My reason for enlisting in the Air Force was the chance to get out of a dead-end career as a toolmaker and to visit other countries. After basic training, I went to Maryland for technical training to become a machinist. This seemed arbitrary and redundant since I had gone through vocational training in high school and was an apprentice tool and die maker before enlisting. About half way through the program we got our assignments. My orders were for Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma. I tried to swap assignments with anybody who had orders overseas. The only person who would swap with me had orders to the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Iceland.
It was late fall and the days were already quite short as Keflavik is pretty close to the Arctic Circle. The Gulf Stream keeps the temperatures pretty moderate for as for north as Iceland is situated, however, the wind is always blowing and there are not a lot to buffer it. There were only two of us assigned to the machine shop -- me and my boss. About half way through my one year tour, he left on emergency leave and I was the only machinist on the island. It was tough because I was always on call, but I got a lot of recognition because of the critical nature of my job.
My roommate was Tom Misuraca. He had a car, so we got to get off base to see the sights. My favorite destination was the Blue Lagoon. It is a popular hot spring that is fed by runoff from a geothermal power plant. The water is sapphire blue because of the mineral content. The bottom has a thick layer of pure white "muck" that is a calcium mineral deposit. Another local favorite was Junk Beach. The Icelandic People hated the British so much that after World War II; they evicted the British military and bulldozed the entire base off a cliff nearby. You can still find aircraft parts, cartridges, and Quonset hut wreckage on the shore. We also went downtown to Reykjavik to visit the nightclubs a couple. The cost of booze in Iceland is prohibitive and you can expect to pay a lot to get drunk.
In the winter, we went skiing at Blafjoll, Iceland’s largest ski resort. The Morale Welfare and Recreation department on base was well equipped and the ski area is just 30 minutes away from Reykjavík. It has a large number of groomed pistes, which cater mainly for novice and intermediate skiers, with some advanced runs for the more experienced. You can hike up a ridge and ride on some pretty steep terrain. It is very stark and barren as there are no trees at all.
The guy across the hall from me in the dormitory was studying to get his private pilot license. He snuck me aboard one of his solo flights and we flew to Gullfoss for an afternoon. Gullfoss is a waterfall that you can walk right up to. It is a beautiful bridal veil falls and has perpetual rainbows. We had lunch at one of the local restaurants and prepared to fly back. One of the things about Iceland is the weather can change in an instant. As we took off, the marine fog started to roll in. Within minutes it was pretty thick and we had to fly using the instruments, which he was not rated for. He said we would fly "IFR". I asked what IFR means and he simply replied "I Follow Roads". So we followed the main road all the way back to Keflavik. We were definitely running low on fuel, so he decided to cut across the bay, and make an initial approach instead of flying around the base and coming in over land. I was pretty happy when we landed and got back to the hangar.
I returned to Iceland in 1989. I had cross-trained to become a historian and was offered a job as Wing Historian for Air Forces Iceland (AFI). This time, instead of taking leave back in the US, my girlfriend Alicia came to Iceland and we rented a car for a journey around the island. Alicia and I packed everything in the car and headed west along the southern coast. Of course, we had to stop at Gullfoss. It is the most popular waterfall in Iceland. Our next stop was Thingvillier (Þingvellir).
The early Icelandic sagas are epic medieval tales handed down through generations. Thingvillier is the national monument in Iceland and there is a story in the great saga of a woman carrying the rock to the top of Thingvillier to establish it as a meeting place. Svarrir Tomasson, a professor of medieval literature explained. "They were mostly farmers. When you look at literature like the sagas, you can say in one sentence what it's all about: farmers at feud.” Those feuding farmers ended up giving the world its first parliament. In 930 -- in an effort to end brawling over issues like land and religion -- they convened an assembly on the grassy plains of Thingvellier. “It was a loud, messy affair. The plains were overrun by farmer-warriors, blacksmiths, crooks and people hawking food. And somehow they fashioned a working government amid the chaos. They stayed there for two weeks every year and decided all the laws, rules, and punishment" said Stefan Tourrson, a local historian. "They put up the judge and juries and all the problems were solved, not only the governing of the country, but also the legal aspects, the sentencing of the criminals." The natural geology of the area forms an open-air park ringed with mountains. Streams flow into it from all directions, and there is a large lake nearby. Visitors can see the Drekkingarhylur ('drowning pool') in the river, where female lawbreakers were drowned. On June 17, 1944 the independence of the Republic of Iceland was proclaimed and the park became the summer residence of the Prime Minister of Iceland. There are no guards or fences. You could walk right up and knock on the door, although there is a sign asking that you please do not disturb the residents. Iceland was a key in defending the Atlantic during WWII and later in the Cold war. Four radar installations were built around the island to provide defensive radar coverage on the sea lanes between Iceland, Norway, and Greenland. There were two still in operation; one at Keflavik, and one in the southeast corner called Hofn. I wanted to go there to gather some historical data and see the operation. There were only a few people assigned to this outpost and all the maintenance and administrative personnel were Icelandic. We toured the facilities and had lunch in the cafeteria. It is pretty neat to see the radar's eye view of everything going on in the airspace around the island.
