Double rainbow on St. Lawrence, 1993

 

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe looks at a charm I got from a little girl in Iceland, November 9, 1992, Helen Hosmer Concert Hall, SUNY, Potsdam, NY. 

Iceland

Harbour with Coast Guard ship, October 1992. I think this is the Óðinn, (Odin) , which took part in the Cod Wars against British trawlers. The Icelanders resented it being called a gunboat, as it only had a 57mm Hotchkiss gun at the time (very old!), replaced by a more modern 40mm Bofors when this photo was taken.

 

Kristín Jóhannesdóttir was one of two film directors I met in Iceland. She was promoting her film Svo á jörðu sem á himni (On Earth as in Heaven) at a booth in the Kolaportið flea market. Right next to a guy selling Hákarl (fermented shark). I think she might have been Miss World Iceland in 1972.

Geysir (Gusher in Icelandic) is where the word geyser comes from.

Eruption

Hot water pool - a reminder to stay on the marked trails around thermal springs as the pools can form thin crusts of mineral on their surface that look like solid rock - one Japanese film director fell in and had to be taken to hospital badly scalded.

This was an attraction in a geothermal area - it was a Garden of Eden themed greenhouse that had bananas and coffee plants grown, kept warm by the earth - they also baked bread in a hole in the ground heated by the heat of the earth. 

More conventional stained glass in a church

Gullfoss Falls

Kerið, a large crater that was thought to be a exploded caldera but now is consider to have been a magma pocket that cooled and the roof collapsed.

Some Icelandic graffiti. in Reykjavik. Group whitewashed a wall for them.

Making haggis 

Me not really enthusiastic about trying it

Tectonic plates divide in the rift valley - the left side is North American, the right European.

Sun goes down

 Jóhann Sigmarsson and Björk (not that one). I met three Björks, One of the was the singer, but this one isn't. Sigmarsson directed the film Veggfóður. 

Parking lot under construction - Iceland gets its hot watar and generates electricity from thermal springs. This parking lot will be heated from the pipes that will be buried under it. There are also flower beds on the sidewalk that are kept warm with hot water so they are still in bloom in October.

Rain falling from clouds in Reykjavik

Wearing pacifiers was a big craze among girls in 1992 - vendors at markets would have tables full of them. One little girl, also named (Drifa) Björk in Selfoss, another town in Iceland, gave me one that I'm showing to Arthur Ashe here: https://markbellis.blogspot.com/1992/11/arthur-ashe.html

Swedish lady in Blue Lagoon near Keflavik Airport - this is where a geothermal electricity plant is - that's just steam coming out of the chimneys. The water is warm enough to swim in year round and there's silica mud on the bottom that's supposed to be good for your skin.

Looking down on a basalt lava flow. The plain is quite rugged even though it's level and it took us about half an hour to cover 500m, since we were jumping over little stream and avoid gaps in the hard rock that could have twisted our ankles.

The Swedish lady and I rented a car and made tour of the area - rainbows are very common in Iceland as the sun is low and it rains almost every day. I managed to run over a lava block and cut the gas return which caused the car to loose gasoline. The Swedish lady said "I smell petrol".  "Maybe it's jet fuel a plane dumped in an emergency landing?" I suggested. "Jet fuel doesn't smell like that" she said. Damn, I thought, how did she know that? We stopped at a gas station and the attendant managed to plug it with a screw and we made it back to Reykjavik.

Geraldine Ferraro, first female candidate for US Vice-president

First female US vice-presidential candidate from a major party. Nice enough to pose for my Mamiya C220 in Massena, New York in 1992.

 Anti abortion protesters

I don't have my notes for this, but I think she was campaigning for Clinton - I don't think she said anything about abortion here, but the demonstrators were picketing her anyway.