Iceland

People have been asking what was my favorite part of our trip to Europe. You can't really compare Iceland (Ísland) to Amsterdam. Well, you can, but that's like comparing apples to oranges. (Or maybe sea bass to marijuana?)

Iceland was cold and grey when we spent time there, and beautifully sunny when we had a layover on our way back to the U.S. It is smaller than Minnesota and has a total population not much greater than Minneapolis. 

Iceland's energy is sustainable, since the ground essentially is dried lava on top of molten earth and hot springs. Houses don't have hot water heaters. They just have hot water, piped directly from its boiling source, which is also used for heating buildings and keeping the sidewalks from getting icy. As you drive through the countryside, you see wisps of steam coming out of the ground, lava fields, glaciers, and cool rock formations. 

It's a super tourist-friendly place to travel, other than being rather expensive. It was beautiful and amazing, and I hope to go back.

Here are a few photos as we wandered around Reykjavik our first jetlagged day. (I have more photos from our trip that I can share privately, if you need to see more.)

Lutheran Church with statute of Leif Erikkson

(or, if you prefer, Leifur Eiríksson). I guess I cut off the cross.

Some of the more historic, prettier buildings with the harbor behind my parents.
To the right of my dad is a bike lane.

On our second day in Iceland, we took a bus tour to see some of the countryside. We learned a lot about geology, volcanoes, and the history of Iceland. One of our stops on the Circle Tour was to this massive waterfall. It was way more impressive than any other waterfall I've ever seen, and is so much prettier and deadly than Niagara Falls. You can get a sense for how huge it is, when you see the people I included in the photo to better demonstrate the scale.

Looking upriver

Looking downriver into the deep gorge. The little dots on the right side
are people on the path and, a bit beyond, on top of the cliff.

After the waterfall, we went to see some geysers. I was lucky to catch one on video (below). From there, we went to our first hot spring (Fontana), where we ate bread cooked in the earth and I jumped in a glacial lake. I hope I will never forget the look on my Dad's face when he realized that he followed me into the women's dressing room. 

We then went to a big park with cool lava formations, spending our time looking at the area where the Viking settlers gathered for all of their important meetings as they established the government and laws of the land. 

I can totally pronounce these names, can't you?

In the late 800s, the Vikings used the little grassy green area
to the left of this woman, between lava formations,
as a corral for their horses.

That night, we had delicious, ridiculously expensive pizza and beer for dinner at a cozy little pub. It was a highlight of the trip.

The next day, we went to some great museums, had an amazing lunch with fish served family style in cast iron frying pans, and then went to our second hot spring, the infamous Blue Lagoon, with its eerie opaque blue water and Disney-esque queues to get into the facility. While the Blue Lagoon was striking and I'm glad we saw it, I don't need to go back.

As we drove up, I heard someone on the bus ask about the nearby factories.
All the steam is just that: steam. There isn't a factory out there.
Instead, the facility is in the business of keeping people from boiling to death
after paying an admission fee to sit in water together.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of River Road

Well, I've been neglecting my blog, I guess. There's been little to report. I haven't done much biking (only half as many days in August as in July - booo!), had a multi-city work trip, visited an assortment of my parents and got to see my cousin and his family, and am getting work and life things squared away before we go to Europe.

When I was at my parents', I managed to sneak in a quick 30-miler in the foggy farm country. I've never ridden in that area and it was pretty great. I am looking forward to further exploration.

Today, I let off some steam (is that what one does with it?) and doubled my commute distance by riding on the newly reopened, hopefully landslide-free West River Road. This patch of road has been closed for over 2 years. It was great. I took three photos showing how nice it is to ride right along the river at the same level as the water. There was water trickling down another patch of "cliff," which hopefully doesn't have a sandstone underlayer and result in future closures and changes to the local geological scene.

I was going to ride further because it was such a great night for riding and I had lights in my bag. I felt like my legs could go pretty much forever. My hunger got the best of me, though, which allowed me to get a great photo of the sunset over the lake right by my house. Thanks, belly.

Good strong words that mean something

“I like good strong words that mean something." ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Lawyers can be sort of nit-picky. But as a drafter and interpreter of laws, I feel confident in asserting that words mean something. I saw this sign when I got off the elevator to go up to my hotel room. 

My first thought? "Excellent! There's extra padding in the carpeting so that you can't hear the people upstairs. The doors are heavy, so you can't hear people in the hallway."

And then I saw this thing to hang on the door so you aren't disturbed.

