Dinosaur Bear

A Blog about Stuff and Things

Happy Thanksgiving! – 2021

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Hello there!

Bet you didn’t expect to hear from yours truly, did you? Yes, yes it’s been quite some time since I last posted and there was part of me that was beginning to think Dinosaur Bear would be dormant for all of 2021. Yet here we are – alive and (mostly) well! There’s been so many changes since we last met, it’s hard to even think about going over them all, so I won’t, at least not right now. 🙂 Rather I just wanted to wish all of my hundreds of thousands of dedicated readers – or maybe 3, not sure – a very happy Thanksgiving. Rather than bemoan some of my recent life events as I am admittedly wont to do I am instead going to share something from my life I am thankful for: Bubba Joe. Yes, you read that right “Bubba Joe.”

Bubba Joe was a chicken, I guess more specifically a rooster. Due to growing up next to a rabbit and near dogs Bubba Joe was of the mind that he was, in fact, a rabbit dog and not a chicken. This resulted in some very, ehm “not-chicken” like behaviors that even my great grandmother (who had seen many a chicken in her long farm-based life) got a kick out of. Yes, if there ever was a rooster king then it was probably Bubba Joe. Bubba Joe was so lovingly stupid that he probably had no idea just how good his life was. In all my life I have had two pets which I would consider to be most meaningful to me, a dalmatian who lived so long that he was basically an eldritch being as far as dalmatians go, and then Bubba Joe. Sadly Bubba Joe passed away sooner than I would have liked, but if there was ever a rooster who was in touch with his inner T-Rex, it was Bubba Joe. A lovable idiot.

Here is a photo of Bubba Joe, taken on October 5th, 2006 – back when I had an old flip phone with a bad camera (even by 2006 standards), but he is looking big and proud, like he usually was (unless he got to far away from the house then got scared and came high-stepping back in a real hurry).

So that’s just a quirky little thing I am thankful for: a rooster I had a decade and a half ago but who I still think about fairly regularly.

Until next time,
-Taco

Spring Blurbs [1] – Sand, Snow, Scotch, and Pig

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Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear!

It’s been a bit since last time, so as usual there’s been a lot happening around the ole’ Taco household since then. As such I feel like we have some catching up to do! I’ll be doing that very thing via a series of “Spring Blurbs” posts where I briefly(ish) recap some of the adventure and silliness we’ve been up to. Right now I have three such posts planned, but that number isn’t set in stone. With that said, let’s get started!

First up, spring has bought with it sand, a lot of sand.


This is not my photo – but it is where I live and that’s what happened.

We’ve never lived someplace with sandstorms before and I can’t say it’s something super fun and exciting. Of course we also had a small amount of late snow to go with our sand – something which made Valentino quite happy.


Mixed in between the sand and the snow has been some cloudy days with a bit of rain – not that the cacti seem to mind very much.


Though on the whole we’ve definitely had more sand than snow or rain. On the plus side sunsets with sandstorms can be pretty in their own special way.


But, we still are fortunate to deal more with sunny days than we do with cloudy ones – though the spring days have been very windy (even on the sunny days), thus the sandstorms. Lawrence hasn’t been too pleased with the wind as it tends to blow away his acorns, but he has still managed to continue amassing his collection regardless.


It’s actually much bigger now than it was when that picture was taken.

He isn’t the only one hording things though, as yours truly recently went through yet another round of beer bottle cap organization. The big bunch toward the top of the photo are all unique caps, not a single repeated cap. The pile below is being processed, while the bag with Xs on it is duplicates.


Spring also brought with it jolly ole’ Saint Patrick’s Day, which not only reminded us of Ireland, but also allowed us to expand on our waffle tradition by making them (sort of) green.


There was, of course, also green beer – both of which were Irish, but we didn’t even try to color the Guinness as that would have been a waste of coloring. 😛


One big surprise was the arrival of my own handmade guitar! This was the “mystery box” from the end of the last post and I’ve now been given clearance to reveal the contents.


My grandfather used to make instruments and I had wanted one for a long time. I thought one was getting made for me, but then sort of forgot about it as that was many moons ago – however, as soon as the big box showed up I had an idea what it was! The reason for the initial secrecy was because Daryl 1 was also getting one, so I had to hold off until his surprise was also revealed (since, you know, anything posted on Dinosaur Bear gets read and disseminated by millions of people). Of course I have no idea how to play a guitar and aside from ensuring it was in a good shape (after the case had somehow locked itself mid-transit) I haven’t done much with it, but now I have a guitar to learn with should I choose to!

But back to the topic of spring, it does come much earlier here. Little flower blooms started popping up during the time period where I’m still used to seeing snow on the ground.


Plus the trees really started turning green early (that little tree on the left is now much greener than it was when that photo was taken).


With the awoken trees have come reinvigorated bird friends. We have some quails that live near us that bring us great joy (and are friends with Felicia) and another pair of smaller birdies has built a nest in a tree near us. I love having little baby bird cheeps outside, so I’m excited about that. The one thing that has been a problem with that is that one of the birdies is stealing our window screen for the nest. 😀


I had to end up taping a big chunk of the screen as they really worked on it while we were traveling (that trip will be covered next post) but I’ve since scared them away enough that they seem to have given up on our screen and are instead “eating” a big hole in our neighbor’s screen, lol. Either way, it looks like they recently finished the nest, so here’s hoping for some baby birds soon!

Another thing that was finished here was SB and I’s long run of Adventure Time.


We’ve been watching the series since 2013 (the series itself started in 2010) and so it feels kind of weird to not have it there to watch anymore. SB and I really liked the series and I really can’t recommend it enough. I might write more about it at some point, but for the purposes of this post I just wanted to share that we’d completed it and also to post our stack of DVDs as that is the only series will still purchased physical media for.

Switching gears to the “manly” beverage of choice for Tristen: scotch.


Tristen and I have continued our scotch exploration – to mostly positive results. The scotch above, Laphroaig 10, was our first really peaty scotch (described by some as “drinking a campfire”) but it also made us landed gentry. Yes, Tristen and I now own land in on the Isle of Islay, Scotland. Sure, it’s only one square foot, but it’s still land. Bow before us you peasants. Aside from the Laphoraig 10, we’ve been working through quite a variety of bottles. This is my most recent line-up, listed with the first one I tried on the left, and newest on the right.


I realized after writing the draft for the post that this photo is actually missing my newest addition: The Balvenie 12, as that was acquired after this picture was taken. So here’s a photo of that as well.


An intellectual scotch-drinking “manries” man needs some good literature, so I’ve also started working my way through Inferno (or as I usually hear it referred, “Dante’s Inferno”). I had quickly read the first part (Inferno) of Comedia when I was younger, but I only read the base poem with no commentary and plus I was younger and more stupid. So now I’m re-reading it along with commentary and with a more finely tuned eye.


I’ll try share more thoughts on it once I’ve completed it, but so far I’m very much enjoying the read.

Finally, to close out the post, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the fact that spring brought us Pig’s 4th birthday! Yes, our quintessential “spring baby” – Pig turned 4 this year. We started off his birthday with some incense overload, and I do mean overload.


Looking at Pig’s face I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t a “special” kind of incense.

Later we had some McAllister’s (a birthday classic for us!) and Pig’s most-favorite dessert in the world: dirt pudding!


We ended his day with some Buddha beer, and I do mean Buddha beer – as in the bottle was Buddha.


While the beer itself was just average, the bottle was right up Pig’s alley and he seemed to really enjoy it (and since it’s Pig, he was also happy to share it – unlike some denizens of the Taco household 😛 ).

Anyways, that’s all I have for the first of these Spring Blurbs. Be sure to look for at least two more blurbs – these a bit more focused on adventure! – in the coming weeks.

Until next time,
-Taco

Giving Thanks (2018)

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Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear!

Another year, another opportunity to give thanks. This is SB and I’s first Thanksgiving since returning to the U.S., though we still celebrated it while abroad so it doesn’t feel especially different. What does feel different this year is the weather. If you’re new to Dinosaur Bear or have a short memory (Taco understands) then you may not know that SB and I recently(ish) moved to warmer environs. As such, rather than the weather we were used to in say, Iceland or Boston, we now have this.


Indeed, the transition over to deep Fall has not been something that was made immediately obvious by the weather itself. For example, on the day I write this the high for tomorrow is 70 degrees. As a result we’ve lost a good deal (but not all) of the visual cues we were previously used to as Fall creeps onward. So, without much change in weather, the decorations started to shift from pumpkins (Thomases):


To Christmas:


Note, however, the continued presence of Thomas Eggs.

