VACILLATING

SNAEFELLSNES PENINSULA, WEST ICELAND

We drive far west to Snaefellsjökull volcano, past lava deserts, lofty waterfalls, sorrel fields of shaggy ponies, and lone farmsteads with their own churchyards. Do we press our flimsy two-wheeler up the rugged mountain road to the glacier? The prospect seems more irreverent or reckless than daring. Given the glacier’s iconic stature in Laxness, Verne and the Sagas. And its unprecedented melting. We vacillate, as glacier-fit Arctic Trucks© rigged with nitrogen-bloated tires roll by.

When a flotilla of lenticular clouds blow in over the volcano, we turn around. Though who knows in what direction we ought to face the winds of change.