Election night in Iceland! We've got our American flag (5-inches wide) proudly flying in the hotel and our ballots in the mail. I imagine you wearing your 'I Voted' stickers and listening to the election results come in over the radio tonight. Kelly and I will be eager to read the news tomorrow morning. The election is featured in the Icelandic TV news alongside a story about commercial fishing boats and something featuring kids dancing in a gymnasium.
Our day started with the spectacle of hundreds of gull wheeling far overhead. We later saw this tall gray cliff face where the gulls were roosting (to the right in this photo).
For much of the day, we drove through wide open country of lava fields and outflow plains. Early in the day, the rain turned to snow, which kept us drier while working but slowed us down on the roads. Several inches of snow stuck and the landscape is much changed.
We collected water samples from a fast moving glacial river. The river looked to be running at a moderate 5,000 cfs, but to reach the water we hiked across hundreds of yards of violently shaped riverbed that told of much greater flows. Volcanic eruptions under the ice can release vast quantities of water, and evidence of past destruction from these floods was everywhere - sheared wooden bridge pylons, abandoned highway beds, and discarded 3-foot-wide steel I-beams bent like noodles.
Despite the snow, we had good luck finding fine sediments at several drainages. At one site, we flushed a group of ptarmigan. The tourists have long since gone home, and this part of the island is quiet. Along the main road, a car passes every five minutes or so. Parking lots are empty, and stores are shuttered. We're staying at the only open hotel along a 200-km stretch of coastline.
Kelly and I are spending the night in Skaftafell. We walked to the other lit structure in town, a truckstop, and ate at the diner alongside the attendant's family and a snowplow operator. An American truckstop would have served chicken-fried steak, corn-on-the-cob, and mash potatoes: simple, filling, comfort food. The same could be said of the Icelandic meal of small peeled potatoes, spiced meatballs, warm fish casserole with cream sauce and melted cheese, bright purple chopped onions cooked soft and sweetened, fine brown chutney, and very dark bread with butter. For dessert, sweet fruit compote and heavy cream.
