Ralf photography, journal entries

A lesson in US history

Today we visited Arches national park. Now the question arises how in the world were these utterly weird rock formations created? Aliens? Erosion? There are several challenging scientific theories about how they were formed so I decided to shed some light on the mystery. I had to dig deep to find the truth. It was an interesting journey through US culture and history. Now the mystery is finally solved. All questions answered. The shocking truth revealed. If you cant handle the truth dont read any further because heres what I have learnt...

From two months of research I have concluded that the national symbol of the US is the Bagel. Its the very heart of American culture. Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day and without bagels breakfast in the US would never be the same again. A whole country would be paralyzed. Bagels built this country. If you want to conquer the US strike at the Bagel first

In fact it wasnt until the Americans stole the Bagel recipe the Indians most treasured secret they were finally able to defeat them. It was the Bagel and only the Bagel that changed the tide of war. Even today Americans consumes a Bagel each morning in memory of their victory.

Geological studies reveals proof of Bagelworshipping dating back millions of years probably to the very first Indian tribes creating big monuments referred to as BagelArches. The Egyptians worshipped the Sun the Aztecs the heart the Vikings Thor and the Indians and latter the Americans the holy Bagel.

To celebrate and honor the pastry that has meant so much bringing life and prosperity to an entire nation the new settlers continued the tradition and created gigantic Bagelworshipping shrines or National Parks. This monument is called the Delicate Arch originally the Delicious Arch:

Doesnt this shape look awfully familiar? Coincidence? No

Another proof that Arches in fact are Bagels is that the word for Arch is Bage in Swedish almost identical to the English Bagel Coincidence? I dont think so

Building a national park with all these huge stone monuments is naturally not cheap. It wouldnt have been possible without sponsoring of the second biggest national symbol the Golden Arches. This is in fact how the national park has got its name McDonalds bought all the rights They also got entitled to a little bit of product placement:

Correct me if Im wrong

Day One I WANT TO BELIEVE

To make this a perfect day we signed up for the northern lights tour in the evening. The aurora borealis is supposed to be one of the most magnificent natural phenomenons in the world. This is from the brochure:

Join us for a mysterious trip on a dark night any time from the onset of autumn darkness until the light nights of spring we can witness one of natures most spectacular displays; the phenomenon which we call the Northern Lights. On a clear night we may be lucky enough to see the Northern Lights swirling in a wild and carefree dance across the heaven in dramatic shapes colours patterns and sizes.

The pitch black darkness of the night was very convenient for the guide. To the right we see the beautiful Viking temple raised by the first settlers of Iceland. Have a look:

And to the left Elvis Presly dancing with the Loch Nessbeast. Sitting on a bus for over three hours in the middle of the night was totally worth it. It was a memory for a lifetime. Breathtaking. I would almost say romantic. Here is a picture:

Since nothing was happening we went back to the bus. Suddenly the guide came back Come out now something is happening

Can you notice the the slight glow just above the mountain in the photo? Well me neither

This is not the first time I the northern light has tricked me. I was in Kiruna for half a week some years ago where we were supposed to see it every day but nono Ive now come to the conclusion that the northern light is in fact a big conspiracy I should have been more suspicious when I read the words may be lucky enough. This is an official boycott of the aurora borealis: Its a fake. Dont fall for it

Day One The mask

After having been awake almost the entire night the day before carrying bags and boxes what could be more relaxing than getting up 07.50 in the morning and go on a crazy ATV fourwheel drive with roaring engines in 60 km/h in the terrain and 11C? That wakes you up for sure Vacation doesnt include being lazy and taking it easy Ok 07.50 AM may not sound that early but I was tired believe me.

Evil Knievel here I come Fear my pink gloves I had to change gloves with Sanna.

Bustrouble part one: We were picked up on the hotel by a small coach and everything went really smoothly. There was a big collection of people at the bus station and we sat down waiting for our ride. More people came and left for various tours. Time passed. All the other tourists left one by one and after a while I and Sanna were alone in the entire place. We became a bit suspicious but we waited patiently and politely. When another 20 minutes had passed we noticed that the activity in the office was rising. The staff talked frenetically in Icelandic. Phones were ringing. More people from the staff came into the office. They looked at us. More phone calls. Suddenly one of the staff people leaped forward lets get into the bus now Apparently we should have been on the same bus as all of the others and now we were speeding through Rekjavik to catch up with it. We were amazed at how the driver managed to stay on the road in the slippery snowy streets as the bus were swayig back and forth flying over the speed bumps. We reached our goal in minimal time to find an entire bus full of people waiting for us and a very harsh looking guide standing on the street with her hands at her sides. We got on the bus moved a few people around and started talking loudly in Swedish about embarassing situations not the least when you think nobody else understands your language but eventually you find out that they do. After a while we realised that when we stopped talking it was dead silent in the bus and everyone had heard exactly what we said. Probably quite a few of them knew Swedish...

