It’s been quiet, but not totally without drama. I got my flu and Covid shots. Danita got her flu, but delayed the Covid to this coming Wednesday. Here’s hoping she gets her shot before RFK raises the minimum age to 75.

We went to a house fixtures store to select faucets, door handles, and other miscellany. There’s not a lot to think about, but the cost certainly adds up. And we didn’t pick the fancy expensive stuff.

We had a Chill ‘n Grill party. It’s well done hamburgers and hot dogs, paid for by the association. Everybody brings a side. Attendance was down a little, but the noise level was way higher. I spent the evening not understanding what anybody said. Still, who can argue with a free hamburger and some chocolate chip cookies?

I’ve been doing wrong by Mom. When she goes to a doctor that’s not associated with Charlestown, I’m supposed to request a yellow jacket several days before the appointment. The jacket has her abbreviated medical history. The doctor adds his notes. I return the jacket to the nurses. I wasn’t doing this. Shame on me. So I went back and added a “YJ” reminders several days before each of Mom’s outstanding appointments. I made it a yellow event. My stupid phone saw a YJ for Mom’s dental appointment and decided to be “helpful” by replacing the yellow reminder with a picture of elves cleaning teeth. I don’t know why “they” decided I didn’t want to see the yellow reminder that I explicitly requested. Thank goodness for the good guys on the internet. There is a way to turn this useless feature off. All you have to do is know where to click. It’s a good thing I found the answer on the internet. I would never in a hundred years stumbled into the secret sequence of taps that make those silly pictures go away. Even Indiana Jones himself wouldn’t have figured it out.

The tree in our front yard is too big. It blocks our window and also our neighbor’s window. We’ve been having it pruned at a cost of about $500 per. This year it’s not clear we can prune enough away to clear my neighbor’s view. I’m tired of spending the money in any event. The tree is too big for the tiny yard we have. We need a smaller tree. The HOA says the yard is mine, but I can’t make changes they don’t like. What are the rules? I don’t know. They don’t seem to be written anywhere. Instead, I have to write a proposal and send it to the board. After a month or so, they will let me know if the changes are OK. Stupid HOA.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our home improvement project moved a step closer to reality. We approved the cabinets, countertops, and tile. This means they can start ordering the long-lead items soon.

My Mho’s surgery is healing nicely. I no longer need to cover it with a bandage.

Danita and I both got a cough from our cruise. We are finally well along in shaking this stubborn bug.

I got a few bike rides in this week. They were easy 10-milers. It’s a start. After taking the weekend off, I’m planning a 20-miler that includes some significant hills. I’m anxious to put this ride back in my active itinerary because the ride includes a stop at a bakery that makes excellent muffins.

Other than that, this has been a quiet week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a huge wasp nest on our deck. It would have been a long time before I noticed it because I don’t use the deck much. (I prefer the lower level porch.) One of my neighbors noticed it and let me know. This was far, far beyond a can of squirt-and-run. The bug guy said it probably took them two weeks to build this. And he said these wasps were aggressive. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his bee suit. I offered him a sun hat and netting. What are the chances a bug guy would not have netting, but I would? Pretty amazing.

The bug guy did a great job. But there was plenty of leftovers. The next day I grabbed the pressure washer and spent a few hours cleaning off dried wasp spit. Since I cleaned the deck, I decided the porch was overdue. While the pressure washer is out, why not do the garage also? All together, that was two days of pretty hard work.

We’re still hacking and coughing from whatever it was floating around the ship. So far, Danita’s doing better than I am.

My Mho’s surgery is coming along nicely. The good folks at the doctor’s showed me the correct way to apply a dressing. Their technique was a 5-layer wonder, but it had one slight problem. It wouldn’t stick to my face. I didn’t want to wrap gauze around my head, so I simplified. I now have a two layer technique using Vaseline and a rather large band aid. It’s not elegant. It doesn’t look pretty. But it sticks. The healing is coming along fine.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had perfect weather and a very good time in Halifax. We took a walk along “tourist row” and saw Cow’s Ice cream, reputed to be the best in town. We would never know whether it was good or not. Th shop was packed and the line extended outside and way down the walkway. Fortunately for us, there was another Cow’s close to the botanical garden. There was one person ahead of us. It is really good ice cream after all. That just shows the importance of visiting the gardens.