In case you were curious, neither of those are our decorations. We lack the motivation to do much decorating – and besides our doorman (Lawrence) has very strict standards for the entryway.


Now, that is not to say that we’ve been entirely devoid of cooler, more Fall/Winter-like weather. Most nights are cold here, being a desert and all, and I know it’s gotten down into the 20s a couple of times at night. During the day we even had some snow – though I thoroughly stress the word some in that statement. Yeah, compared to our previous years, I don’t think we’re in for much if this is what it is going to look like on “snow days.”


You can see the tree featured in this post to the left.

Naturally that didn’t stop a certain polar bear from embracing the snow during the short period it was falling and before it nearly instantaneously melted.


Still, given SB and I’s tendency to break weather records when we move I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up having to put my foot in my mouth over those last few statements.

But aside from the changing seasons (if not weather) life was flowing pretty much as usual in the lead up to Thanksgiving 2018. We’re pretty settled in at this point, and have gotten used to our new acquisitions – namely Phil, who we can “cast” things to without having cable, as seen below during the primaries.


We’ve also continued to explore more of our new city with Felicia, with the Boys vying for the coveted shotgun seat during each outing.


“Exploring” also means getting exposed to new places to shop and get food, with the bulk of our current groceries coming from Albertsons.


Those big funny looking things are “jackfruit” and we recently tried it for the first time. It was interesting.

We’ve even revisited an old favorite, Papa Murphy’s, which we hadn’t had in probably 5 or 6 years after being obsessed with the place circa 2009/2010.


If you were wondering why the gap, it’s because there were no locations near us.

Needless to say exploration has extended to new beer, and while we initially stuck to the bigger stores we have recently added a local liquor store to our shopping list.


Interestingly enough, beer hasn’t been my major “adult beverage” focal point lately. Instead I’ve been doing more research into Scotch as it’s something I’d like to learn more about after some positive experience with it in Scotland. Sadly, even “newbie” Scotches tend to be above our price range, so for now I look and read and wait for SB to get me some for Christmas. 😛


A “less adult beverage” that I have recently returned to drinking is V8, particularly low-sodium V8 these days as the regular stuff might as well be a cylindrical piece of salt in a can. My Dad drank a lot of it when I was younger and so I have lots of memories of drinking it between my Budweiser-stealing escapades of yesteryear. What’s nice about V8 is that you can (literally) spice it up in a lot of different ways. A recent favorite of mine has been to combine some jalapeno sauce and garlic powder into the V8.


It’s just asking to have alcohol put in it, but I can’t shouldn’t drink alcohol all the time.

Beyond V8 we’ve continued to embrace actually being able to afford things again, with some Ben & Jerry‘s “pint slices” (i.e. sandwiches) and seasonal cereal offerings, such as Gingerbread Spice.


Lest you think everything we eat comes prepackaged, we can’t afford quite that much, so we also make roughly 6/7 of our meals. For instance, homemade seitan and mushroom tortilla pizza rather than Papa Murphy’s.


The 7th non-home meal is generally our Friday nights, which while we’ve drastically downgraded them over the past few years to nearly universal “stay-in” evenings, they still include something special we get from the store, etc. Another tradition that has cropped up several times over the years and which returned full swing in Iceland and now here is our “pancake/waffle” Sundays.


These involve yours truly making pancakes or waffles (depending on the mood) for the family – though recently I have been forced at claw-point to use nothing other than Kodiak Cake mix. 🙂 Seeing the cold brew coffee next to the waffle reminded me of something neat that happened with my coffee that day. When I poured the cold brew into the almond creamer it formed a really cool pattern that looked like a snow-covered patch of woods against the sky.


With the compression and my failure to adequately capture it (and I tried, many times – arguably more to do with me than the camera) you’ll likely have to just use your imagination and trust me. However, if you want to try to see it then look to the middle part of the class (where the coffee and cream are mixing) and imagine that as leafless trees in winter which are covered by snow. Then progress downward until you get to the snow covered ground (bottom of the glass). It was cool in person, no idea how it will translate to a compressed and size-reduced photo.

That same day we were also playing around with our phones a bit as they had recently received a camera update. I was quick to return to playing with my hamburger bro friend:


In addition I found a little Shiba Inu (or at least I think that is what it is) you can “drop” into the photo that will move around, etc.


I also started messing around with the light angles and found that the sun friend could work well in such conditions.


SB found some animated stickers you could add to photos. These are a bit more basic than the 3D animated objects I was playing with, but they are still neat.


Tristen is most definitely not sure he agrees.

The biggest aspect of the camera update was the release of the “Night Sight” mode for the phone. This was something I was pretty excited about, especially since even without a night mode my new phone was still scores better than my old one. Now that I’ve had a chance to play around with Night Sight mode, I have to say that I’m both impressed and ignorant all at once. I’m ignorant in that the focus mechanisms of Night Sight are still foreign to me.


I’m also still learning how to deal with direct light sources in a dark room.


But I’m also impressed by the phone’s ability to generate imagery even in the near complete absence of light. Take this photo for example:


While grainy and having the appearance of an early 2000s internet creepypasta, this photo was taken in our bathroom with no light. As in, I closed the door and there were no lights on. If I were to have posted this photo from my old phone (which I can’t do since I sold it) it would have just been a giant black rectangle on your screen. I realize that might seem like malarky, but there was truly no light in that photo – ok you got me, there’s almost always light, but I mean “no light” in the normal usage of the term. It was friggin’ dark and the camera still captured something. I was impressed, especially since this is a tiny camera in a phone.

Now, on a completely unrelated note our shower cleaner in that last photo made me thing of an oh so lovely experience I had before Thanksgiving: cleaning our dishwasher. Here I have to say that me and our dishwasher are quite familiar with each other. When we first moved in that thing was nasty. I’m talking food clogged in the vents, black stuff in the bottom, hairs (yes hairs) clinging to the inside of the door, you name it, it probably featured it. Honestly it looked like the thing had never been cleaned. It was weirdly in contrast to the other appliances which seemed very clean. The oven, for example, was probably the cleanest oven I’ve ever seen in an apartment. But this dishwasher, whew, it was filthy.

So I went about cleaning it with specific dishwasher cleaning agents, inspecific cleaning agents, cleaning agents that probably assured my eventual mutation into something nonhuman, and physical tools like a screwdriver. Yep, when you are taking a screwdriver to the crap inside your dishwasher you know you are leading the good life. Now, to its credit, I will say that despite being disgusting the dishwasher at least worked – unlike our refrigerator which died within two weeks (though to the landlord’s credit they replaced it with a new one the same day). Or, perhaps “work” is too strong of a word, the dishwasher “functioned” – I think that’s more accurate. It left loads of black stuff (more on that in a moment) and also it leaked. A lot. While I wasn’t about to ask the landlord to come clean the dishwasher (though it was filthy enough I probably should have) I was more than willing to make them come fix the leak.

Fortunately for them I generally try to repair/fix anything in my apartment up until the point it costs money. Sometimes SB’s gets a bit exasperated by my endeavors to fix things when we pay someone to do that for us, but I generally view such repairs as a learning opportunity for when I own my own things (as an example I haven’t paid anyone to fix anything electronic for me in 12 years). So, when the dishwasher started leaking and the refrigerator started to die, I did my own research and disassembly to try to at least figure out what the problem was, if not fix it. While I have a pretty good idea what the problem was with the fridge, I’ll never know as they took it and gave us a new one. The dishwasher, however, I figured out exactly what the issue was and thankfully the maintenance guy followed my suggestions (unlike the asshat at our place in Boston who was continuously ass-blasted about a mistake he made and took it out on me) and fixed it in less than 10 minutes. I’m not saying he needed me, I’m saying that I gave him info that took out the entire troubleshooting process and expedited things – and in the meantime I learned how to fix it myself if I ever own a dishwasher that breaks in the same manner. Further, when poking around under the dishwasher I learned that the entire thing was woefully off balance and probably had been since the day it was installed. So I fixed that with some basic tools and elbow-grease and now our dishwasher no longer sets lopsided in the cabinet (which was causing its own issues).

