Just look at the video he brought home with him. He wondered if he should stick it in the Adventure post. No. This IS the adventure post. Back from The Top of the World is a story all its own. I’m sure he’ll tell it in his own time.
Something caused Lady Laird yesterday to reference “Et in Arcadia…?” And for a humble fellow like myself it was but a moment’s work to shout: “Ego!”
The translation is, “Even in Arcadia, there am I.” Where Lake has been, Arcadia being a classical synonym for paradise. (At least until he watches the Icelandic cinematic wonder called The Sea.)
But I have to say a serious word about this. People tend to think you have to seek out adventure. Not true. The ones who keep their heads down, work their asses off, and try to be the best at whatever discipline often seem to have adventures thrust upon them. Life finds the living. Please believe this.
Everything mysterious will be revealed in time. Most important, though, is that until it is, you just have to give every ounce of your ability to whatever it is you’re doing.
A friend sent me this picture of a dog sold for more than a million dollars.
What a lug.
My wife observed that Tibetan mastiffs make Raebert look dainty.
No, they don’t. Raebert is anything but dainty. He just makes Tibetan mastiffs look fat, dumb, and stupid.
Nobody can carry the whole weight of the world. I worry about the Boss. But I can carry it. For now.
And Lake makes the silver spoon millennials look silly and pointless.
Back indeed, and I have to say that I’m glad to be home. An intense head cold hit me on the final couple of days, probably due to swimming in the geothermal pools while it was snowing out. But no cold could stop me, stop us, from enjoying and living every moment of this magical trip.
This wasn’t one that we’d planned for years, though we’d been thinking about it. No, we saw the rather schmaltzy Life of Walter Mitty movie on New Year’s Eve, and it featured quite a bit of Iceland. It got us dreaming again, and we looked at each other, wondering if now was the time. Our boys are 4 and 6, just getting into good traveling ages, and this was to be their first trip of any kind apart from driving through New England, NJ, and PA.
You can pay a tour company to drive you around or you can do the research and book all of your stops. We mixed the two by researching all of the best sites (as seen in the video) and working with a tour group to find lodging for each day on a ‘self drive’ tour. We drove a big Pathfinder through every kind of weather and every kind of road, even some off roading to get to one of our remote bunkhouses.
We found exactly what we were looking for: the confluence of volcanoes, the sea, glaciers, waterfalls, and skies lit up with the aurora. We fled the small city of Reykjavik almost immediately and headed north and west into the fjords. Then we swept the entire southern coast for almost a week. For hours at a time, we were the only vehicle on the road, and it was perfectly remote and perfectly beautiful, eye-popping scenes and features around every corner. Dangerous, too. Mrs. Lake said our GPS was trying to kill us as it drove us down a mountainous road with hundred foot dropoffs in a windy snowstorm. Yet we made it off the mountain in time to soak in the natural hot springs, the mist so thick that you couldn’t see the edges of the lagoon.
Not only did we go to these places, I lugged a big old case with the quadcopter from site to site, sending it aloft to get views that *nobody* can get. I had a few close calls, but the aircraft handled beautifully, even in the windiest of conditions. Every night, we were able to relive the experience from a new angle as we downloaded the latest raw files and spliced them into the video. We wanted to share all of this with my sons’ school, our family, and all of you, those who seek adventure.
Sometimes we ate well, sometimes we lived off of scraps and leftovers from the back of the car. Sometimes we froze in a one room cabin, sometimes we were treated to a luxury apartment. Sometimes the weather nearly killed us, but just when it needed to be, we got perfect skies to view the lights and see the glaciers. We swam in small town hot pools and soaked in what they call ‘hot pots’, often garnering sidelong European glances. We saw a crazy concert in a crazy venue, featuring Bjork, Of Monsters and Men, and Patti Smith. We forged an incredible family memory and lived to show and tell the tale.
When we had our kids, we wondered if our far-flung travel days were over. Now I feel like we’re just getting started.
Gotta admit, that sounds amazing. Far better use of time, energy & money than waiting in the endless lines down in Orlando. Glad you made it back safely.
Haven’t watched the video yet. I’m going to surprise the missus with it tonight. Then I’ll tell her, “I know the guy that filmed this.” and she’ll be impressed. So thanks in advance for that 😉
Thanks Lake for sharing the spectacular video, and the story of the trip. Inspiring. And thanks RL, just in general.
Gorgeous, gorgeous video, Lake! What a fantastic adventure.
I love the look of glacier-fed rivers. They don’t look like normal water… They’re special. They’ve been trapped as ice for thousands and thousands of years, at last free. Like liquid time.
Thanks for sharing. That was light-years beyond most peoples’ “vacation photos”…
I just threw that vid up on the big screen for my wife. I’ll play it for the boys tomorrow. Brilliant!
Lady Laird and I watched it on the big screen too. Stunningly beautiful and has anyone mentioned the editing and music? Should be a Youtube phenomenon if you all get to work… Cough.
I somehow missed this post and the video but I will correct for that by watching it many times over upcoming days. Your film is breathtakingly beautiful, Lake; the sense of isolation is profound. Thank you for letting us experience it with you. What an experience for your boys. They’re young but I’ll bet they’ll never forget it.