After the ice cream, the next most favorite stop was the Citadel. It’s a nice thing that we chose to take the tour. We learned a lot about weapons over the years. They used part of the grounds to simulate the D-Day invasion. They built reproductions of a German pillbox and an amphibious landing craft out of plywood, so we could get an idea of what it was like. We also learned that it took a long time to build the citadel. A typical setback was that the first engineer got drunk, fell of the wall, and died.

Just by luck, I was walking along one of the walls and came across a crew practicing the firing of the canon. They did an impressive job. When it came time to simulate lighting the fuse, the supervisor said “bang” rather softly. I couldn’t help from feeling “That’s it????” It was much more impressive when they actually fired the canon, later on in the day.

Here’s a shot of a bunch of kids having fun at tourist row. If you look closely, you will see the stone has the message “For your protection do not climb”.

Some people think it’s important to try the local food, not matter how disgusting it is. I tend not to be so venturous, but we did try a local food here in Halifax. We got a Donair sandwich. This is basically a Gyro with garlic sauce instead oft tzatziki. It was good, but we won’t worry about finding a local source of Donairs in Columbia.

This is the last port of call for our trip. We should arrive in Boston Saturday and get home late in the day,.

Yesterday the ship visited Qaqortoq. This is another small town in Greenland. The tender process was on and off due to heavy fog. By lunch time, just about every seat in the Lido and at the pool was taken. The afternoon turned out to be a beautiful day, but we decided to stay on the ship. I don’t like crowds, so we ordered room service for lunch. The temperature was warm, there was no wind, and our side of the ship was facing the sun. We spent the afternoon reading on our balcony.

The next port of call was scheduled to be St. John’s, where we could see the puffins. Unfortunately, there’s a hurricane in the area. Nobody knows exactly where the storm will go. There’s a possibility it will pass near St. Johns. It’s a really bad idea to sail a passenger ship into a hurricane. The captain changed the itinerary. Our next stop is now Halifax on Thursday. Making a change like this in a cruise is quite expensive and puts a heavy workload on the crew. Many passengers are sad to miss St. Johns, but everybody we talked with is happy with the change. The next three days are at sea.

Just when we think we have seen Iceland, we come to a spot that is more powerful and beautiful than any that went before.

Very scenic site

Many colors

Scenic village

These lava fields are extremely rough, nearly impossible to traverse

I made a mistake, but I’ll circle back on this thought. We came to an attractive 250 foot hill called Helgafell. When the Vikings were pagan, this was considered a holy site. If unworthy people climbed the hill, the punishment could be death. after the conversion to Christianity, the Franciscans built a monastery on the site. There is a tradition that those who climb the hill without looking back and without talking can have three wishes fulfilled. And that’s where I made my mistake. I wanted to look back. I figured “What the heck, it’s just a wish”. But it was three wishes that I lost, not just one. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll do better on the next trip.

View from Helgafell

We visited a very modernistic church. The architect started out being a dentist. Maybe that’s why the building is so unusual. Could the church be an upper molar, the vertical stripes be the tooth’s root?

Modern Church

Church interior. I felt it gently inviting me to come forward.

I’ll bet these pipes fan fill the Church with music

This is our last visit to Iceland. What an amazing country. What amazing citizens. There are several more pics on the website, if you are interested.

The next two days are sea days.

I’m starting with an attraction we didn’t visit. The geothermal power plants take hot water from deep wells. This water has many dissolved minerals. The plant must separate the minerals from the water, or else the pipes and pumps will quickly get clogged. After separation, they pump the mineral water back into the ground, closing the water loop. Unfortunately, the injected mineral water backed up in one of the plants. By the time they got everything fixed, they were stuck with a 4-foot deep pond of warm mineral water that covered 2 acres. Oops. Before long, an employee who had a skin problem decided to try sitting in the pond. They claimed the mineral water helped. Before long, somebody decided to give the pond a slick name and charge admission. Today, a ticket to the Blue Lagoon costs $100 (or more, with various optional packages). It is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland.

Staying with the theme of failures, here’s a picture of a grinding stone. It is impossible to grow wheat this far north. The Vikings decided to try their luck grinding the local lyme grass. The stone ended up as part of the floor in the entry of a building.

