Cairns and Geysirs

Day 2: Off to Thingvellir National Park – the original home Iceland’s democracy, a spectacular lake on the fissure where the European and North American plates meet.  We were supposed to go snorkeling in that fissure where you can touch both continents at the same time.  A scheduling snafu got in the way of that plan, but cairns, geysirs and waterfalls provided plenty of other entertainment.

A landscape of green and gray

Cairns point the way

Our Yellowstone geysers are named such, because of the one here in Iceland.  Scientists have determined it has been active for over 10,000 years and shows up in recorded history as early as the 1200’s.  It had been inactive for 70 years when seismic activity in 2000 caused them to spring back to life. It created a wonderful tourist attraction for Iceland’s burgeoning tourism trade.  These performers don’t have the same color as the yellow and blue ones in the American West, but they put on a good show.  My favorite part is the bubble that forms on the surface, just before the explosion upwards.

The Geysir bubble...

Nearby is Gullfloss, a waterfall that has a greater water flow than any waterfall in Europe or North America.   The drop is in two parts and it is pretty spectacular, even on a dreary gray day.

Road Trip In Iceland

When my daughter suggested Iceland as a place for a one-week mother-daughter trip I jumped at the opportunity.  Prior to the word “Iceland” leaving her lips  I don’t think  I had ever considered visiting.  But just like that – there is was –sitting up near the Arctic Circle beckoning.  

Our flight from Boston to Iceland on Icelandic Air took less time than it does to fly to San Francisco.  Flying on an airline that still allows passengers 2 checked bags with no fees was interesting. Without all the jockeying for overhead bin space loading a plane is faster, friendlier and more efficient.  And imagine my surprise to find a pillow and blanket on every seat for the red-eye flight.  The seating is still tight in coach, but the Icelandic's cushions are not so skimpily padded that they feel like metal stadium seats, like some other airlines.  

The clincher of civility happened as we disembarked for the short walk to the terminal in the cool air.  In front of me was a four year old wearing only the T-shirt he had on when he left Boston.  The flight attendant quickly grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around the boy's shivering shoulders while smiling at his grateful mother.   It harkens back to a day when air travel was still a pleasant experience.

But onto adventures in geology and volcanoes.  Just before leaving the US vigorous seismic activity started under the country's biggest glacier. Fears of another airline shut down caused by volcanic ash hit the news cycle and friends started emailing asking if we were still going. The decision was an easy one. Iceland has a great information system and plans for dealing with volcanic activity. They respond to mother nature with science, common sense and respect - not Fox New 24/7 fear.

So, on our very first day here, Amelia and I went to meet a volcano up close and personal. We journeyed down 400 feet into the magma chamber of the Thrihnukagigur Volcano a half an hour outside of Reykjavik.

The volcano is the one just behind my head.  We were given these ankle length raincoats to wear to keep us dry on our 2 mile walk to the volcano entrance. "Hiking in a ball gown," is how Amelia described it. 

The hike to the volcano was across a lava field filled with lava tube caves and fissures - one side belonging to Europe and one side North America.

A special life that carries 5 people at a time lowers you down in to the chamber after you walk about 40 minutes across a lichen and moss covered lava field. The rig was designed by German engineers for a National Geographic special and then turned into a truly unique tourist site.  Deep inside the magma chamber the basalt rock is a rainbow of reds, blues and orange tones caused by the bacteria that live on the rocks, not algae or lichens as I would have guessed. It is as close as one can get to living out Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Looking up at the lift from the bottom of the chamber.

People shadows in the magma chamber

Unplug to Recharge....

People are quite shocked when I tell them I took no photographs during my recent trip out west to raft on the Selway River - a 47-mile stretch of Class IV whitewater. It flows through the pristine Selway Bitteroot Wilderness described by author Wallace Stegner as the "geography of hope." Huge moss covered western cedars grace this river canyon and its banks, giving it a distinctly Northwest feel despite its proximity to the Continental Divide.  The cedars and Ponderosa pine make the Selway’s fast moving flow into an ever changing canvas of green and gold.

No, my camera didn't go overboard in a rapid.  Not bringing it along was a very conscious decision.  I didn't want to be distracted by equipment and the pressure to capture the beauty that was there every moment.   It was a choice to immerse myself in the river world, to watch a new ripple geometry and stare into standing waves, to let my photographer's eye study the play of light in each changing moment with no further obligation. 

A week unplugged left me more recharged than I have felt in a long time.  And I have a treasure trove of Selway image memories that I can recall whenever I wish – no devices needed.

Meet "Lost in Reflections"

Not every winter flounder likes to bury itself in the sand.  Some get adventurous.  This one, like many guys, refused to ask for directions and found himself upstream in Destruction Brook where he got lost in the reflections. 

 I first caught sight of him while studying ripple geometry last fall and over the early spring he became my "Flippin' Founder."  Kidding aside, since becoming a member of the Art Drive I have started to see fish shapes, scales and fin patterns everywhere.

Long ago I knew that this ripple would be a fin, and the image below would become a scale.

Of course there was a steep learning curve from imagination to execution- but what fun along the way!

Spring colors

Bleeding heart after the rain.

Upon closer inspection this caterpillar was quite colorful.

The Garden and the Brook

The spring has been long and cool, giving me time to get ready for summer art shows.  I hope you will mark your calendar for the 2014 Art Drive on August 9th and 10th.  There will be new contemplative landscape imagery as well as work from a project I began last October.  Called the Garden and the Brook, it is an on-going study of natural forms found both in the botany of my garden and in the water world of streams, ponds and tidal flows.