Anyways, way off track there. Though the dishwasher had been repetitively cleaned, had its leak fixed, and had been balanced, it was still leaving small bits of black stuff which looked suspiciously like mold or mildew. Having cleaned underneath the thing and having had it apart for various stages of deep cleaning, I knew that there was one more place left to clean – the drain. Now you’re probably wondering why I waited so long to clean the drain when it’s generally one of the first things recommended. Honestly I was hoping to avoid it because the drain cover used non-standard screws and I knew it would be a pain in the ass to get off, and, sure enough, it was. And…

..sweet merciful God almighty the drain was one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen.


Not only did it smell rancid, some of that.. “waste” was so old it had turned into freaking titanium and chemically forged itself into the plastic cover. This, coupled with the food from the 1920s stuck in the upper vent, all but confirmed by presumption that the dishwasher had simply never been cleaned. It took me 45 minutes to clean that. I used Lime Away, vinegar, toilet cleaner (yes I know how bad that stuff is, but when your dishwasher looks like the aftermath of Passchendaele then you’ll understand), and things like good ole’ soap and hot water and a knife. Yes, a freaking knife, because some of that stuff you could not scrub off: you had to engage it in mortal combat because it was alive.


Anyways, after nearly an hour of struggle and near-death experiences I was finally able to start a cleaning cycle on the dishwasher. We only use it about 1 or 2 times per week, but when new strains of typhus are growing in there and plague doctors are gathering outside your house you need to deal with it.

Now, having shared that lovely bit of imagery, that seems like the perfect time to segue into Thanksgiving and food! 😀

SB and I had decided to do Thanksgiving with just us and the Boys this year, so we had complete control over the menu – or so we thought! While were musing what to do for the main course, SB found out that her work gave out turkeys for Thanksgiving! She had been able to start just in time to sign up for one, so she did (not that Tristen would have accepted any other outcome). Turns out that this was a full 15lb turkey… for two people. 😛


One happy boi.

For reference that’s 3-3.5x the size of our usual birds. However, not a group to waste much of anything, we quickly began formulating our plan of attack on Turkey (while Tristen and Valentino gnawed on the frozen carcass). I decided that we’d go with slow cooking it in some beer!


Oddly enough the beer we had on hand was from the two breweries we visited in Ireland!

Since we had 4 big cans of Guinness that was the logical choice to cook with.. and drink. 🙂


Tristen claimed a can for himself as he assumed the “supervisor” position on the bar where he overlooked the toils of the filthy peasantry beneath him.


Valentino, for his part, was very anxious to help out with the homemade cranberry-plumb-ginger sauce!


Pig alternated between checking the yams (yam-yams for the ham-hams) in the oven and fiercely guarding the sweet potato rolls we’d gotten.


And I do mean fiercely guarding.


None shall pass.

To Tristen’s credit, he did join his brothers in assisting us, but mostly only when he thought he could sneak a bite of the “ricken” (turkey).


Tristen also kept SB company while we cast the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast (long after it was over, we were in no rush to wake up that day, lol) to Phil. The highlight of the parade for us is always Sinclair, (no not that Sinclair.. well, sort of that Sinclair, more like that Sinclair’s older sibling) and this year was no exception!


The turkey ended up taking about 45 minutes longer to cook than I had anticipated, which I think is excusable considering my lack of experience cooking anything more than 5lbs in the past. More importantly, it turned out really good.


The seasoning and Guinness worked really well together. It was a good centerpiece for our 2018 Thanksgiving meal.


Our dishes this year included: the aforementioned seasoned Guinness turkey, homemade cranberry-plumb-ginger sauce, sweet potato pecan puree, southwest style green beans (with, interestingly enough, vegan bacon and also some local green chile!), and sweet potato rolls.


For desert we had a pumpkin-pecan-cranberry pie. Yes, pumpkins, pecans, and cranberries – all in one pie (and the second of such amazing pumpkin pie variations in just one month).


Photo is a little blurry as I cropped it out of a larger one and compressed it, but I think you can see the deliciousness.

Our Thanksgiving evening also included a mini Adventure Time marathon – and with us any Adventure Time day is a good day. 🙂


Afterward, well… afterward I think this photo of Valentino and Pig is best indicator of how we all felt. 😀


But, as is usual for Thanksgiving, the pompousness was only just beginning. With only the tiniest of dents in our turkey, we went on to have leftovers for several days – and the turkey lasted even longer (it’s only like half gone as I type this). The first thing the turkey got turned into was a cheesy green chile turkey tortilla soup.


It was, in SB’s words “amazing” – which is saying something since it was also quite spicy and SB’s heat tolerance is much lower than mine. We turned the turkey skeleton/corpse and fatty-bits into a yummy broth which we will use for various other recipes, mostly recently maple-chile turkey chili. But yeah, the moral of story is that a 15lb turkey lasts us a long while.

In the days after Thanksgiving (Black Friday off, woo!) we largely just spent time together. SB did go out a bit on Black Friday, and then I went out for a bit when SB locked her keys in the car and I had to walk all the way to Target to bring her the spare keys. If you’re wondering why I didn’t take a Taxi/Uber/Lyft, well it was quitting time on Black Friday, that’s why – so there was a triple surge going on. On my walk (which was 15 miles) I was attacked by rattlesnakes, coyotes, and rabid roadrunners. When I finally arrived, haggard and near death, SB berated me for taking so long.

The plus side of SB’s outing is that she found some local sodas to try, so we tried two of those over the weekend.


But, aside from a massive (for us turkey), beer, wine, yummy food, Adventure Time, and 150 mile forced marches (for me, not SB – she got to just sit) our Thanksgiving and the following weekend was pretty uneventful, which is exactly how I like it!

So, with the story of our 2018 Thanksgiving told, I’d like to share a few things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for SB, Tristen, Valentino, Pig, Clifford, Pigsten, and Broli – as well as all the other buddies. I am thankful for all our plant friends – speaking of which the barley bros are doing very well.


I am thankful for Phil, for my Playstation, for my computer headset, my 12 year old iPod, my 13 year old slippers, and wool socks. I am thankful that I am no longer a law student. I am thankful I have people looking out for me in the legal profession (even if we don’t always see eye to eye). I am thankful for all my “Secondary Cast of Characters” family. I am thankful that I will soon have (non-terrible, though still not great, freedoms) insurance again. I am thankful for earplugs. I am thankful for the developers who made Red Dead Redemption 2. I am thankful that I did not go hungry on Thanksgiving or any other day. I am thankful we had a second key I could carry for 1500 miles across the desert to SB. I am thankful for Dr. Doom. I am thankful for reusable water bottles and for the fact that I have water easily accessible to me.

I am also incredibly thankful for all the animal friends in the world. To say that they are often the highlight of my day is no exaggeration.


I am especially thankful for Alfred – who made a late November appearance!

Except chiggers. Chiggers can die in fire. Also poison ivy plants, those too.

I am thankful for many things, far more than I can list here – but as a closing note I’d like to once again, say thanks to Meem for helping me start this blog (over 6 years ago) in the first place. Without her you’d all never be able to listen to me whine about things – and what a sad, sad world that would be. 😛

Until next time,
-Taco

Midwestern Pit Stop: Part II – Return of the Humidity

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Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear,

On the heels of my farewell to Iceland post I figured that it would make the most sense to talk about what happened after said farewell. Well, after a year of all that grandeur and exploration SB and I did what any self-respecting person would do and became unemployed and moved back in with our parents (lol). But seriously, that’s what we did. Now, in fairness to us it wasn’t an extended stay and as I write this we are back out into the world on our own and are slightly less unemployed. However, in the immediate transition back to Murka’ we not only returned to our hometown, we went straight back to the parents, though fortunately we did manage to avoid the whole “living in the basement” bit.

The good news is that our return to the US of A started off on the best of notes because we got to go to our all time favorite zoo.


Yes, we were so excited to see this zoo that we stopped there before we even saw most of the family (granted we’d been there just over a month prior, but still). SB and I have a long and storied history with this particular zoo and we were oh-so-excited to have the chance to visit. For the most part it was exactly as we remembered it, though they had made a few changes and expansions over the interim years – although nothing too substantial. The good thing about the zoo is that it is small, and since it hadn’t changed much I still knew exactly where everything would be! While I like the entire zoo, I generally used to start with the wallaby walk-through, so that’s what I did this time too.


I also stopped through the barn to say hello to “Prince Charming” the llama.


