On day three of my Iceland adventures, we begged/demanded Siggi, our Travel Buddy / van driver, stop the van beside a field of Icelandic horses. The sun was setting and everything was bathed in a golden brown glow. Heavenly!
Nice person in Portland, Oregon, and beyond.
As part of my trip to Iceland for Canopy by Hilton in November 2016, the Stopover Buddy service from Icelandair took us out of Reykjavík for an incredible adventure riding ATVs around Three Horn Mountain near Lambalækur, Iceland. Unnar Gardarsson of ATV – Óbyggðaferðir was our leader at the site, and I must admit he took us on one of the best trips I can remember as we slid through snow banks, forded icy rivers, admired waterfalls and volcanos, and then ate a wonderful lunch in an eighth-century monk's cave on a cliffside. On the first part of our adventure...
The weather was gorgeously sunny, but biting, biting cold. Once we got all bundled up in our snowsuits, we hopped on our ATVs and rode off through horse pastures to wild, rugged country around Þrihyrningr, Three-Horn Mountain. The stark, desolate beauty of the volcanic landscape reminded me of my childhood in Idaho. But it was also otherworldly. I felt civilization was a million miles away and we were on a new planet. And I remembered, not too surprisingly, that Ridley Scott filmed his gorgeous mess Prometheus in Iceland...
On day 4 of my wonderfully packed visit to Iceland for Canopy by Hilton, we took a relaxing soak in the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa then ate lunch at their terrific restaurant before finally heading to the nearby airport. The perfect way to say farewell to this place. The spa is an oasis of modern luxury sitting alone in stark fields of black lava rock. The lagoon pool itself has a soft floor of what I assume is pulverized rock, and the water is sky blue. When we were there, the air was a hair above freezing; so clouds of steamy fog rose from the water and swirled in the breeze. Breathtakingly beautiful...
I was sitting on my balcony with my kids as the sky grew darker with the setting of the sun, and a ruffly smattering of clouds rolled over our heads like a blanket. I glanced up and thought the day was finished and night was upon us. Instead, the last rays of the sun from beyond the horizon suddenly began bouncing off the clouds (causing me to grab my camera) and what followed was my favorite sunset ever in Portland. Breathtaking, with all the colors of the rainbow dancing overhead like our own Oregon aurora...
In April 2018, Elaine and I walked the trails of Canemah Bluff Nature Park just south of downtown Oregon City. The sun was setting on a lovely spring day turning everything, even the newly bloomed camas fields, golden…