Failure

We visited the Viking museum. Besides the stone, we saw that somebody built the ship 01_Vésteinn, very nearly identical to a Viking longboat. They sailed it to North America. The boat is indoors. It isn’t possible to get a decent pic. Fortunately, the people who did this were anxious to brag about their achievement. Here’s their pic.

Vésteinn

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the other thing I learned about the Vikings. They weren’t the first people in Iceland. That honor goes to the Inuit. The Vikings were farmers, looking for land they could use to grow crops. There wasn’t a lot of conflict between the two groups. It wasn’t that the Vikings were afraid of conflict. There simply wasn’t much overlap in how they used resources.

We saw some more prosaic stuff. I’ll leave those pics to the website, for those who are interested. Tomorrow we move to our last stop in Iceland.

Continuous water squirter

Lighthouse

Rugged landscape

Yesterday was a very full day. There is active lava flow in the area. Wouldn’t it be cool to see it? Unfortunately, locals are very reluctant to let tourists die from falling into hot lava or from inhaling sulpher fumes. The only way to see the area is with a helicopter ride. At $900. Per person. We took a pass and instead toured what they call the Golden Circle. This 9-hour tour started at 1 PM. Days can be very long when one is close to the artic circle.

We started with a geothermal energy plant. It taps deep into the earth to extract very hot water under very high pressure. (You can insert your own numbers. I don’t remember them.) They convert some of the water to steam which turns turbine generators that make electricity. There’s plenty of electricity for everyone with enough left over to power an aluminum smelting plant. And there’s enough hot geothermal water left over to heat the houses and buildings in Reykjavik. Nation wide, about 90% of all buildings are heated with geothermal energy. The guide that explained the process was excellent. He was answering questions as they popped into my head.

Geothermal turbine

Our next stop was the amazing Thingvellir waterfall.

Waterfall

There was no time to dawdle. We moved on to an area with steam ominously venting to the atmosphere. Here was the location of an ever reliable geyser. I was unbelievably lucky to catch this pic.

Geyser

The last stop was the best of all. It was the location of Iceland’s Althing, or parliament, circa 930 AD. It doubles as the place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly moving away from each other. We could clearly see the edge of each tectonic plate. The land between them was incredibly dramatic. My pictures didn’t turn out. Here’s a cheat from one of the billboards.

Today we stay in Reykjavik. We plan to actually tour the city we are visiting for a change.

We tendered into Djupivogur on the northwest coast of Iceland, then took a ride to the northeast section. There we saw a glacier. Glacier melt fed a pond which entered into a glacier river. Early in the trip, we took a ride in an area with large pristine icebergs. The small pieces of ice floating in the pond were not big enough for me to call them icebergs. And it wasn’t particularly pretty. The glacier was dirty. The pond was the color of coffee with cream. The river slowly improved to a greyish white. None of this detracted from the powerful view, but I was surprised by the contrast of what we saw a few weeks ago and what we saw today. The site is remote but popular. Note the kayaks available for those who want to check out the pond.

Glacier and pond

After a suitable amount of walking around and picture snapping, we went to an Icelandic horse farm. Icelandic horses are small but strong. They are the only horse that can do a tölt gait. This is a unique gait that gives the rider a remarkably smooth ride. Even more impressive is the skeið, or flying pace — much faster than skeið with the same smooth ride. Here’s a pic of an 11 year-old girl riding her horse with a skeið gait while holding both arms out like airplane wings. Flying indeed! This young lady took our breath away.

Flying pace indeed

Equally pleasing were the hot chocolate and kleinur. Check it out here: Kleinur. I’ll bet you can’t eat one. (I had three.) Besides remote, isolated areas and strange sights, Iceland also has cities. We’ll visit Reykjavík tomorrow.

We were there

Our luck with weather held. We expected rain bug got sunshine. The big attraction today was rocks. (Not every day can be the best day.) We visited the “Giant’s Causeway” which is a rather strange name because there is no causeway, and there never was a causeway, nor are there there are proposals or plans to create one. The big attraction was rocks that naturally form to look like paving stones.

Or building blocks

Nevertheless, the coastal area was an impressive site, …

… and we were there.

(That line is for the shuttle bus. We walked.)

Tomorrow is a sea day.