He was sporting a nice, “freshly trimmed” look and seemed to be in good spirits. SB and Prince Charming have had tumultuous relationship in the past, though they seemed to be on good terms this time around. One of the best parts of the zoo is the petting zoo area, where you are sure to be swarmed by “kids” (the good kind of kids, as in, the non-human ones) and their mommas!


We also checked out all the other exhibits, as I am very methodical in how I circumnavigate this zoo. 🙂

Of course while the zoo was fun, it didn’t change the fact that we were loaded down with suitcases and backpacks and needed to get down to FIL and MIL’s house to not only sort our belongings from Iceland, but also the belongings we’d left behind before moving to Iceland. We’d partially done that prior to leaving, back during our first Midwestern Pitstop, but we had been very time-crunched then (and quite honestly mentally overloaded) so we revisited things again. Now that process took a long time, but we managed to schlep off a lot of stuff we didn’t need all while only adding a couple of a new things (mostly things from Meem, who was moving to The Golden State right about the same time we got back). While going through literally everything you own with a fine-tooth comb and getting rid of things your monkey brain tries so desperately to convince you that you still need is emotionally – and sometimes physically – difficult, it is also a good opportunity to simply revisit what you actually possess. For example, I got to recap some of my most favorite beers from Iceland, so favorite in fact that I bothered to transport the bottles 3,100 miles.


Similarly, Pigsten got to categorize some of our older rocks and seashells – some of which date to unknown periods in my old childhood and thus far predate Pigsten’s New Mexico/Colorado arrival.


Pigsten showcasing his secret shrine, which is of course in a top secret location.

Pigsten and Broli also got to meet some “new” (to them) pint-sized friends, such as the now ubiquitous “Little Man” who soon embarked on his own cross-country adventure with Meem as well as a few tiny Dino pals!


In fact, the Boys made quite a few new friends while we were home. For instance, as parting of the “cleaning out” phase I gathered up all my Nutcrackers and cleaned them up. The Boys were pretty excited to meet all of them.


We also uncovered some friends who had been in hibernation for a bit, including SB’s squirrel slippers – Sebastien & Serendipity!


These two squirrels date from way back in SB and I’s relationship and they were one of the earliest stuffed animal friends we adopted! In addition to our plushie friends, we also got to catch back up with our plant friends: Little Friend, Bonsai Buddy Jr., and the Three Amigos (Pancho, Nacho, and Quixote).


Now you’ll probably notice that Little Friend looks very short and ehm… very bad in that photo (here is when he was last on the blog), that’s because he is well, dead. Yeah, it brings me legitimate sadness to share that Little Friend died while we were abroad in Iceland. Having since had a chance to exam him and his roots, I believe he was kept in too cold of an area, went dormant, and was subsequently over-watered and died of root rot, the accounting of the way he died also supports this hypothesis. This made SB and I very sad as Little Friend is the oldest of all our plant buddies and even predates Tristen by 4 years. He was purchased by my Dad and Stepmom as an apartment warming present for SB and I over a decade ago. He had been our “Christmas Cactus” ever since he was just a little bitty guy.


He eventually grew to the point that he was nearly 7″ tall, and then got trimmed, and then grew again, only to be trimmed again. He was a hardy fellow, and didn’t always have an easy life, what with being repeatedly trimmed and even caught in a moving truck door once. But he was ever present. Thus, the absence of Little Friend – despite him “only” being a plant – is a big absence in SB and I’s life.

So, as is likely unsurprising, SB and I held a “funeral” for him at my Dad’s farm, where we buried him in a ceremony where all of his own little friends were present. Little Friend, ever the prankster/poker, even got the apparent last laugh as I got poison ivy while finding a suitable spot for him.


We even put up a little marker for him.

Yet not all is lost. If you’ve read the blog for a good while, you’ll remember that Little Friend once spawned himself into smaller Little Friends. Most of those spawns are still alive and kicking, so, a piece of one such spawn (in particular BIL’s) was replanted to begin a new Little Friend for us.


As you can see he is still quite small, and has no “branches,” but he is alive, well, and growing. Further, while it is a “new” Little Friend, this one is genetically the same plant as “old” Little Friend, thus we’ve decided not to rename him and just keep him as Little Friend, as it’s really just an off-shoot of original Little Friend. So, while we are a bit sad that we didn’t get to keep the core, original Little Friend, we are also happy that we have a part of him to start anew with (plus this smaller version of him was way easier to move).

The Boys took Little Friend’s death a bit hard, but it helped that their good friend Floppsy was there to keep them company through the hard times.


The Boys were already a bit on-edge from the move (Tristen especially always struggles with moves), and Pig was really missing Bónus.. as you can see.


However, we did keep not only that empty oat biscuit box (lol) but also all of our Bónus reusable shopping bags, not that Pig would have let us get rid of them anyways. 🙂 In fact its kind of funny that despite getting rid of a lot of stuff, we kept an empty biscuit box, haha. But we did still get rid of, donate, or sell a lot of our things regardless. This ranged from kitchen items we just didn’t need anymore, to books, to sleeping bags from the 1980s (seriously), and even some of SB’s old dresses, such as the one she wore to our reception!


I also passed on an item that may or may not have been used in some criminal pursuits to Daryl 1. 😛


As mentioned though, we weren’t the only ones getting ready for a big transition – Meem was getting ready to move herself. A lot of the first week or two we were home was spent helping Meem wrap things up, and, as anyone who has moved after so long will tell you – you’re probably going to need/want help. Meem was fortunate to have lots of said help, and before too long she was all packed up for her own trip westward (via Route 66 no less!). She was not alone though, for in addition to the aforementioned Little Man and dino bros, Sinclair and Mr. Bear were there to help her navigate!


Meem was understandably struggling a bit, not just because of the move, but because she was selling her house. I think selling a home is usually an emotional thing, but Meem had special circumstances with “House” that I think made it even more difficult. House was a nice house, a good house, and most importantly, our house. While I think I’ve been “gone” long enough to not have a super close bond with House, it is very weird to think of Meem and House as two separate things now. As of this posting, I am pretty sure House has been sold, or at the very least is in the closing process. That’s an odd thought, to not be able to go back to House anymore – at least without being arrested. Interestingly enough, after Meem left SB and I had a few more things we needed to do at House, so we were actually there after Meem had begun her journey. That felt even more weird, having House without a Meem in it, but I think it also helped me say goodbye in my own way.


After taking care of a last few things over the next few days, we took the few items Meem was nice enough to give us (and there was more I would have taken had we had space, lol) and closed the door for the last time. Before we left I turned and took one last photo.


Saying goodbye to “House.”

I think part of why I didn’t super struggle to say goodbye to House is because “Home” is where the Meem is, and Meem was no longer there. “House” was, as said, a happy place – but it was just a place. The memories made there will follow us, and that place will, in time, be replaced by a new one. It is the people who make the home, not the structure.

After Meem was on her way and House was ready to enter the market we returned to our own moving/life endeavors. Some of which were critically important (housing, etc.) and others were more of a side-quest, such as repairing my old Lego Sopwith Camel (the 3451 version, not the newer 10226 variant) that I’d had since 2001.


Before getting stored at MIL & FIL’s while we were in Iceland it had sat in Meem’s garage for over a decade and had not only accumulated a lot of dust, the stickers had dry-rotted. Meem and her Google-fu found someone in Australia just as we left for Iceland who had the stickers and ordered them for me, and then the rest was just a lot of cleaning (from soap to lighter fluid) and gluing. I ended up gluing the base frame of the plane because in the year it had been at MIL & FIL’s it got broke into several pieces (it was a fragile thing) and so I was tired of having to rebuild the thing. Some pieces were much easier to fix and glue than others.


Eventually though I got her all fixed up and looking good as new! Pigsten and Broli were the first to test her out.


I then realized that I had no place for the plane, so it now resides in my Dad’s garage, where it will proceed to regain all its dust – but where it will be piloted by none other than Snoopy himself!

The Sopwith Camel wasn’t the only thing that got fixed up as (aside from Little Friend) we cleaned up and repotted our other plant buddies as well. We started with the Three Amigos who had definitely outgrown their second pot.


I had to wear two pairs of gloves at the same time because a certain someone *cough* Quixote *couch* is a little arsehole and will poke the ever-loving Hades out of you.


We put them in a much larger pot – especially compared to their original pot from my Dad which was tiny and square.


