Road signs

For those of us who are language-challenged, international road signs are a very good thing. If I'd seen these words without a picture, I wouldn't have known what they were telling me. It would have been a "fingers crossed" moment.

Sometimes pictures are better than words.

The symbol looks to me like it is warning of slippery conditions. Google Translate told me the words "halt i bleytu" (in Icelandic) translates to "halt in wet conditions".

If you'd like to hear the translation, click here, then click on listen under the words.

Getting closer

Oh! Denise thought that she would have her Iceland photos pushed to her galleries by now, but she's still deciding which photos belong where (in which gallery, that is). I hope you don't mind that I told her to take her time. You're all very patient, aren't you?

In the meantime, I thought maybe you'd like to see the little car that we used for our wanders, sitting on a very empty road. And look! This road actually had enough of a shoulder that we could pull off to the side; that was very unusual.

--- Rover

A splash of red

Summer warmth

It was an early autumn day, a day of summer warmth, a good day to feed my need for the ocean. I headed to Kittery Point, Maine; it seemed like a good wandering destination for the day.

I started with the thought that I would walk the Cutts Island trail in the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. My first attempt at that trail back in June was quickly cut short by dive-bombing mosquitoes, and today was surprisingly no different. Hmmm... maybe I should try again after a hard freeze.

Next stop... Fort Foster Park for a bit of "by the sea" walking. It was a beautiful day for walking.

More photos from today can be found at the beginning of the the gallery South coastal Maine - 2010.

Patterns in clouds

Ouch!

I was moving quickly, enjoying the crispness in the air, looking at the changing colors, walking.

And then... ouch! An acorn came flying out of a tree, connecting sharply with the center of my head. Did I say ouch!? It's hard to imagine the impact of something as small as an acorn falling (a fairly long distance). Do you suppose one of those crazy red squirrels saw me coming and took careful aim?

Sunday colors

So blue

I decided it might be a good idea to sneak a couple of Iceland photos into our blog while Denise is still sorting through all of the photos. Maybe a few pictures can satisfy your curiosity.

These shots are from the Blue Lagoon. The photo of me and the one with the very blue sky are from our last day in Iceland; the gray sky view was from the first day. Isn't the color of the water amazing? We first saw some of the water from the car, just before we saw the sign for the Blue Lagoon. Denise almost stopped the car right there, but I convinced her to drive into the parking lot first.

There aren't any people in these shots because this is outside of the "people bathing" part of the lagoon. Oh! It would be so nice to have a place like this close to home. Nice warm water, and it's even possible to enter the pool from inside of a building. I wonder what it would be like to soak here in winter months. Do you know?

--- Rover

Daylight hours

I was chatting with a colleague this morning when I mentioned how much I have noticed the difference in the amount of daylight here in comparison with Iceland. He reminded me that we are very close to the equinox, the day of equal light and dark, the same characteristics here and in Iceland. The late sun rising earlier sun setting really hit me when I returned home though; all I could figure was that the sunrise in Iceland was earlier.

When I got home tonight I decided it was worth a look for a sunrise-sunset table for Iceland for the month of September. What I found was very interesting. I found a sunrise sunset table for Boston on the National Weather Service website on a page titled Sunrise & Sunset or Moonrise & Moonset plus other data. I found sunrise and sunset times for Reykjavik at http://timezoneguide.com/sunrise-sunset-Iceland-Reykjavik.html. I looked at the month of September for both locations.

On September 1st, Boston had the possibility of sunlight for 13 hours and 9 minutes. The daylight time each day decreases by about 2 1/2 minutes until a 12 hour day is reached on September 25th.

On September 1st in Reykjavik, sunrise was at 6:11 with sunset at 20:43 for a day of 14 hours and 32 minutes. Unlike the 2 1/2 minute stepdown day by day at the lower latitude, the daylight decreases by 6 to 7 minutes each day until reaching the equinox.

No wonder I noticed the difference. On my last full day in Iceland, daylight filled 13 hours and 33 minutes. On my first full day at home, there were 12 hours and 38 minutes of daylight. I know, it's only an hour, but it was noticeable.

A few photos

I think that some of you might want to see photos from our wanders in Iceland. We've only been home for two days now, and Denise is still looking through the images that jumped into her (well really our) camera. It will probably be a bit until the galleries are ready for sharing, so I told Denise that I wanted to share a few photos now, to whet your appetite for later.

These four photos were taken on the day we wandered from Vik to the glacial lagoon and then back to Skaftafell. The first photo is me, taken early in the morning as I looked through the window at the rain. Oh, you already knew that was me, didn't you? The next picture shows the raindrops on the window, with mist and rain hiding the view. The last two were taken as we wandered during the day, a quick waterfall shot just before the rain started again, and then floating blue ice that broke off of the glacier. And look, there's a duck swimming in front of the ice.

I know Denise wanted to see the floating ice with a blue sky, but I really like the gray (not that it really matters since we didn't have a choice!)

--- Rover