17h39-18h08, 07-March-2013
Settled into our Efsti-Dalur accommodation and biding time until we head over to Geysir for dinner, trying to shut out The Boy’s relentless repetition of a poem he has to have memorized by the time his Vacance d’Hiver ends…in 11 days. And the Airmail beta releases are getting out of hand (not rendering that as a link this time, oh no…not taking bad karma for anyone jumping in who doesn’t want to reinstall their email application 1-2 times a day). And The Missus needs her iPad charged, and this can only happen via AppleKory because she didn’t bring her charger to Iceland. And there I go again, Command+Tab back to Chrome to see if the latest-greatest Airmail beta .zip has finished downloading. And now My Missus has set her Mac up on the desk alongside mine, uploaded her photos from the day, and invited The Boy to scootch in to look the pics over (which I also want to do)… Sod it. Will pick up again after dinner/evening entertainment/family turns in/chaos no longer reigns.
22h00-23h34, 07-March-2013
I’ve always enjoyed driving. Not in a “Man, I feel so alive with the windows down, Def Leppard’s Photograph blaring, and the speedometer topped out with my foot on the floor and my hair on fire.” way (image ROCKS, though), but as a means/manner/venue for feeling good in the world…feeling right. A worthy destination, a reliable car, a full tank, an open road — four lanes good, two lanes better! — and the sun nowhere in sight. Now depending on circumstance, a true companion “riding shotgun” doesn’t hurt, nor does the right mixtape (plural, if the drive is of the interstate variety), however solo-in-silence is the pure sweet stuff, the top-shelf añejo.
I was well into 11 before I ever spent more than 3 hours in a car heading towards a Point B from a Point A (Chicago to Dallas, a ripping out of roots and an attempted transplantation) or crossed more than one state line in the same day’s drive (El Paso to Los Angeles, family holiday fun). Since 1976, though, I have had my wings…uh, fins…uh, well, been significantly more mobile. To recount the more substantial roadtrips to which I have been participant would only be long and boring, and this you can believe because before I performed a monster edit such a recounting was splashed right here, and it was…tragic. Let’s just leave it with “Since I was 11 I have taken many roadtrips across the USA and enjoyed driving holidays in Europe.” and call it a paragraph, OK?
Today La Famille Kessel visited Þingvellir, the Iceland location where the continental drift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates can be seen and sometimes experienced (earthquakes). In describing the location to The Boy as we made our way there today, he said “Can you tell me when Europe ends and North America begins?” and all I could think, both hands on the wheel staring down Iceland Road 36 was “If only.”