When we got to the northern most city of Akuerie we camped right in the city in a soccer field behind a church. In the whole city, every available space was filled with tents. This time of year, there is 24 hours of daylight and the sun never sets. Akueri is right on the Arctic Circle. We went to the main district for dinner and spent the evening walking the downtown area. Later (hard to tell later, really) we went to a disco and partied with the locals. Language skills are less important when everyone is well lubricated with spirits and the music is pumping. Finally the place closed at 4AM and they ushered everyone out the door into the town square. Of course, it was daylight just like noon and there were food vendors and people milling around. Flasks were produced from pockets and purses and the party continued. We finally made our way back to the soccer field, only to realize we had no idea where the tent was. It seemed like hours, until we finally spotted it and happily passed out.
If you look at the map of Iceland the northwest part of the island is like a hand with fingers. You spend endless hours driving to the headwaters of one fjord, just to cross a bridge to the other side and go back out to sea. Around the next finger tip is another fjord and if you could just go straight across, it would be only a couple miles. Instead, it is a two hour drive around. We camped at the tip of one fjord around a pristine lake with a waterfall in the background. We'd purchased some shrimp off a boat in the nearby town and got some bread and cheese. We boiled up our shrimp and drank the pristine clear water. I heated up a big pot of water and took it out to a knee deep point around the corner to take a bath. I lathered up with hot water and took a dip in freezing cold glacier runoff. When I was getting out, there was a rotting sheep carcass 20 feet away with hunks of flesh and wool floating nearby. Well, so much for pristine water. I didn't tell Alicia.
Out on this part of the island is one of the four radar sites. It had been abandoned some years back. We set off to one of the peninsula where I thought it was located. The road turned to dirt, then tractor path. At one point, I stopped at a rutted swamp crossing to see if we could go further. The ruts formed two high ridges that were just the right width for the car. They were hard enough, so with Alicia directing me, the car made it across. A little further down the road a farm could be seen in the distance. There were people out in the distant field doing something, so I hopped the fence and went to ask for directions. After about a mile, I realized that they weren't people at all, rather they were scarecrows. After a rather embarrassing hike back, we continued along till we got to the gate. We trundled down the track to the house and met the lone farmer who spoke no English whatsoever. He was able to call a friend who confirmed our fears that we were nowhere even close to the abandoned radar installation and told us the farmer had to go because he had a sick pig to attend. We drove back across the ruts, and out to the road to camp. There is a volcano that erupted quite recently and the landscape is completely devoid of any plant life. I hiked out to the fissure where the lava came from. The surface is hot to the touch and it makes a sound of breaking glass to walk on. Near the cone formed by the lava flowing out of the fissure, there is a pit you can throw scraps of paper into and they burst into flames. It is only a couple feet deep and gives the impression of how hot this area still is. The region has many bubbling mud pots and hot springs. There is a cave with a hot spring pool inside, but an earthquake in the 70’s made the water so hot you could boil your food in it. Still, you can lounge on the rocks and have a steam bath inside.
On the way back to Keflavik, we stopped to camp along side the road. Completely exhausted we were happy to find a nice place to pull off and a grassy patch to set up the tent. In Iceland, you can camp without permission anywhere so long as it isn’t fenced in. Alicia had gone down to the beach to get some water to wash up with and came back to say there were stairs and a pool. Sure enough, there was a hot spring with a pipe leading down to the seashore. Locals had built up a wall to form a large pool and we had it all to ourselves. It was just the break we needed after two days of driving with no shower. I was making my way up to the tent to get some towels and I looked up to find two women standing on the stairs, staring sheepishly at me completely naked. I apologized in broken Icelandic and continued past them to the tent. I came back and we all had a nice naked soak together.
Of all the places I’ve ever been, Iceland is one of the best. Iceland is one of the most magical places I've ever visited. It is a country of vast, unspoiled nature. The earth is created here in its rawest form. It is unspoiled, the people are friendly, and there everywhere you look is beauty and inspiration. None of the places we visited were made into tourist attractions. But, be careful, there are no fences or boardwalks to keep you from walking up to the mouth of a geyser or signs to warn you of crevasses in the glacier.