Then we jumped straight into the Blue Lagoon. If there is one thing you should do on Iceland this is the place to go. Professional photographers have a way of making the most ugly stinking tiny hotel room filled to the brim with frogs and coachroaches look like the halls of Versailles how do they do that? but this was one of those rare spots thats actually cooler in real life than the brochure. The water was warm and milky blue. We were outdoors in below zero with clear skies above our heads and snowy peaks in the background covered in a fairy tale mist ermerging from the warm lagoon. In the distance we could dinstinguish people people bathing in the mist. It was almost unreal. I regretted I do not own a waterproof camera my D70 had a bath once in the Fyrisriver in Uppsala but unfortunately it proved not to be waterproof. Anyway we felt our lives were fullfilled and it didnt matter what we did in the rest of the trip.

I have a confession to make. But dont worry Ive already had my punishment. At the lagoon they had some sort of face mask mud. They also had plastic bags. We quickly realised that nontransparent water is very convenient for smuggeling mud in plastic bags out of a bathing area. It seemed like such a good idea I had to give it a go. I was on top of the world I felt like a true criminal mastermind However I realized I wasnt such a genius after all when somebody later that evening with excessive use of violence smeared it all over my face...

There was some left that we managed to smuggle out of the country it looked like plastic explosives so we didnt put it in the carry on luggage. It would have been kind of cool to hijack an airplane with a mud face mask though Fly me to the Bahamas our I will put slime in your face

Day Two Norwegian glove mystery

Yes that is actually me sitting on the back of a horse. For the first time in my life. I was a little bit worried because we took a tour for intermediate and advanced riders wheras another tour was little or no experience. I should have had the complete noob tour but the easy one sounded a tad boring so we went for the insane difficulty level instead. Also it was five whole hours I wanted a bit of a challenge and since Im probably not going to ride in the next ten years or so lets do it for real I had to pretend I was an expert to be able to join the advanced ride. Luckliy my girlfriend used to do a lot of horse riding so she could fill me in on the way to the stables explaning where to find the throttle the gear stick the brakes and so on. It didnt seem that hard and who needs brakes anyway?

I was assigned a sleek ride of the brand Ishest code name Pink Panther. Its supposed to be safe as a Volvo. Fortunately my veichle was fully automatic. Automatic gears parking assistance and even an autopilot which means it galopped trotted or stopped whenever it felt like it. Also it was surprinsingly fast considering it only had one horsepower Well at least on the latter part of the tour the first part was really really slow its so annoying to have people who have never driven a horse before in the same group

Newsflash: Norwegians wear at least eight gloves each They also drop them all of the time. After lunch we managed to lose the annoying big citypeople not knowing anything about horseriding can you believe that? and were rewarded with the pleasurable company of two Norwegian women instead. Just after we had fired up our one horse power engines and driven off I saw in the corner of my eye that one of the Norwegians dropped a glove and I demanded a halt She took out two gloves from her left pocket. Then two gloves from her right pocket. No I have them all. Anyway I knew what I saw so one of the guides went back and found the missing glove. Oh yes I had another couple of gloves she admitted. She was also wearing two gloves. In total: Eight gloves. A few minutes later the other Norwegian woman dropped one of her gloves Its raining gloves halleljua And they wonder why we make jokes about Norwegians? ;

Ive had serious demands in the Onexposure forum to take wonderful photos in Iceland. Here you go:

Do you know how hard it is to take photos from a horseback? Can you even begin to imagine it The only thing worse than trying to take pictures going up and down all the time is when you are not taking pictures and the horse suddenly decides to gallop and your camera is flying around in the air hitting you in the stomach until your food comes up Icelandic horses are supposed to do a very funny looking walking style called tlt. Its almost the same as the Swedish word tnt which means dork and thats what it looks like as well Im not sure if I did it or not and anyway the horse decided.

The horse in the third picture is a little smaller apparently not yet fully grown. Dont mind the fourth photo.