As I try to shape this project with words, not images, it occurs to me how much Garden and the Brook reflects my life-long journey of learning to see.  Although I grew up along the ocean, it wasn’t until I became a river rafter in my thirties that I first heard the expression, “read the water.”  In the whitewater rafting world, reading water is how you chart a course through rapids. It is how you follow the “tongue” into the current, avoid standing waves and other obstacles, and catch the eddy when you want, rather than the eddy catching you. Decades later, along the gentle flow of an autumn stream, I found myself plotting courses for sticks and leaves through “rapids” created by elevation drops measured in inches rather than feet.  Here I was, once again reading the water.  But for the first time, I realized that the shapes and curves created by fluid dynamics and ripple geometry have their counterparts not only in the great rivers of the West, but also in my garden.  This is not a particularly original insight. But back when I learned to read water I knew nothing of gardening and, to me, botany was only a lab course. I never would have made the connection, never would have seen it.  At that point in my life I had no idea that “painting with plants” was something that would become such a great source of pleasure and inspiration. 

Today I am filled with gratitude for this gift of time to discover and see the world anew.

Here is a sneak peak of the Garden and the Brook.

More Macro Fun

It was a sunny morning after a rainy night.  Time to try out that gorillapod and get some sharper macro shots.

Three perfect raindrops dancing on a lady's mantle.

Promise of peony to come - a bud barely 1/2" wide.

Dartmouth Diebenkorn

A new landing for boats is under construction on the northside of the harbor here in town.  A rusty collection of steel plates have created a cofferdam-a dry area for construction of the dock supports.   The industrial feel is a bit jarring in the bucolic landscape of river and marsh.

Cofferdam before the sun hits.

But when the early morning light bounces of the plates into dead calm water the rusty reflections create an abstract art show that reminds me of Diebenkorn's Ocean Park Series.

Dartmouth Diebenkorn 1

Mother's Day Macro

I may not be much for clothes and jewelry, but I do like my techie toys.  The latest addition to my collection was a fabulous Mother's Day gift of the 4-in-1 Olloclip - four different macro lenses that fit on my iphone.  Suddenly the amazing details of the surface of paper, the inner warp and weft of blue jeans are accessible, along with the incredible detail of the natural world.  There is much to learn and a little tripod to hold the camera is necessary, but what glorious fun... I have always admired how Lady's Mantle holds morning dew drops in her folds, but now I can see the fine hairs of her leaves, through the droplets!!!  I may never leave my deck again....

View fullsize

Slow Spring

April 21st and it is below freezing at sunrise.  Not great for the daffodils yet to open in my yard, but it makes for lovely mist, frosty sparkles and a timeless quality.

Sunrise on the Slocum River

The frost doesn't last long once the sun is up.  By the time I reached this field its new growth was frost free, yet still stark feeling.

Lunchtime Haiku

Dried leaves crackle
Snake dashes
Frog legs for lunch.

Survival of the fittest along the new Cornell Farm Trail in Dartmouth, MA

Days of Rain

Flooding rains have created standing waves in normally gentle creeks and park bench seating for those with sturdy galoshes.  All the dried vines kept reminding me of Spanish Moss and the Garden of Good and Evil.

Southern Gothic, here on the Southcoast

I Think I Can......

After a long time away, there is nothing like coming home, sleeping in your own bed and nesting in your own space.  A few days back here on the southcoast of New England and we have been treated to a full range of March weather- balmy days that had me out cleaning garden beds to “alleged blizzards” that did not deter these determined little crocuses.  As I got close enough to focus I felt like I could hear them pushing the snow away and saying, “I think I can, I think I can…..

Tidbits from the Ride Home

During this journey - down South, out West and back again, we have been in many Visitor Centers.  While the staff have always been well-informed boosters for their home states, Oklahoma wins First Place for the classiest highway visitor center anywhere. Just over the Texas border, Oklahoma greets visitors with a beautiful stone building complete with comfy leather chairs, fresh coffee, lovely, well-organized handmade wooden literature racks and exhibit-quality photographs highlighting the state’s best places to visit. The restroom is worthy of a 4 star hotel.  Our sorry New England roadside visitor centers could learn a thing or two….

Texas Forever

On this journey we have driven through east Texas, west Texas and the Panhandle.  It was a lot of miles in the Lone Star state. More than once the phrase Texas Forever, started running through my mind.  I first heard it while watching 5 seasons of “Friday Night Lights.”  In the show it is a phrase meaning friendship, living large, and a love of Texas. In my car it was a mantra about endless wind and dust.  As we sped past this “bug ranch” I took a quick shot with my iphone and decided that Texas Forever would give me a lot time to practice focusing  and composing in a moving vehicle.

The Bug Ranch

There is a type of photographic imagery created by intentional camera movement or ICM.  When done well, the result is a dreamy, impressionistic, painterly and often abstract image.  During the learning curve there are a lot of blurry candidates that go directly to the trash. 

Oklahoma Trees

The Lone Tree of Arkansas

Yelp and TripAdvisor may have replaced paper guidebooks, but it was our experience that they are both pretty much useless when it comes to small town America.  The mom and pop places that supposedly have good "down home cookin" were often non-existent or had been replaced by Taco Bell's and Tire Stores.  Happily in White House, Tennessee, population 10,587, we found that the latest iteration of Tanya's Cafe, was a little piece of Guadalajara, De La Paz Mexican Restaurant.  The food was yummy.

The colors of Mexico in the hills outside Nashville, TN

In general, motel staff gave us good recommendations for local places, except for Lexington, KY where instead we ended up in front of the best sign of our entire trip.

But it didn't take long for our dinner prayers to be answered. A few door down the Thoroughbred Cafe, a neighborhood joint, served up Kentucky-style barbequed brisket and Kentucky Ale while these guys watched over us. Almost home....