That should hold them for awhile. Next up was an offshoot of Quixote that MIL wanted for herself (God save her), he was – as to be expected – displeased with me moving him out of his red solo cup despite his new home being so much nicer.


I think he ended up looking quite nice, for the little arse he is.


We’ll call him Quixote Dos. After that was Bonsai Buddy Jr., who was desperately in need of a new pot as he had never been repotted at all since he came to live with us after his Padre died in the Great Gnat War of 13′.


Bonsai Buddy Jr. was just a little bit root-bound.


But, we gave him the TLC he so needed and even helped clean up and declutter his roots for him.


He looks very nice in his new, much larger, pot. In fact all the repotted plants look much better and happier now!


If you were wondering where Pig was during all of this – since he tends to want to eat the plants (especially our Icelandic plants) – he was inside. We kept him there for everyone’s safety. Turns out Pig got pretty fascinated by a Preying Mantis and didn’t care much about what we were doing anyways.


In other plant news, while Little Friend’s original self had died, we did get newborns!


They’ve actually grown quite a bit since that photo (and yes the one on the right is there, just still very small in that photo!) but those are two bonafide barley plants! Not only that, they are Guinness barley plants, all the way from St. James’s Gate in Dublin. We had been holding onto three barley seeds (shhhhh) since we visited the brewery way back in December of last year, and I had grabbed them mostly as a novelty thing as we proceeded through the tour (you could hold/smell the seeds at one point and I ehm.. took three). I took one for myself, my Dad, and FIL. I never expected them to grow and honestly hadn’t even thought of it, but sure enough as soon as I gave one to my Dad he planted it and by God it grew! So the next day I planted mine, and then later (after it was temporarily lost and almost vacuumed – but thankfully SB found it) I planted FIL’s as well. The two you see above are mine (left) and FIL’s (right). So yes, we now have three Guinness barley plants growing, you never know what you’ll encounter on Dinosaur Bear it would seem! I’ll share more about the progress of the “Barley Bros” in a later post.

In addition to all the moving craziness we did have some nice down-time with the family, such as many a beer nights with FIL or a few “cabin days” with my Dad, Stepmom, and Daryl 2 down at the river.


While my hometown is, well, incredibly small – it’s also big enough that you can still “get away” from it and go to much more relaxing places. My Dad happens to have a cabin in such a place, so we spent a couple afternoons and evenings out there, doing, you know, Midwest stuff like dousing tennis balls in lighter fluid and catching them on fire.


I am sure this is how my fellow Harvard alumni spend their weekends.

But, more than anything, we just chilled and relaxed. It was a nice getaway from all the moving-related stress and uncertainty.


We also got to see all of our core family on Labor Day, which was really nice. MIL and FIL just recently pompified their house, so its very nice for gatherings now. I made a “S’Mores Cake” for which I followed absolutely zero recipes or guidance.


Yet it still turned out really, really good – their words, not mine (but I think it was good too!). Plus it was totally calorie free, always a plus.


After Labor Day it wasn’t too much longer before SB and I headed to the nearest city of any size and picked up a vehicle which is probably quite familiar to you if you’ve followed this blog for a bit: The Penske.


For each of our substantial domestic moves we have relied on Penske trucks – and have had absolutely no issues and highly recommend them. Our first truck was Lillian (Lily for short), our second was Lucy, and the truck above, our third, was Lucinda. Lucinda was the “oldest” of our three Penske trucks, and she was a bit of a wild stallion. I’ll cover our adventure with Lucinda more in the next post.

For now, that brings us to the substantive end of our second Midwestern Pitstop. It was good to see the family, good to get some things done, and even better to finally gather all our belongings up (as I am sure MIL & FIL also appreciate since we had dumped it all on them 😛 ). We did not like things such as the humidity, the stress of having no idea what was next, and also the humidity – BUT it was still a great pit stop between two big stages of our life and we are very thankful we had a place to stay during that time. 🙂

Plus, despite our time well, really all over the place, we are still Midwesterners at heart – and while we don’t live there anymore, there is always something special about coming home.


Until next time,
-Taco

A Snæfellsnes Easter

by

Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear!

Regarding the title, you might find yourself wondering, “What the heck is a Snæfellsnes?” – well, the answer will come in due time, as many things do on Dinosaur Bear. If you follow the blog you’ll likely have noticed that the frequency of my posting as slowed to about once or twice per month-ish. Once a month might not seem like much, but blogging – especially posts of my typical length – is time consuming (go start your own blog and you will see 🙂 ). Thus each post kind of becomes a “recap” of things since the last post. This time will be no different, though I do have a fun bit of adventure to add into the mix this time around. The last offering from Dinosaur Bear was a Greenland Adventure, which was kind of self-contained. So, the last normal check-in was for the month of February. This post unsurprisingly will cover March through the beginning of April (including Pig’s 3rd birthday!), so let’s get started!

I had mentioned in a previous post about the sheer volume of beer I had accumulated. Well, here is an aftermath photo.

If you have a keen eye you’ll notice that there’s a few unopened beers in there. Those are actually the start of the second beer wave, which has since been exhausted and I’m now on the third beer wave of 2018. Sure, the near-beers are still my staple, but I have had a pretty consistent supply of real beer since 2018 began, which is nice. In addition to beer, we also picked up a second bottle of Brennivín which we opened on St. Patrick’s Day.


St. Patrick’s Day isn’t much of a thing in Iceland, at least not from what we could tell, so beyond the required alcohol we relied on Tristen’s constant greenness and some humus to achieve our green quotas. Indeed, St. Patrick’s day is grossly overshadowed by Easter, which is a thing – a big thing – in Iceland. Heck they were rolling out Easter stuff long before Easter, including the Easter version of Malt og Appelsín.


That said, we didn’t necessarily spend the entire month drinking beverages of the alcoholic persuasion, there was also a fair amount of tea in the mix – at least when Pig wasn’t raiding it.


March also brought the quintessential March Madness with it, though it’s unsurprisingly not too hot of a topic in Iceland and I didn’t even make a bracket this year. Tristen, however, would be perturbed if I didn’t also mention that he (and SB – but per Tristen, mostly just him) did make a bracket and won their pool!


Speaking of making things, Pigsten has been oh so hard at work on his construction site. They’ve progressed to the pouring concrete phases (when they aren’t blaring dance music that is).


They’ve closed the street outside of our apartment a few times a result, but when you don’t have a car such things are not much of a concern. 🙂

As I’ve mentioned before, the construction site generally doesn’t bother us too much. Yes it can be loud, but we’ve dealt with most of it in stride. There was a recent bout of them listening to music ridiculously loud that finally led to us complaining, but outside of that it’s not been that big of a deal to live next to one. The only real downside is that they installed a bunch of floodlights several months ago which all but killed our ability to see the northern lights, but we had several really good displays before that plus we got to see them in Greenland, so I can’t complain too much. The Boys seem largely unfazed by all the construction (obviously Pigsten is fine with it) but they are pretty chill creatures anyways. The Boys have also gotten quite popular in their own social media spheres, and have even been exchanging letters and treats with other “plushies” online. It’s kind of funny, but I’m pretty sure the Boys have several-fold more friends than I do. 😛


Pig opening a box of goodies they won in one of their friend’s contests!

Of course in addition to the drinking, the pen-pals, and the construction-watching there are more mundane bits of life. For instance I recently did some laundry – a task normally left to the care of SB as quite simply I may be the worst clothes-folder in existence – and had to decipher this:


SB later told me that the screen displays English, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the screen to display anything, let alone English. 🙂

Oh, and for some reason that reminds me of another (sad) thing, my tube of Vaseline Lip Therapy finally ran out. Yes, on March 27th my glorious tube-friend, who had been with me since 2008, ran out. So prolific was this tube’s existence that I even featured it in one of my “Odd Things” posts way back on July 4, 2016.


So, sadly, it wasn’t actually infinite but woo doggies, did it last a long time!

Aside from all that jazz, school has been “meh” lately. I think I’ll just skip over all the law school stuff this time and maybe do a more focused school post here in a month or so once classes are actually done. There is still a lot up in the air with my thesis (including some ongoing frustrations with the administration) and I have plenty to write about in this post aside from school, so we’ll just leave school at the periphery for now.

