Wild Goose Chase

     Snipe hunting.  Cow-tipping.  Catching the Northern Lights.

     Clack, clack, clack went the tires on the street.  Starting October 1, Iceland drivers can equip their cars with studded tires.  Many had done so.  It was hard to be surprised by an approaching car.

      We made our way once again towards Bust Stop 1, where we were scheduled to catch a bus for a Northern Lights Tour.  It was nearing 8 p.m.  The girl at the tourist information desk assured us the bus would have printed across it something like “Sky Tours” or Tip-Top Tours” or something similar.

      A plane old bus, shaped like a high top shoe, pulled up.  A group of about a dozen stood there conversing.  It soon became apparent that we were all waiting to take the Northern Lights tour.  One of our number stepped out of the shelter of City Hall into the breeze to inquire of the driver.  He turned and motioned to us.  This was our bus.

      The driver made friendly conversation as he checked our paperwork in the dim light.  We all took our turn and we were soon aboard.  Checking his list, the driver said we needed to make just one stop at another hotel and pick up one more light-chaser.  Someone said we would just go along.

      All aboard, the driver, also the tour guide started his spiel.  He introduced himself, his name, his occupation (semi-retired teacher) and our goal for the night, finding a hole in the clouds where we had a chance of viewing the Northern Lights. 

      When you buy the tickets, they are careful to endorse a disclaimer that says there is no guarantee that you will actually see such a sight.  Also, you need to check the website displayed on the paperwork to see for sure that the tour is a go for that night.  If the weather is hopelessly cloudy, the tour will be rescheduled for the next night, or the next, depending on the weather.

      It had been cloudy and drizzly all day, but the sun had come out later in the afternoon, and the website said our tour was a go for this night.  So, having had our supper and a brief rest, we made our way to the bus stop.

      The driver consulted his cell phone for the weather and reported that we stood the best chance of finding a clear sky by going south.  All the while as he talked, he was hauling us out of town into the black night.

      He had us each tell our name, where we came from, what we did in life, following his example.  He said the trip would be a lot more fun if we were a group interacting together, rather than a bunch of silent individuals.

      He proceeded to sing an Icelandic folk song.  When he finished his song, he translated for us.  This was an English-speaking tour, even though two or three were from Germany.  An extended family from Alabama made up about half of our group. 

      He then asked us to sing him a song.  He said pick an American song since most of us were from America.  There were several suggestions, such as “Yellow Submarine” and a few other tunes.  I started singing “Dixie” thinking surely the Alabamians knew that song, but the song ended up being a duet.

     The driver said he had found from his experience of guiding tours that Americans didn’t have any songs, that everyone knows.  He said that in Iceland, there are a few songs that everybody knows, such as the one he had sung.  That ended the song-singing.

      He enlisted our help in searching for clear sky.  Look for stars.  Seeing the Northern Lights requires a clear sky.  After an hour or so of riding, we saw a few stars.  We pulled into a grassy space by the side the highway and got out.  We looked up.  The stars disappeared and a few drops of moisture lit on our upturned faces.

       Back to the warm bus.  The driver consulted his cell phone for a few moments.  Further south, closer to the coast, he said, the weather folks were showing clear skies.  We hit the highway again.  We passed the airport.

      Around eleven o’clock, we found the combination of a clear sky and a place to pull off the highway without any interfering lights.  In Iceland, the Northern Lights may appear from any direction of the compass, not just the north.  Sure enough, some strange colorful “clouds” were churning around in the southern sky.  (I know it was south, because the North Star was behind us.)

      Folks oohed and awed as the display waxed and waned.  The Goodwife was a bit disappointed because the color was largely green, not pink as in all the pictures of the phenomenon.

      Several people took out cell phones and cameras to try to capture the event.  I gave it a shot, but I got nothing but black.  Earlier, the driver suggested camera settings, but all that was beyond my savvy.  Automatic exposure with automatic settings is the best mode I know. 

      After about twenty or thirty minutes of that, the promised treat of hot chocolate and cookies came out of the bus’s cargo hold.  I had long before that retreated to my comfortable seat in the bus.  My toes had curled, searching for a roost, two or three hours ago. 

      The Goodwife reported that the hot chocolate was really lukewarm chocolate.  The cookies weren’t too sweet.  A few more minutes viewing the strange clouds that mostly moved horizontally (sometimes they leap vertically, but not this night) and everyone joined the two or three of us who had spent much of the time dozing in the bus, and we headed back to Reykjavik.

      It was after one o’clock when I crawled into bed.  We had one more experience on our list of things to do in Iceland, take a plunge into the hot waters that arise from the bowels of the earth.  It didn’t happen.  We had tried to get tickets to the Blue Lagoon, but we were never able to. 

      The folks at the tourist office showed us some pools in the city that they said were superior to the Blue Lagoon and not nearly as expensive, but they were a bit out of walking distance, as the weather was still overcast, windy, and spitting rain.  The temperature ranged from six to ten degrees Celsius (40 to 50 F) the entire time we were there.  The wind and light precipitation made it feel a lot colder.

      Anyway, we spent our last day at two museums that were in walking distance from our digs.  The whale museum had huge models of whales.  I’m sure they were scaled down, but even so they were huge.  Once again, the Goodwife rented a recording to accompany the displays.  I was reminded of part of Moby Dick where Melville describes the different types of whales.  A blue light that illuminated the collection made for poor photography. 

       We also took in the Saga Museum, which was probably the best museum in a way.  It had lifelike figures in realistic settings.  One figure even breathed, his diaphragm moving in and out.  As the name suggests, each setting had a story featuring a heroic man or woman.  At the end of the tour, there was a room with costumes from the earliest days.  Visitors get to try on the costumes and handle the weaponry.

      On our first day in Iceland, I relied on a ship in dry dock (I think) to keep my bearings as we walked around unfamiliar territory.  We passed near it a few more times on our way to the museums and various eateries.  It was interesting to follow the progress the crews made.

      Our last day there ended at noon at, you guessed it, Bus Stop 1 where we boarded a small shuttle (packed to the gills with departing tourists) that took us just outside of town to the main bus depot where we boarded a big bus for the airport.

      We found Icelanders to be friendly folk.  But they have an international airport, like apparently all international airports.  We struggled through the bureaucracy.  It was the only place we had to carry on our luggage.  We were allowed to check our baggage at the other airports.  We were allowed to carry on without additional fee only after the ticket agent lady marched us over to the little cage that defined what was allowable in overhead bins.

      We were plenty early for our flight.  We took turns standing in line at the lunch counter to buy a drink and a snack.  When it was my turn to sit at a table guarding the luggage, I witnessed a strange event.

      We were seated at a small table for two next to a low wall.  A young man with backpack stood just on the other side of the wall.  He stood there a long time, observing, what?  It became obvious he wasn’t looking for another person.  I grew suspicious.  I kept an eye on him and our luggage.

      After about ten minutes, he came around the wall and asked if that sandwich, on a plate on a nearby table, was mine.  No.  Same question to people next to me.  No.  He grabbed the sandwich and walked off eating it.  A few minutes later, a waitress removed the dishes and wiped off the table.  Nobody ever came to complain they  had lost their sandwich.

      Our flight departed about 3:30 p.m. Iceland time.  After eight hours of flying, we caught sight of the Rockies.  We approached from the northeast, coming over Nebraska.  We landed just after 6 p.m. at DIA.  One of the longest 2½ hours of my life.  Once more we waded through the Disneyland back and forth cattle fences.  The agent checked our passports, asked where we were going, handed back our passports, and we stepped out of the secure zone.  Our trip was over.