Just out of Hofn we encountered
roadwork on Highway 1. One thing you notice: in Iceland they are not concerned about the size of their tools, with how big their toys are. The cranes and bulldozers and trucks are big enough to get the job done, but not any bigger. Apparently there is no driving need here to outdo each other by having equipment that is bigger-faster-better. With the possible exception of SUVs and 4-wheel drive vans that get driven into the mountains, which are bigger-better-faster than anything I'm accustomed to.
When I say "roadwork," that's a bit of an understatement. There were bulldozers and trucks working the road where it went up the side of the mountain. It wasn't at all like when you encounter roadwork on an interstate: "Merge Left." There was no other lane but the one they were working on, and there was no other route but Highway 1. Fortunately our vehicle had 4-wheel drive and fortunately it had enough umph to climb the big rock we had to go over-under-around-or-through. I don't like playing Gonzo in the Rental Car, but we did survive our first experience with Iceland road construction.
Farther on, we pulled off Highway 1 road where we thought the crossroad led to the canyon we been told about the day before, but we found a four-foot ditch across the road before we found the canyon. So we turned back to Highway 1, but not before a dog at the house along the side road barked at us going one way, and was still barking at us as we came back.
We drove along the sea all of the morning and into the afternoon. The sea, the ocean, the North Atlantic. The great blue darkness rolling limitless to the south, our right.
We stopped at Djupivogur hoping to see the Langabud museum, but everything was locked up tight. We drove up and down and across town sidewways to get a good long look at the community. It's a village of 375 people at the mouth of Berufjordur. There was a nice harbor with fishing boats and several factories for processing fish; this, trading, and farming, are the sources of income in the area. We saw a grocery store, a gas station, a restaurant or two, but not much in the way of businesses for a tourist to look in on during this off-season. We were soon underway again.
For lunch we stopped in view of another g-damn waterfall. Yeah, it has come to that. To the tourist in Iceland, the waterfall becomes as ocean is to the fish. Soon enough you just don't notice the waterfalls. Your spirit may need them but you cannot think too much about them. You cannot process the reality of them after a while. At least that might be the case if you had grown up in the great middle flatness of the USA where even one of these throw-away falls in Iceland would be a source of great wonderment; yet eventually the sky-full of waterfalls becomes too much to comprehend.
We ate our bread and cheese and some little plum tomatoes for lunch, and shared a Diet Pepsi we'd bought at the grocery store in Djupivogur. As with the soda in Mexico, the Diet Pepsi here is adjusted to the local taste, and seems slightly wonked to an American. Neither better than our version, nor worse, just different.
To be continued....
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