One of the segments of our Iceland trip was a road trip through the West Fjords.
Doc in a West Fjords HotspringHot Springs in the West FjordsDoc and the Necropants in the Sorcery Museum in HólmavíkCharm in the Sorcery Museum in HólmavíkA Draug Coming out of the Floor in the Sorcery Museum in HólmavíkA Charm to Bring Storms in the Sorcery Museum in HólmavíkWest Fjords DolphinsÍsafjörður BoatsÚr álögum, in Ísafjörður
In Hólmavík there is a sorcery museum, which is about sorcery as practiced in Iceland during the Reformation Era. They have grimoires that describe staves for spells, etc.
They also have several exhibits where they recreate some of the spells that folklore says the sorcerers would do. Like they have a Draug coming out of the floor next to the spell for “Stave to wake up a Draug” and they have a model of the folkloric Necropants, etc.
They also talk about how Reformation Era Iceland was a very rough place. When the Vikings first colonized it, it was covered with trees, but since it is an island they eventually cut them all down. So by the 1600’s, you get stories like a guy being arrested for being accused of stealing another guy’s driftwood. Or a priest who got arrested for having a stave which was supposed to ward off sheep thieves. Tough times.
And also how the whole culture clash began, with the sheriffs going abroad to Denmark et al to go to college and study, and getting the ideas of sorcery being wicked and bad and suddenly they start persecuting what was previously just thought to be folk arts for luck and were now framed as evil sorcery.
In Ísafjörður, we got to visit Skóbúðin, the Museum of Everyday Life, which was spectacular!
We also got to visit some hot springs during this segment of the road trip.
At long last, after talking about doing the trip for at least two years, we did the 2-day kayak trip from Guerneville to Jenner. So, basically kayaking the Russian River from Guerneville to the sea. To be honest, it isn’t that far at all, so this trip could be done in one day *IF* you are on the river by something like 6AM. The reason being that the winds really pick up at about noon and from that point on you will be fighting the wind the whole way, and making very slow progress. Also check the tide tables, because as you get closer to the estuary, incoming vs outgoing tide will make a big difference.
Vacation officially begins now!
Of course, we stopped at Russian River Brewery on the way up to Guerneville. I always say that beer doesn’t travel well, so you should always endeavor to drink beer as close to its source as possible, as that is where it will taste the best. Well, let me tell you: drinking a Pliny at its source was totally worth it. It was better than the best most freshest tasting Pliny we’ve ever had in San Francisco! So if you are a Pliny fan, it is worth it to take the trip to the brewery.
Now on to the kayaking.
The first day, we actually got on the river by about 11 (because King’s doesn’t open until 10), so we were battling the wind and an incoming tide most of the day. So it was slow going, we did about 8.5 miles in about 4 hours. Yikes.
Arranging all our stuff and getting ready to put in at Guerneville!
So, having learned that lesson the hard way, the next day we woke up at 6:30, with the intent to get on the river as early as possible. The second day was very foggy when we woke up, and since we were going westward towards the coast, even as the fog burnt off behind us we would kayak into fresh new fog in front of us. So the whole second day was in fog.
Rise and shine! This is where we were camped for the night. You can just about see where we stashed the kayaks on the right of the photo.
Here you see the fog is just about burnt off where we are… but we are kayaking West into more fog, so the sun didn’t last
We still made breakfast and coffee withe jetboil and had to tear down and stuff, so we didn’t actually get on the river until about 8AM. But still, we didn’t have much wind to contend with and I think we even had an outgoing tide, so we made it to Jenner (~7.5 miles from where we camped) by 10AM. So we almost went twice as fast the second day!
I see the town of Jenner – straight ahead!The end of our journey
All in all, it was a great trip! We of course got to see lots of green herons, great blue herons, snowy egrets, etc. The usual stuff. On the second morning, though, we got to see river otters!!!! A whole family of them. They were sooooo cute, eating little fish and things whilst frolicking about. When they saw the kayaks, they were super curious and adorable. As we got closer to the sea, we started seeing lots of seals and sea lions. We also got to see a vulture and a seagull negotiating over a giant dead fish. Lots of cool wildlife!
And then after finishing with the river, we played a round of minigolf at the Pee Wee Golf & Arcade.
Doc got his head stuck in the bars for this photo, so I admire his dedication
Doc, Jon, and I just got back from Camp Tipsy. We were up there since Thursday and it was very very hot – but it wasn’t so bad because it was a very dry heat (and also we had a lake to jump in).
“Applause”
Doc and Jon at Sunset“Queen Ladoga – it floats”Jon swimming up to the boatIt got so hot that my sleeping pad started expanding and started popping all its quilting, and now there’s permanently a huge weird blister on it so it is dead now and I need to buy a new one, but I had this for 10 years now so it is timeThere is apparently such a thing as a soft tick, and it looks like thisFire at sunset
