Good Morning All!
Happy Birthday to actor Woody Harrelson, who turns 58 today; to one of my very favorite singers, Alison Krauss of “Alison Krauss & Union Station” fame (who is originally from Decatur, Illinois, who is 48 today; to actor Daniel Radcliffe of “Harry Potter” fame, who turns 30 today; to actor-comedian Ronnie Cox of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame, who is 81 today; and to singer/songwriter John Hall of “Hall & Oates” fame, who turns 71 today! Here’s to all of you!
Here’s some more from my recent travels in Iceland…
July 5, 2019
We’re staying at a house that overlooks Flateyri, Iceland, a small fishing village located in a fjord not far from the Arctic Circle. The clouds sit on top of the mountains this morning. Somewhat surreal & breathtaking all at the same time. Lots of fishing boats heading out of the harbor at Flateyri this morning. A bit chilly with the wind blowing… Flateyri was once a whaling & shark hunting center in the late 18th and early 19th century. Fermented green shark is the national dish, however not many people try it, as it smells of ammonia…I think I’ll pass, given all of the wonderful seafood options one has here (i.e. fresh cod, haddock, etc.). This village is situated just below a high mountain ridge, that in 1996 had a major avalanche break loose and inundated part of the village, killing 20 people. There’s a memorial near the village church that honors the 20 people (men, women & children) who lost their lives in the avalanche. They now have an avalanche catchment system built above the town where the avalanche chute is located. It’s quite ingenious and hopefully will prevent a similar tragedy from happening again. In the center of the village is the oldest bookstore in Iceland, started in 1914 and operated now by the great-great grandson of the original owner. They say that this bookstore is the most remote bookstore in all the world. All the furnishing & decor are practically unchanged since the store was first opened. The bookstore offers new books and a whole host of second hand books that are sold by weight. I found a great book to purchase about the Arctic Fox entitled “Melrakki: The Icelandic Arctic Fox” by Philippe Garcia…it’s chock full of terrific pictures of the Arctic Fox in the wild (hard pictures to get, for sure!). The owner has an old weight system that he uses on a scale to weigh second hand books. It’s fun to buy a book there just to see how the owner weighs the book to determine its price. The merchant apartment of the founder of the bookstore and his wife is located just across the hall from the bookstore. They lived in the apartment from the year 1915 and nothing has changed in it since 1950. A must stop if you are ever near Flateyri…what a charming place this village is for all who visit!
I find it fascinating that only 1% of Iceland’s land mass is used for crops. Potatoes and rhubarb seem to be two of the only food crops that are grown here. Most vegetables have to be imported. The rest of the tillable land is used to grow hay to feed the numerous Icelandic horses that are all over Iceland. It’s amazing to see all of the Icelandic sheep as well! They are ALL OVER Iceland and are “free range”. I may have mentioned the Icelandic sheep before, but I can’t help talking about them again, since they can be seen wherever you may roam. They sure have thick wool, which is sold at a premium I’m told….something about the fact that Icelandic sheep wool provides the most warmth of any wool available in the world. There must be some type of GPS system tagged to their ears so that the farmers can keep track of where they are at any given time…they are quite the roamers!
July 6, 2019
Lots of birds out this morning…Iceland is a bird watchers paradise, for sure. There are lots and lots of “Common Eider” ducks that frequent the inlets in the fjord around Flateyri. They are a large diving duck which lives almost exclusively at sea or on the seashore. It is the most common Icelandic duck. I’ve seen an abundance of female eider ducks with their little ones. The females are brown in color. Their bills are rather short and thick, triangular in profile, yellow-green for males & grey for females. Both sexes have greyish-green legs and brown eyes. They are rather heavy in flight and fly straight, fast and low over waves. Cumbersome on takeoff, but excellent divers. They have a varied diet and search for food in the shallows. Mussels, bivalves, sea snails, bristleworms, starfish & crustaceans are food sources for them. When the capelin catch is on in the harbors, the eider feed on roe and other fish waste. They breed in colonies on islets or where the bird is protected in rivers and lakes up to 20 km from the sea. Their nests are open and lined with valuable eiderdown, which is used in sleeping bags, quilts, blankets. It is a major cash crop for Iceland. Their feathers are collected from their nests…They are never cold, even though they spend the whole year paddling in the seas around Iceland. This is because they were a down coat. Eider down is the best and most expensive down in the whole world. They are sociable, and love hanging around and shooting the breeze with other eiders. No bird in Iceland has made people as rich as the eider duck and so having eiders nesting on your land is considered quite a boon. The drakes faithfulness to his mate is short-lived. This doesn’t matter so much, however, because eider ducks put their trust in a welfare system in which duckling day care is a top priority. Attentive nannies and aunts are a dime a dozen and they look after the ducklings, even after the eider mamas have turned their attention to other things…(source: “Birds” by Hjorleifur Hjartarson & Ran Flygenring (2017))
Lots of sunshine and blue sky—no clouds—clear as a bell today. Many varieties of birds out today!