On a much more exciting front, we recently had our Easter Break at Háskóli Íslands. It’s basically the “Spring Break,” but it’s just focused around Easter rather than at some random point in March. Aside from the name, it’s basically a Spring Break in every other aspect. The only tricky  bit as that since Easter is such a big thing in Iceland that a lot of stuff is closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday. SB and I decided to make use of our Easter Break and took a two-day trip up to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, which was one of the “Big Four” trips we had wanted to do in Iceland (the others being the completed Westfjords and Golden Circle, and the to-be-completed Ring Road). SB had a friend visiting who also accompanied us on the trip.

We did the usual thing, where we pick up the car – this time named “Baldur” – the day before so we could do some shopping (as we are normally restricted to walking everywhere) and also so we could get on the road early the next time. Naturally this plan always results in alcoholic acquisitions, and this time was no exception.


Meet 2018 Beer Wave Three.

I also found some Bitafiskur, or “fish jerky” on sale for the first time. I’d be wanting to try it for awhile but it’s generally quite expensive.


Admittedly it was still expensive, but less-so. I liked it, but it was very, VERY fishy. Like, if you find the smell of fish or fishy areas, to be even slightly off-putting then I am not sure you’d like this. However, paired with some good beer it was very tasty. Pigsten also approved, and Valentino approved so much he nearly went feral (which is a common occurrence with Valentino and fish).

One thing we did slightly differently this time is that we also took a bit of a side-trip on the day before. SB’s friend wanted to do a hot spring well they were here and logistically the best one was the (in)famous Bláa lónið, or Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is located in the middle of a lava field near Grindavík, south of Reykjavík. We decided to head south a bit early in order to explore some of the area, most notably the coastline in Reykjanesbær.


We found this spot while looking for the “Giantess Cave” which we ended up finding but didn’t have enough time to walk out to. We did however find the fishing vessel “Baldur” which then served as our car’s namesake.


After a brief walk along the coast we headed to the Blue Lagoon.


When I say it’s “in the middle of a lava field,” I really mean it. Even the walk up to the facilities looks pretty stark.


Now the lagoon itself is much more picturesque – though I didn’t get any photos of it because I intentionally left my phone in my locker. So here’s a photo quickly acquired from Google which is absolutely not my own, though it does give you an idea of what the lagoon itself looks like.


The Blue Lagoon is an extremely popular destination in Iceland, and based on what I’ve read may in fact be the most popular attraction in Iceland. SB and I had sort of tossed around the idea of going, but as it’s (stupidly) expensive and we’d need a car to get to it we hadn’t gone before. However SB’s friend was interested and it logistically made sense, so we went. The verdict? Totally not worth it and wildly overrated – which in fairness was precisely what Icelanders had told us to expect. First, it’s very crowded. Now, the lagoon itself is really big so once you get through the facility itself the waters are decently spacious – but the process of getting there is akin to being a sardine. Second, it’s – as mentioned – stupidly overpriced (even for Iceland). Third, it’s not even a real hot springs, it’s a man-made lagoon fed with water from a geothermal power plant (yes, seriously). Now obviously it’s completely safe, I’m not disparaging it on that third note – nor does the Blue Lagoon try to hide it’s origins – I’m just saying it’s not an actual hot spring. Fourth, it’s actually not that warm in large portions of the lagoon. In fact, there was only one area where it actually felt hot – the rest was lukewarm or outright cold.

All in all, the (actual) hot spring we visited with Meem was far warmer, far cheaper, far less crowded, and just all around far better. If you want to do the Blue Lagoon for the sake of saying you’ve done the Blue Lagoon, then by all means go for it. But it is probably the most overrated thing I’ve done in Iceland the entire time we’ve lived here. I mean was it a bad experience? No, not at all. But I can think of far better ways to spend your time and money.

However, as mentioned, that was all just a side trip. The real trip started the next day, which was when we set off for Snæfellsnes Peninsula. So, to get back to the earlier question of “What the heck is a Snæfellsnes?” – well, the answer is in the name – it’s a peninsula! Here’s a handy map with the peninsula circled for reference.


As it was part of our “Big Four” we’d been wanting to go to Snæfellsnes for awhile, and it just so happened that a 2 day trip during Easter Break was the best way to do it. So, with some unexpected (but very welcome!) sunshine we headed north out of Reykjavík towards the Hvalfjörður Tunnel on a route I’m now quite familiar with driving.


It was a pretty glorious day insofar as the weather was concerned.


Our route entered new territory when we veered off towards Snæfellsnes itself – having passed our glacier turnoff and turning instead of continuing on toward the first part of our Westfjords route.


Snæfellsnes Peninusula is known for its extensive mountain ranges, and it didn’t take us long to get into them.


Our first dedicated stop was the Gerðuberg Basalt Columns, which were exactly what they sound like.


They were situated in the middle of a vast field, surrounding by some farms and a church – very Icelandic in other words.


They were also oddly reminiscent of the rocks at Giant’s Causeway, which was cool. After checking out Gerðuberg we continued along the peninsula for a bit before stopping in Hellnar for lunch at Primus Kaffi where we had some coffee, delicious soup (mushroom for me, lamb for SB), and bread. We also enjoyed an incredibly scenic view.


After lunch we proceeded just down the coast to the Lóndrangar Basalt Cliffs, which feature a massive dual formation (75 [246′] and 61 [200′] meters tall) that looks astoundingly like a man-made castle.


If you see the two tower formations, the legend goes that they were a married troll couple who started arguing (as couples do) in the middle of the night (remember that trolls turn to stone in daylight, so they come out at night). However, the couple got so caught up in their bickering that they stayed out too long and didn’t notice the sun rising. By the time they noticed it was too late and they turned into the stone towers you see above! The moral of the story of course is that husbands and wives shouldn’t argue so much, but that’s kind of like telling the sky not to be blue. 🙂

Not content to just look at the formation from afar, I hiked down the muddy cliff with SB in tow to get a closer look. While the above photo might not make it seem far, that’s actually a pretty good clip across that flat area.


The hike out was worth it though, as there weren’t many people and you got a better sense of the formation’s scale.


Pigsten – ever the lover of rocks – was also a fan and insisted on climbing all over the place.


Once we made it back to Baldur we continued a short bit down the road to the Gestastofa Visitor Center, which is the visitor “hub” for Snæfellsjökull National Park (which we were in). Which I suppose is a good time to mention the giant thaat had been looming in the background at most of our previous destinations: Snæfellsjökull.


Snæfellsjökull is a 700,000 year old, 1,446 m (4,744 ft) tall, glacier-topped volcano located near the tip of Snæfellsnes. You can see it from very, very far away. In fact we’d see it at least 3 or 4 times before, despite never having actually be on Snæfellsnes itself. Snæfellsjökull is worth mentioning not only because it’s so prominent, but also because it has a pretty cool spot in literary history. If you are a well read person with an acute memory, you may already know the significance of Snæfellsjökull – but if not, have no fear, I didn’t either and so I’ll explain.

I’m sure you’ve heard of (if not read) Jule Verne’s 1846 literary classic, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Snæfellsjökull just so happens to be the location where the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth. So if you’re looking for a way to travel to the center of the Earth, it’s in Iceland, and it’s in a volcano. Have fun!

However, much to Tristen’s dismay we were neither equipped nor willing to make such an adventure, so rather than head for Snæfellsjökull we continued along the more placid coastline to the Malarrif Lighthouse (SB and I have a thing for lighthouses).


Once we’d romped around the lighthouse a bit we continued along the road (which, when there is only one road is not a complicated task) to the iconic Djúpalónssandur Beach and Dritvík Cove.


Djúpalónssandur or “Black Lava Pearl Beach” is home to not only a beautiful rocky beach, but also the ruins of a several fishing huts (the bay/cove was once a major a fishing hub) as well as the remnants of a 1948 shipwreck.  Getting down to Djúpalónssandur is a bit of a walk over uneven/muddy ground, but nothing too strenuous.


Once you’ve walked down to sea level you pass several of the ruined huts. Some are pretty easy to miss, though others are more obvious.


Shortly after that you start coming into the wreckage of the British trawler Epine (GY7), which wrecked nearby on March 13, 1948 – resulting in the loss of 14 of the 19 crew despite rescue efforts.


The wreckage extends over a pretty vast area, probably due to 70 years of tidal flow.


Pigsten is hidden somewhere in this photo.

The whole beach is quite rocky and the coastline itself is full of jagged outcroppings. Pigsten was, needless to say, quite a fan.


Iceland was being especially gracious with the weather considering that it was March, which made for some great seaside-strolling sunshine.


