and have nothing better to do (I'm trying to read a book by a famous Icelandic author, but it's wholly depressing and I can't read more than a few pages at a time.), let me tell you more about our hotel. Our room is so small that there's barely enough space for both beds, a small table, a small sink, and a stand-alone closet that is useless. The walls and ceiling are painted white; there is a vinyl floor. There are wooden shelves over both beds. There is no decoration of any sort. There is barely enough space for our suitcases. The beds have a bottom sheet, a pillow with pillowcase, and a quilt, which seems to be customary here. As I mentioned, the bathrooms and showers are down the hall. The shower is a glass box with sliding doors and woefully inadequate water stream that takes forever to warm up. American hotels, even modest ones out on the Interstate interchanges, are positively opulent by comparison, with spacious rooms, carpeted floors, huge beds, too many towels to count, complimentary shampoo, soap, extra blankets, artwork (okay, reproduction artwork) on the walls, televisions, swimming pools, workout rooms, Internet service, yada yada, and at half the price. Still, I'm glad we're warm and dry, out of the rain. 

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We went out to dinner at a nearby bistro, overlooking still another falls, the XXXX. This is one of the most impressive around here, a drop of XXXX meters, set in a beautiful grassy-green slope, quite accessible to the main highway (and many tour buses). Jane had a hamburger with french fries and I had a chicken pesto noodle dish. Not bad, for about $28 total. 

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I type this from the hotel lounge which I have to myself, my IPad, and my stout. There are three leatherette sofas, five upholstered chairs, a couple of paintings on the wall, and expansive picture windows. Outside is a row of identical, planted trees and beyond that a pasture with grazing sheep. It is still raining and there is a pervasive gloom under a featureless white sky. The forecast for the next couple of days is for improving weather, a nice finishing touch for our last three days in Iceland. I would check the forecast again, but WE HAVE NO FRIKKIN' INTERNET SERVICE! Jane says she's ready to go home; I'm thinking it's largely because of today's late gloom and the inadequacies of the hotel. 

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Tomorrow we will take a boat to an island off the south shore. It will be a long day there, as the departure time is 8:00 a.m. and the return is after 8:00 p.m. We'll pack a picnic lunch, do some hiking and shopping on the Island, have dinner at a restaurant there, and then return to this same hotel. 

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I'm storing these words away for now until I can find service to upload it to the Internet and the world. It's 8:00 p.m., the sky is still lit, but gloomy, and I'm really tired. My eyes keep drifting shut. 

