I think it’s probably fair to say that, if you like to take photos, the number you bring back from a vacation reflects how much you liked the place you visited.
Twenty shots?? Boring!
400? What a great place!
2,172? No, that’s not a typo. That’s how many photos I took during a 10-day trip last September driving around Iceland.
Now, yes, they were digital, so it wasn’t like I had to buy and pay for processing for 60 rolls of film. (In fact, I told my wife, Bonnie, I saved more than $800 that way as a result of wisely spending $1,500 for a digital camera. I may have to buy more equipment to save even more money on our next trip.)
But, back to Iceland. Yeah, it was spectacular.
It has volcanoes. It has glaciers. It has fiords. It has . . . oh, hold on . . . I can’t tell you all that. You’ll have to wait till my Iceland story comes out sometime this spring.
And you’ll have to wait to hear about the World’s Longest Yard Sale. That’s a 450-mile stretch of road from Kentucky, through Tennessee, a smidgen of Georgia and into Alabama that every August tries to prove the adage that “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”
We drove a piece of that route this past year. It’s not Iceland, but I have 156 photos.
There was also a spring trip for a return to the amazing red rock country of southern Utah, by way of Las Vegas. The two destinations rated 403 shutter clicks on Phil’s Photo Poll.
And, a year-end visit to the very old and very cool cities of Prague in the Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungary, added 1,068 photos. Read more on them later this month.
Thinking back on those trips, some highlights (and lowlights) come to mind:
Coolest experience (both literally and figuratively): Iceland’s southern coast fronts the North Atlantic and can claim bragging rights to some of the country’s most popular tourist sights. Jokulsarlon is one–a small lagoon right next to the Ring Road (Iceland’s main highway) that is filled with icebergs that have calved from the Breithamerkurjokull glacier. In season (just June-August) small boats take tourists among the bergs. But a more intimate experience lies just across the Ring Road. Icebergs flow from the lagoon, under the Ring Road bridge and into the ocean where, at low tide, many are stranded on the black sand beach. To walk among and touch these pieces of ancient ice can bring a shiver not at all related to their frigid state.
Best souvenir: Here in the Travel section we always bring back souvenirs of our trips for our co-workers–and the tackier, the better (the souvenirs, not the co-workers). That’s why I got so excited when browsing the shelves of the Bonanza Gift & Souvenir Shops in Vegas, which certainly could vie for the title of Tacky Town, U.S.A. While Elvis driver’s licenses and used playing cards from casinos were tempting, it was a no-brainer when I found the personalized condoms. Enjoy them, Bob, Al and Randy. I hope they’re the right size.
Best souvenir not bought: Sometimes I spend hours on the Internet, trying to find the cheapest airline seat. So I was surprised to find them at one stop in Kentucky on the World’s Longest Yard Sale. There they were–two airline seats for $50. What a deal!
Souvenir I’m most glad I didn’t buy: If you ever belonged to a record club back in the ’60s and ’70s, you probably are the proud owner of a stack of Mantovani, Ferrante & Teicher, and Herb Alpert LPs. Don’t still have them? That’s because one night when you were sleeping, elves came and took them away and left them at virtually every yard sale at the WLYS. (And they took your Big Mouth Billy Bass too.)
Been there, done that: Vegas. ‘Nuff said.
Most friendly animals: Icelandic horses should wear red blazers and work for the Icelandic Tourist Board. While sheep (which, by the way, outnumber people in that island country) would flee at the sight of us, every horse we came across would stop eating, stop sleeping, stop horsing around to run over and meet us when we stopped our car. We even had a small herd of loose horses that trotted over before we got out of the car and tried to stick their heads in the windows.
Most honest person: At a yard sale in Kentucky, a woman was telling a dealer that she’d driven back from a few miles down the road after she discovered that she’d paid him $5 for four old postcards but instead had five cards. With a grin, the dealer sent her on her way with her five cards.
Hidden gems I: The harsh desert country around Las Vegas will never win any beauty awards, but in the awards for rugged beauty, you have to head up the road only just a bit to Valley of Fire State Park. Fifteen miles off I-15, poking up out of the inhospitable desert are acres of out-of-this-world red-rock formations. They’re not weathered the same as some of the more famous red-rock arches and hoodoos of southern Utah. Instead, their pancaked layers can set your mind wandering, like when you were a kid looking at the clouds, picking out elephants and dragons among the weird shapes.
Hidden gems II: For the most part, it’s the national parks–Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion–that draw the tourists to southern Utah. But not far north of Zion is Cedar Breaks National Monument, whose colorful hoodoos give it the appearance of a mini-Bryce. And, being at 10,350 feet elevation, it’s a good place to get a break from the temps that can roast the lower-elevation parks.
My favorite airline employee: While boarding a Czech Airlines/Delta flight to Prague at JFK in New York, I was pleasantly flabbergasted to see a Delta gate agent actually tell passengers who were trying to board before their assigned row to sit down until it was their turn. Way to go!
A pizza the action: Why is it that in Iceland, a part of Europe, even though it might not seem that way, and, like the most of the world, using the metric system, pizza sizes are measured in inches? Just wondering.
That sinking feeling: Fancying myself a savvy traveler, I always put my coins, keys and other junk from my pockets into a plastic zip bag and throw it into my backpack just before going through airport security. As I was doing that at Iceland’s Keflavik International Airport, I stuck my hand in my pocket and discovered I hadn’t put my pocket knife into the bags we’d checked five minutes before. As my life flashed before my eyes, I decided to play dumb, a role I’ve often played to critical acclaim. I tossed the pack on the conveyor for the scanner and tiptoed through the metal detector. As my bag exited the scanner, a guard grabbed it. My God, I’m going to spend the rest of my life in an Icelandic dungeon, I thought. The guard opened the backpack, pulled out my plastic bag, removed my knife and turned to drop it into a clear plexiglass box containing similar objects from other “dumb” travelers. He handed the bag back without comment, and I slunk off.
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As an editor, Phil Marty is chained to a desk more than he’d like, though it’s less costly than constantly buying new pocket knives. His e-mail address is pamarty@tribune.com.
