Day 5:
Today was the day I got to sleep in. My head hit the pillow last night and I. was. out. Chelsea’s attempts to wake me to review the prior day’s Log entry could not break my peaceful slumber. The beds were miraculously comfortable and we woke up completely refreshed. After a delightful breakfast from our farmhouse hosts, we hit the road in search of our next hot pot.
We were excited to see more valleys, waterfalls, and a secluded waterfall hot spring further inland. But, as the scenery continued to look more and more like home, our dumbfounded gazes out the car window dwindled - while still beautiful, no place can Colorado quite like Colorado can. A few quick turns and the views drastically transitioned into a rock filled desert without the luxury of paved roads (Yay. More gravel.). There were less exciting valleys, no waterfalls, and definitely no waterfall hot springs. Apparently there is such a thing as too secluded.
The fruitless three hour search did yield our first WiFi-less (no GPS) traverse across a desolate region with the help of a road map and our “navigation skills.” Luckily, our worries about heading in the right direction paled in comparison to the worries of Mark Watney.
Who is Mark Watney? Mark has been our faithful companion these first few days. While I know you’re all desperately hoping we didn’t pick up a hitchhiker, truth is, we did. Just kidding. There are no extra seats in our van.
Mark Watney is the protagonist of The Martian, the audio book Chelsea picked for me as the first book to read for fun in four years. Basically, an astronaut is stranded on Mars after his crew leaves him behind. An accident caused during an extreme windstorm had the crew thinking Mark was dead. Mark then uses his engineering skills, humor, and botanist knowledge to survive alone on the Martian wasteland.
As Chelsea and I drove around our own moon craters, Mark’s hardships on Mars kept our mini adventure in astronomical perspective.
Eventually (with no wrong turns), we made it back to the highway leading us to Seydisfjordur - a quaint coastal town home to the ferry landing. Mainland Europeans have the option to take a two day ferry ride to Iceland. Here, we decided to try a Nordic sample platter - reindeer tartar, char (a local fish) two ways, black pudding, double smoked lamb, rye bread with chutney, and dried cod with butter - with a side of hot cocoa.
Our day ends at a campsite. Chelsea sits in back, working on an adult coloring book and eating (less-than-fizzy) fizzy lollipops. Tomorrow we hike.
Photo Note: No, we did not take a picture of the barren moon wasteland.
Logging off,
Audrey
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