Disaster almost struck at one point though, as Pigsten’s rock curiosity took him to the water’s edge.


Pigsten moments before the near-calamity.

A wave took the water much further up the beach than it had previously been, and Pigsten was nearly consumed by the current which would have been “TKO Pigsten” for sure. Fortunately I saw it coming and rescued Pigsten, at the cost of getting my feet and lower legs soaked, which of course didn’t try for the rest of the entire day (fun stuff with Raynaud’s) – but Pigsten was obviously worth it.

After Pigsten’s near death experience we made our way back up the beach towards the car. Here’s a nice view of Snæfellsjökull towering in the background.


On the way back up we passed the “Lifting Stones.” The Lifting Stones consist of Fullsterkur (“full strength”) weighing 154 kg [340lb], Hálfsterkur (“half strength”) at 100 kg [22olb], Hálfdrættingur (“weakling”) at 54 kg [119lb] and Amlóði (“Useless”) at 23 kg [51lb]. They were traditionally used to qualify men for work on fishing boats from Dritvík, with the Hálfdrættingur being the minimum weight a man would have to lift onto a ledge at hip-height to qualify.


As I’d recently hurt my neck in some unknown way, I opted not to try to pick any of them up. As such, I’ll go down as being incapable of lifting even Amlóði (“Useless”) as I didn’t try. However, my guess is that I’d have been able to pick up Hálfdrættingur making me a bonafide “weakling” and there would have been no chance in hell of me lifting either Hálfsterkur or Fullsterkur. Pigsten however, went straight for Fullsterkur.


After we made our way back up to Baldur we headed to our next destination, Vatnshellir Cave, which just so happens to be a volcano cave. Cool.. er.. hot? stuff.


If your curious about the word above the cave entrance, that’s “Undirheimar” which is Icelandic for “The Underworlds.”

Vatnshellir Cave isn’t something you can just waltz into for both safety and preservation reasons. So we had booked in advance in order to get the student rate, which turned out to be a good idea anyways since the tour was sold out. Vatnshellir Cave is an 8000 year old lava tube created by a volcanic eruption from a nearby crater in the Purkhólar field. It’s also in the shadow of Snæfellsjökull, leading to a copious amount of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” jokes, delivered in classical dry Icelandic style.

You progress down into the cave via a spiral staircase, which brings you into the dark and very wet entry corridor (the only area of the cave with moss – due to the entrance).


From there the tour takes you about 200m [656′] into the cave and about 35m [115′] underground. Along the way you descend down a second, taller, staircase.


The only light comes from your flashlight and the guide’s much-brighter flashlight (seen above). At one point everyone is asked to shut off their lights and to not talk, that was really, really cool. It’s one of few the times in my life I’ve experienced absolute darkness. With your flashlights on you can see some semi-bio-luminescent bacteria growing on some parts of the cave ceiling – the only life in the whole place aside from the moss around the entrance.

The cave also houses a slightly more mythical resident, a troll which turned to stone (due to the flashlights?).


While this photo doesn’t capture the whole “face” you can easily spot the mouth in the middle of the shot.

It’s somewhat difficult to see from just that photo, but in person there is a clearly discernible massive troll face located on the side of the cave. In fact there is quite a bit of mythology tied to the cave, which makes sense if you consider its potential effect on those who stumble across it unknowingly. But, if slightly less mythological formations are more of your thing, the cave also features loads of volcanic stalactites and stalagmites as well.


Oh and if you were wondering whether or not a certain baby dinosaur made the “journey to the center of the Earth” with us, then you needn’t wonder and longer.


So we’ve now had the pleasure of being in both a volcanic cave and a glacial cave. So while some aspects of this life adventure (namely my program’s administration) have been woefully lackluster, other things, such as these adventures, have been totally awesome.

After returning to the surface slightly more wet than when we had descended, we then made our way to Saxhóll Crater.


Hiking up the side of the crater.

Saxhóll was the second crater we’ve visited in Iceland (the first was Kerið) – and unlike Kerið Saxhóll has no lake in its center. However, what it lacks in aquatic offerings, Saxhóll more than makes up for in the fact that due to it’s location and the fact you have to hike up to the top of it, you get some incredible views.


Pigsten overlooking the center of the crater, with Snæfellsjökull in the back ground (as nearly always on Snaefellsnes).

You get both lava fields, mountains, and ocean – all in one sweeping view.


Pigsten was quick to climb up on the sundial, which is sort of a tradition for him these days.


After some time at the extremely windy top of Saxhóll we headed back down to Baldur and continued our trip around the peninsula. Our next stop was the town of Grundarfjörður where we would be staying for the night. We did make one unplanned stop along the way though, as we found a very scenic spot to take in the ocean and some mountains.


As we neared Grundarfjörður some clouds rolled in, but they were pretty much nothing by Icelandic standards and there was no rain – so our good weather streak continued.


Once we’d checked into our hotel we headed to the store and got some food. March is still early in the season here so a lot of places aren’t open (many don’t open until May or even June) and the few places that were open were very expensive (read: over $30 for a single personal pan pizza or over $120 for a whole pizza) so we just opted for store food. Pigsten and I had a hamburger and like the rebels we are didn’t even heat it up. “Manries” as Tristen would say.


After that we headed back to the hotel where we chilled for the rest of the evening. One side of the hotel had awesome coastal views:


The other side, which was of course our side, had views of… a construction site – which comically was operated by the same company as the one right across from our apartment.


The next morning we had breakfast and then briefly checked out Grundarfjörður’s harbor.


Grundarfjörður is definitely a fishing town, and in fact I’d say at least 80% of the people in the store and gas station looked to be fishers getting off work in advance of the holiday weekend. After we’d checked out the harbor we slightly backtracked to the Kirkjufellsfoss (waterfall) and Kirkjufell (mountain) which turned out to be just right outside of (and visible from) town.


The above shot is taken from above Kirkjufellsfoss looking toward Kirkjufell. I don’t know if its true, but I was told that Kirkjufell is the most photographed mountain in Iceland. I can see why, it has a very iconic look to it, especially with the waterfall so close by.  It was also one of the many Icelandic filming locations for Game of Thrones, so if you are a GoT fan you might already recognize it from Seasons 6 and 7.

This next shot is a more straight-on shot of Kirkjufellsfoss, so Kirkjufell would be directly(ish) behind you in this photo.


After that we continued onward, this time in search of a bit of Icelandic history straight out of the Sagas. Our destination, the four-thousand year old Berserkjahraun lava fields featured in the Icelandic Eyrbyggja-Saga.


Part of Berserkjahraun… at least we think.

In particular, we were looking for “Berserkjagata” which requires a small bit of story time:

According to the saga [Eyrbyggja-Saga] a farmer brought two berserkers from Sweden. He later gave the berserkers to his brother, Víga-Styr, who lived on the other side of the lava field. One of the Swedes fell in love with Víga-Styr’s daughter and asked for her hand in marriage. Víga-Styr made a deal with the berserker, he could have his daughter’s hand if the two Swedes could clear a path through the lava field, connecting Víga-Styr’s farm to his brother’s. A feat which was considered impossible – but the berserkers managed to complete the path quite quickly. Instead of keeping his promise, Víga-Styr had the two Swedes killed and buried them near the path. [Taco’s Note: What an asshole]

Four landmarks from the saga can be found in Berserkjahraun. Those are Berserkjagata, the path itself, Berserkjadys, where the two Berserkers are supposed to be buried, landamerkjagarður, a boundary fence and fjárrétt, a sheep den.

We were looking for Berserkjagata so we could hike the path made by the two bersekers, however we couldn’t end up finding it (I blame SB as she was the navigator 😛 ) though we did end up in the general area of Berserkjahraun, which was confirmed when SB went into the Shark Museum located in the super small town of Bjarnarhöfn and asked the owner. The end result was that we didn’t find either the path or the burial site (Berserkjadys – which is the cairn along said path), and I don’t think we even knew about the significance of the boundary fence or sheep den so we might have seen those and not even realized it. I was, to be honest, a bit bummed. On one hand I wanted to do the hike as we’d done a lot of driving and driving is hard on my shins (though comically if I don’t drive I almost always get carsick, fun choice that). So the thought of moving around sounded good. There was also the history-loving side of me that was also disappointed. However I don’t really have anyone but myself to blame, as I should have checked SB’s itinerary a little bit in order to make sure we actually knew where the path was (FYI: do not rely solely on Google to get you there, it will take you waaaay off route).