We decided to travel to the town of Isafjordur this morning to pick up some additional supplies. We did make a stop at the one and only COSTCO in Iceland in Reykjavik and bought most of our supplies (meat, fish, staples, etc.) as the prices there are quite a bit more reasonable than what you would pay in a local grocery store. We were able to feed 8 people for most of our trip on about $680 by utilizing COSTCO. There are some great restaurants in Iceland, but it’s rather expensive if you were to eat out most of the time. By renting AirBnBs and buying our food from COSTCO, we were able to save a substantial amount. In order to get to Isafjordur, which is located in the next fjord to the north of Flateyri, we had to go through an approximate 6km tunnel. It’s quite an engineering marvel, to say the least. It’s primarily a one-lane tunnel with turnouts provided all along the way. Vehicles going toward Isafjordur have the right of way in the tunnel and those vehicles going toward Flateyri are expected to use the turnouts when vehicles are approaching headed toward Isajordur. This particular tunnel even has a right turn in the middle of it where the tunnel goes off in another direction to a different destination, all under ground…how about that! It all works quite well, due in large measure to the fact that traffic is not heavy during the day…remember that these communities are rather isolated. Approximately 80% of Iceland’s population reside in and around Reykjavik, leaving the rest of the country sparsely populated (mostly farms and small fishing villages that dot the landscape). Tunnels are cool and Iceland does a great job with their tunnel system. One of the other reasons we visited Isafjordur is that it has the only ATM within miles of where we were staying. The Icelandic currency is the Kronos and approximately 112 Kronos equates to $1 U.S.. It’s always good to have some local currency available if and when the need arises, however most places in Iceland accept VISA, MasterCard, etc..
More about Iceland in my next blog…
I came across the 1969 Topps Football Card for John Hadl, former San Diego Charger quarterback great. He was born in 1940 in Lawrence, Kansas and attended high school in Lawrence. He played professional football for 16 seasons, which is quite an accomplishment! He was an All-Star four times and was selected to two Pro Bowls. He played college football at the University of Kansas. and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994. He played on offense and defense at the University of Kansas and then played quarterback for his last two years there. He was selected as the school’s Player of the Century. He received All-American honors in 1960 & 1961 as a quarterback and halfback. He also excelled as a defensive back, punt returner and punter…WOW! He led the country with a 45.6-yard punting average in 1959, which is really remarkable in and of itself. Most punters would die for that type of average now (some 60 years later!). He was the American Football League’s (AFL’s) leading passer in 1965 & 1968. His Chargers teammate & pass receiver, Lance Alworth, was the first AFL player to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hadl was part of a trade between the Los Angeles Rams and the Green Bay Packers that is considered one of the worst trades in NFL history. The Packers gave the Rams their 1st, 2nd & 3rd round draft picks for 1975 and their 1st & 2nd round picks for 1976 to obtain Hadl, who was nearing the end of his career and did not do well with the Packers, due to a number of reasons. The trade caused irreparable harm to Hadl’s legacy and hastened a two-decade fall from glory for the Packer franchise. Despite his tenure with Green Bay Hadl finished his career with a starting record of 82-76-9. He was the last regular staring quarterback to wear a uniform number greater than #19 before the NFL adopted a rigid uniform numbering system in 1973. Upon his retirement from professional football, Hadl went back to Kansas ans served as quarterback coach and later offensive coordinator. As the offensive coordinator, he was implicated in a scandal revolving around providing improper benefits to Kansas recruits in the early 1980s, which resulted in the NCAA imposing sanctions on the football program. Hadl consistently denied any wrongdoing and his career with Kansas athletics has not yielded any suggestion of rules violations. However, he was forced to serve a three year probation period with no coaching duties at Kansas. He moved on to become an assistant coach with Los Angeles Rams and then later with the Denver Broncos, where he mentored John Elway. He later became a head coach in the United States Football League (Los Angeles Express) but had little success there. He would later call this decision a “career blunder.” He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas and serves as Associate Athletic Director there and is credited with convincing basketball coach Bill Self to take the Kansas head coaching job. He is also responsible for a substantial increase in contributions to the Kansas Athletic Department. I’ll always remember watching John Hadl connect with his awesome wide receiver, Lance Alworth. They made many spectacular plays for the San Diego Chargers!
Here’s the silly question for the day:
Q: Why did the cows return to the marijuana field?
A: It was the pot calling the cattle back.
Here are some thoughts for the day:
“I’ve got seven kids. The three words you hear most around my house are “hello”, “goodbye” and “I’m pregnant.”
—Dean Martin, singer-comedian (1917-1995)
“I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”
—Liam Neeson, Irish actor of “Star Wars”, “Commuter” & “Rob Roy” movie fame
“Holdin’ hands at midnight, ‘neath a starry sky
Nice work if you can get it…And you can get it if you try.
Strollin’ with the one girl, singin’ sigh after sigh
Nice work if you can get it…And you can get it if you try.
Just imagine someone, waiting at the cottage door
Where two hearts become one…Who could ask for anything more?…
…Loving one who loves you, and then takin’ that vow
Nice work if you can get it…And if you get it, won’t you tell me how?”
—George & Ira Gershwin, “Nice Work If You Can Get It”
“In heaven the whole man is to drink joy from the Fountain of Joy.”
—C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” as quoted in “C.S. Lewis’ Little Book of Wisdom” (2018)
Here’s to a great Tuesday and lots of love always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, etc.)