Tranquility! Serenity! These are my people! How did they know that I've been craving serene, tranquil, quiet? How'd they know that what I most appreciated about my short bike ride on Saturday was the quiet of riding in the rain, the serenity and tranquility of riding in the dark?

Well, my friends, I don't know how you'd define tranquil, serene quiet. After working in my hotel room tonight to prepare for tomorrow's meeting, I would define "tranquil, serene quiet" in the negative, as in "not being able to hear the person next door use the bathroom."

It seems a vital piece of soundproofing went undone in the newly remodeled wing. 

The signs of summer

The last few nights, I've been loving the sound of the chirping crickets, despite the occasional, irrational terror that they cause in me.

My dad, who likes to scare kids, made up a super scary horror story one summer. He cocked his head, and quietly said, "Do you hear that? Crickets." He then proceeded to tell us, how the sound of crickets reminded him of an event when he was in high school, and made up a long, freakin' scary story about being in underground tunnels at his seminary, being hunted by a demonic creature. It scared the pants off us.

So, despite my fear of the insects, they make me think of being a kid in the summer, when we'd play fanciful imaginary roles all day with our cousin-like family friends visiting from St. Louis, and then stay up all night, too scared to even leave our beds to use the bathroom.

Today was a super summery day - I left at 9:30 and rode my bike in a continuous 5-mile loop, the Powderhorn 24 route, for three hours with Matt, who was doing the 24-hour ride. I ate a taco, and rode to St. Paul for the Irish Fair and watched some dancing, looked at the art, was joined by Dan, had a beer, ate some sweet corn (not too many meatless options), listened to some music, watched some more dancing, and rode home, getting there at about 8:30. It was a perfect day, devoid of responsibility, just like when I was a kid.

And now, I will listen to the crickets as I fall asleep.

How much beer would it take...?

...for me to smell it when a car passes me by on the street?

This is what I am wondering as I distract myself from worrying about my poor dog's new bout of lameness.

I often smell pot from cars as they pass by my bike, but today a car passed me and it smelled like an old bar you'd find in Superior, Wisconsin.

I can tell you who wasn't drunk: the kick ass woman who passed me on her bike on the way home. She had regular platform pedals on her upright, rattling bike and maintained a steady 18-ish mph pace while smiling with her mouth closed and not breathing hard (and maybe not even sweating). I tried catching up to her a few times to see whether she was real (or had some electronic assist feature), but was going too slowly and also didn't want to run a stoplight.

I hope she was the real deal. I liked watching her pass people.

Shun the bandersnatch

I normally listen to my old iPod Shuffle during my commute. However, in a fit of self-preservation, it has decided that it will no longer work in the rain. So this morning, after passing Glabe Lane and thinking, as I do each day, that the word Glabe appears in Jabberwocky, I tried reciting the poem during my ride to work.

Well... it turns out the slithy toves gyred and gimbled in the WABE. And the mome raths outGRABE. And when I rejoiced at my memory that you're supposed to beware the bandersnatch, you're actually supposed to shun it. So really, it turns out I just remembered a word here and a word there, not full passages.

But I was amused, which is something.

Also, I got to smell tons of dill while passing the community garden where the rain knocked the scent out of the plants. That was a surprising discovery.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

And, it's August!

On the penultimate day of July, I rode my bike on an oldie, but goodie, route. After making some friendly trail etiquette suggestions to two Italian or Portuguese riders who are here for the summer and offering to fix a lady's flat, I stopped to admire the high river and take my obligatory Mighty Mississippi photo. It was a good transition into hanging out at a Twins game with Dan's South Carolinian brother and family.

On Sunday, I once again looked for our missing little album of wedding snapshots. (I have some photos from our wedding, but the best few were in their own little album.) Our marriage reached the age of majority yesterday, with all the attendant rights and responsibilities. I found a bunch of other photos, which I realized really should not be stored in a cardboard box in our basement, including pictures of my baby brother. We got married on his 13th birthday. I waged what he called a birthday campaign, with photos from when he was starting kindergarten and first grade. My photo app made the collage below. I had tons of fun posting old pictures of him, after going to the chiro and skipping dance class.

Oddly, after doing the TRAM and other recent bike rides, riding my bike is the one place my back doesn't hurt. Returning to my desk job last week and having crappy posture has made me rather uncomfortable, and serves as a good reminder that I need to keep moving, since I can. I am lucky in that respect.

Finally, to conclude this stream-of-consciousness post, I ran across this comic strip on Sunday. Please don't take the bike maintenance list Amelia Bedelia literal-like: don't put lube all over your handlebars. That's a disaster waiting to happen.