However, in typical Iceland fashion, there was certainly scenery to make up for our lack of ability to find Berserkjagata – most notably the small Bjarnarhöfn Church.


The church grounds enjoy sweeping views of the bay, lava fields, and distant mountains. I also captured a picture of Baldur that is so good I think I might need to try to sell it to Hyundai for advertising purposes. 😛


Here’s a shot from just below the church grounds, looking back towards Bjarnarhöfn (which gives you an idea of just how small the town is).


After some time there we got back on the road and we continued on to Stykkishólmur, with the first stop being the cliffs of Súgandisey Island. Súgandisey was previously completely detached from Stykkishólmur and the mainland and was used for sheep grazing. However the island was eventually attached to the mainland in order to expand and improve Stykkishólmur’s harbor – and was then converted over to a nature area. Now you can drive out to the base of the cliffs and then hike up to were the little lighthouse is for some really good views. The Boys were of course rebels and ignored the “DANGER Do not Climb the Cliffs” signs.


We humans took the safer path up to the top and walked around the island a bit.


There was one outcropping that was very well situated for scenic photos, and based on the wear in the grass you can tell it is quite popular for exactly that.


The cliffs on Súgandisey also give you good views of Stykkishólmur itself.


After we spent some time up top we headed back down the stairs, which coincidentally are right next to one of the ferry docks.


We then headed back out of town as we made our way to our next stop, the “wishing” or “holy” Helgafell Mountain (which, speaking of the sagas, also appears in one). The base of the mountain is pretty grassy (and thus muddy) but as you make your way towards the top it becomes very rocky.


It’s not really a difficult climb, but with the mud and the rocks there are lots of places to slip and or get the ole’ ankle roll. Once at the top there are some ruins and a sundial, and well you know how Pigsten loves his sundials.


Here’s a shot from the top looking east:


And here’s a shot looking roughly southwest:


And here’s a shot with the Boys 😀


They “climbed” the mountain with me, which is to say they got carried to the top in a Bónus bag. :p

After we headed down from Helgafell we hit the road again. Our next spot was supposed to be the Landbrotalaug Hot Pots (which are an actual natural hot spring) but we ended up not stopping, which was also a bummer since I was looking forward to sticking my legs in there (assuming they weren’t full, the Landbrotalaug Hot Pots are also quite small). So we ended up making our way back to Reykjavik instead. It was a fun road trip with Baldur, and even if it was relatively “short” for us I still clocked in around 560 km [348 miles] of driving.

After that it was mostly just normal life for me, though SB and her friend spent some time out and about in Reykjavik. The next exciting thing was Easter Sunday. Now, unlike Christmas, I didn’t do much research into Icelandic Easter traditions, but one tradition is almost impossible to miss if you frequent, well, pretty much any grocery store in the entire country for the whole month preceding Easter. What is this tradition you might ask? Well, it’s the Icelandic Chocolate Easter Egg!


If you were wondering, “Gleðilega páska” means “Happy Easter” in Icelandic.

These chocolate eggs are essentially ubiquitous with Easter time in Iceland, and SB and I first noticed them starting to appear by the pallet-full over a month ago in Bónus. I’ve been told that the smaller eggs tend to show up first, with the larger and larger eggs appearing as Easter nears. I don’t know if that’s true (and I honestly wasn’t tracking chocolate egg size) but it’s kind of cool if so.


The eggs come in a load of varieties, ranging from the traditional Icelandic milk chocolate, to dark chocolate, to licorice (yes, seriously, see here), to caramel, to sea salt, to crisp/crunch. The eggs also range in size from “2” to a whopping “10” – with higher numbers meaning a larger egg. The eggs also prominently feature a happy little Easter bird on top, as well as possible candy decorations, and then a non-edible flower. The real fun though, is that the eggs also contain goodies inside them, and obviously the larger the egg, the more goodies one will find. The goodies generally include all sorts of candy and an Icelandic proverb. My proverb, poorly translated via Google, was something about sharks and stomach ulcers – but after employing the help of an Icelander we found out that it meant I was as strong as a shark, or resilient, or something like that – nothing to do with stomach ulcers.

We ended up getting 3 eggs. One came as a gift from SB’s employer, we also got a crisp/crunch one, and then one with a dinosaur candy on it (for obvious reasons). The sizes were 4, 4, and 2 respectively.


Valentino being.. well.. Valentino.

The above photo should give you an idea of just how big the size “10” eggs are, as those size “4” eggs are pretty big in and of themselves and they are less than half the size of a “10.” As you dig in, if you don’t want to just outright smash your egg, they also feature chocolate “plugs” on the back that allow you access to the goodies within, a design which was exploited by Pigsten and Broli.


Us being the silly folks we are, we not only kept our little Easter Birds, we also named them (from left to right): Brewster, Peep, and Squirt!


My jar of beer bottle caps behind them reminded me, Easter not only brings chocolate eggs to Iceland, it also brings lots of Páska (Easter) beer.


Here are a few examples of “Easter Beer.”

That there is an Easter beer shouldn’t be surprising given the seasonal prevalence of Christmas beer, and I am always willing to try new kinds of beer! For the most part the Easter beers I’ve had have been pretty good, and who doesn’t love a good beer to go with your giant chocolate egg?

All in all it was a pretty good Easter, especially since Iceland was being surprisingly kind insofar as the weather is concerned. I even got in a nice walk up the coast near where we live over Easter weekend, something I’d been meaning to do for awhile.


Of course, Iceland being Iceland played a nice April Fool’s joke on us (which was massive déjà vu moment as this same thing had happened in Boston – twice) and brought in some April 1st snow.


However, in fairness I have to admit that the actually snowfall only lasted about 2 days and now we are back to better weather (if not colder, as the snow is still around on the ground) and we’ve even enjoyed a few subsequent days of blue skies.

Other than that, things got back to normal fairly quickly. SB’s friend went home, and while SB and I had a couple days together before the break ended, classes started back up before we knew it and things quickly returned to a routine. We’re actually really near the end of classes (but not the semester – oh no, that is going to drag on for over another month due to exams, and don’t even get me started on my impossible thesis timeline). However, one really fun thing that did happen in spite of classes resuming was Pig’s 3rd Birthday! 😀

Yes, 3 years ago Pig came to live with us on Easter Day, and since Easter changes each year Pig’s birthday has never fallen on Easter since – but that’s still the day he was adopted, and thus Pig’s birthday generally falls shortly after Easter! In the past we’ve always let Pig indulge in some dirt pudding. However this year we had to change up the ingredients a little bit due to availability, but we ended up with something pretty yummy despite the recipe change. Since Pig loves him some veggies (and grubs and worms, but still very much veggies) we also got him some vegetarian mozzarella burgers, some chili beans, some bean chips, and some hummus! I combined the burgers and beans for some veggie “chili burgers” and then we had the bean chips and hummus as a side. It turned out really well.


Pig had already dug into the hummus before we could even take the first photo.

The perfect follow up to our burgers was some modified dirt pudding, which, while not exactly dirt pudding was equally as good in everyone’s opinion!


“Dirt pudding” featuring gummy “grubs” and another Pig favorite: oat biscuits.

Since we couldn’t find gummy worms, we substituted some other smaller gummies in as “grubs” which are pretty much Pig’s major food staple. Pig also picked out a beer to share with me, which was also significant in that it was my 500th variety of beer on Untappd (not beer, variety of beer)!


My actual beer variety count is much higher, but I’ve never imported my beer list into Untappd (and the beer list was itself never comprehensive), but it’s still an exciting number as it’s the point that you transition from “Master” to “Legend.” That said, the badges go all the way up to 10,000 varieties… so uh, yeah.

The next day we used more of the chili beans and paired them with some beet-dogs, which are pretty much exactly what they sound like!


Pig Approved.™

Anyways, that’s all for now. This post nicely covered all of March and up until Pig’s birthday in April. I already sort of have the next two posts conceptualized in my mind. I’m not sure when they’ll drop, but probably not until sometime in May. The next one will likely have more of a school focus as after May 8th I’ll be done with classes and be well… somewhere… with my thesis. So if me complaining about school floats your boat, then you’ll probably end up liking next post! If not, then have no fear as the post after that should – with any luck – be another adventure (literally).

So, as a parting gift, enjoy this photo of a construction worker on a concrete hovercraft.


Until next time,
-Taco

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