Day 13It was a quiet day in the Land of Waterfalls..Our immediate destination, the Sn National Park, was near our little hotel. But first we stopped at the village church, an historic building with a turf roof with grass high enough to need mowing, where I had briefly visited the day before. .We had a nice, long conversation with a couple from France who were primarily on a bird watching trip. Both had expensive cameras with foot-long lenses. Our conversation started when I parked the car between her and the church and I needed to move it  for her to get her shot.They were from an area of central France that we had bicycled through 15 years earlier. They had been to the States many times, especially Alaska, to take photos. I gave them a card and promised if they sent me an email, I'd reply with some of my dad's photos..On our way, we soon stopped at the Sn National Park Visitors Center. The central feature of the park is the massive glacier that dominates the south-east part of the island. As I mentioned yesterday, the various glaciers almost reach the sea, but none actually do. This it allows for a narrow coastal plain where Highway 1 can make its way entirely around the island. The portion of Highway 1 in this area was the last to be completed, only in the 1970s, not because of any significant elevation challenges but because there is perhaps a 30-kilometer area where the coastal plain is so flat that the rivers spilling from the many glaciers meander their way to the sea in a vast series of constantly shifting ribbons. Not only did many bridges need to be constructed, but the rivers needed to be channeled with berms to point underneath them. Many of the bridges are still one lane only, so oncoming traffic must yield if the guy on the other side gets there first. Some of the bridges have a slight rise in the middle, making seeing the other side difficult. One longer bridge had a half-dozen wide-outs on it where oncoming cars could pass each other. .We took a side road that stopped at a trail-head for views of and access to one of the glaciers. The river of ice ended below us in a muddy terminal moraine lake, filled with small icebergs. There were several groups of people walking on the ice, equipped with crampons, helmets, and ice axes. It was an impressive scene! .We drove on. The Park's visitor center parking lot was jammed with cars; we were lucky to find a space. We wondered what it looked like in the midst of the busy season, still a few weeks away. We went inside and learned that the immediate area had several nice hikes, so we made a picnic and began our trek uphill. We stopped at a grassy field with an expansive view to the south and the braids of rivers. It was a pleasant, partly cloudy day..We continued to our destination, a waterfall called XXX. It was a small falls, distinguished by the vertical walls of hexagonal rock around it, a peculiar geological feature. We were on an overlook a hundred vertical feet or so above the base of the falls. Jane decided she'd had enough, so she headed back and I walked downhill to the base of the falls where I took close-up photos of the rock. I then retraced my steps back to the overlook and set off on a longer trail, upwards and towards the next valley..An adorable woman stopped to chat with me as she was running the trail. She was headed downward and I was going up. I stopped to let her pass, but she said, "You have the right of way." She sounded American. I said, "I always figure the person going up needs the break!" She was out for an afternoon run. She and her Icelandic husband were proprietors of one of the companies that takes tourists for walks on the glaciers. She was from Wenatchee, Washington, an area I was familiar with from my years in Seattle. She said she and her husband worked their company in Iceland during the summer months and then returned to Wenatchee for the winter, where he worked at a ski resort and she worked in website design. She told me business was good, in fact the parking lot was woefully inadequate for the summer crowds. She said, "Icelanders are a stubborn lot, and they refuse to accept the fact that more and more tourists are coming."
About her split homes, she said, "We usually go back to the States in October, but next year our oldest will start school and we'll need a new plan." I told her I was headed to Seattle in August and had signed on with a touring company to climb Mt. Rainier. She was delightful and it was fun to share some stories with her and make her acquaintance; a happy chance encounter..I climbed further and eventually found myself at an impressive overlook of another glacier. Far uphill to my left, the glacier in brilliant white spilled from the high ridge to a slope and then to a flatter valley below me. At the base was another muddy, iceberg-filled pool. The river wound across the plain, was channeled under the Highway 1 bridge, and then became a braided knot of streams pointed southward to the sea. I took some photos and then began my descent. .In the distance, there was a steeply-sloped mountain as grand as the prow of an ocean liner. Low clouds were moving in and a few sprinkles of rain dotted the trail. I had tweaked my right ankle a few kilometers earlier and it hurt to walk. But downward I continued. .There was still some sunshine on the picnic table at the visitors center where I found Jane, rested for a few minutes and had some food. Then we motored on, continuing westward towards Reykjavik. Within a half-hour, we encountered the rain clouds and the sky let loose with a heavy rain. I felt fortunate not to have encountered the rain while still on the trail. After three days of bug splatters, our windshield finally became clean again, rinsed by the rain. .Our destination for the evening was a hotel Jane had booked while we were back in Akureryi. It was by far the largest hotel, with perhaps 50 rooms in two buildings. It was expensive, around $125 per night, and for that we got a small room with two tiny beds, no refrigerator or kitchen, showers and bathrooms down the hall, and no Internet service. But they did have a complimentary packet of shampoo! Oh, small things!.Since I can't post this now and have nothing better to do (I'm trying to read a book by a famous Icelandic author, but it's wholly depressing and I can't read more than a few pages at a time.), let me tell you more about our hotel. Our room is so small that there's barely enough space for both beds, a small table, a small sink, and a stand-alone closet that is useless. The walls and ceiling are painted white; there is a vinyl floor. There are wooden shelves over both beds. There is no decoration of any sort. There is barely enough space for our suitcases. The beds have a bottom sheet, a pillow with pillowcase, and a quilt, which seems to be customary here. As I mentioned, the bathrooms and showers are down the hall. The shower is a glass box with sliding doors and woefully inadequate water stream that takes forever to warm up. American hotels, even modest ones out on the Interstate interchanges, are positively opulent by comparison, with spacious rooms, carpeted floors, huge beds, too many towels to count, complimentary shampoo, soap, extra blankets, artwork (okay, reproduction artwork) on the walls, televisions, swimming pools, workout rooms, Internet service, yada yada, and at half the price. Still, I'm glad we're warm and dry, out of the rain. .We went out to dinner at a nearby bistro, overlooking still another falls, the XXXX. This is one of the most impressive around here, a drop of XXXX meters, set in a beautiful grassy-green slope, quite accessible to the main highway (and many tour buses). Jane had a hamburger with french fries and I had a chicken pesto noodle dish. Not bad, for about $28 total. .I type this from the hotel lounge which I have to myself, my IPad, and my stout. There are three leatherette sofas, five upholstered chairs, a couple of paintings on the wall, and expansive picture windows. Outside is a row of identical, planted trees and beyond that a pasture with grazing sheep. It is still raining and there is a pervasive gloom under a featureless white sky. The forecast for the next couple of days is for improving weather, a nice finishing touch for our last three days in Iceland. I would check the forecast again, but WE HAVE NO FRIKKIN' INTERNET SERVICE! Jane says she's ready to go home; I'm thinking it's largely because of today's late gloom and the inadequacies of the hotel. .Tomorrow we will take a boat to an island off the south shore. It will be a long day there, as the departure time is 8:00 a.m. and the return is after 8:00 p.m. We'll pack a picnic lunch, do some hiking and shopping on the Island, have dinner at a restaurant there, and then return to this same hotel. .I'm storing these words away for now until I can find service to upload it to the Internet and the world. It's 8:00 p.m., the sky is still lit, but gloomy, and I'm really tired. My eyes keep drifting shut.