As a child, I had two dreams that persisted: after the ballerina phase, cowgirl phase, and circus entertainer phase. I would be a vet or I would be a volcanologist! Animals are so cool & wonderful. And who possibly couldn't love the glory and power of nature with a volcanic eruption (baring that anybody would get hurt which never occurred to me as a small child!) These two dreams stayed with me - well, just about forever because they are still there. Needless to say, my life took a completely different path from either one, I became neither, but I don't regret the path I took. Just a smidgen of "if only".

 I do love animals and do get to play with them, pet them, interact with them as often as possible such as going to Paradise Wildlife Park in England to sit with the meerkats or feed the lions. But the volcanologist part has eluded me. Couldn't afford to go see Mt. St. Helen's when it blew, couldn't get to Italy for their frequent episodes nor even Hawaii kept eluding me at the times when it had spectacular eruptions. The money, the timing, the whatever, just didn't ever line up for me.

 This past weekend, I had the opportunity to re-visit Iceland with a group of women. My last visit to Iceland was at a time when nothing was happening geologically or volcano-wise. This time, I really hadn't been paying much attention to what was happening in the country with regards to volcanoes so was rather surprised when our guide told us that there was a current eruption going on in the highlands. The Bardarbunga caldera. OMG. is it my time?? Is it my chance?? Thank goodness, the lady in charge of our group is so nice and generous and gracious that she had no problem with me wanting to leave the group for a quick run to the volcano. Our guide then started working out how to make this happen for me.
                                                hot fissure, throwing up lavaMy first choice would be to take a helicopter flight over the fissure. HA! that was going to cost about 1200 pounds! In spite of being a life long dream, there was the money thing again. No way I could justify that for just me. But he found out there is also a plane flight where they just sell window seats and they cruise back and forth over the lava field and the erupting fissure so each side has equal opportunity to see the eruption. That works for me.

 The plan was for a taxi pickup from our sightseeing point during the day, a ride into Reykjavik, onto the plane for the viewing and finally a taxi ride to meet the group back at the hotel. The plan was offered to the group but I was the only taker. Guess I am the only one with the lingering vulcanology dream.Our group got to Gullfoss - the wide waterfall of beauty and glory, even with the rivers looking quite frozen! But no taxi. Our guide and our bus driver kept calling and talking to someone and finally our bus driver says follow me. I figure the taxi is somewhere in the back of the parking lot but nope - we climb on the bus and he drives the bus back down the hill and the 7 miles or so back to the geyser viewing area. We just came from there but somehow the taxi had decided to wait for me there! Nothing like making a huge bus negotiate the snowy roads for one passenger!I ask the bus driver one final time - "He knows where to take me, right?" and the bus driver assures me that he does.  

 So I hop out and try to get into the taxi but the driver can't get the door open! Should have been a warning! We both wrestle with the door a few minutes - the bus being on the way back up the hill by now for the rest of the group - and finally get it open. I'm in and seat belted and we are away.Driving calmly along for about 40 minutes when the taxi driver turns and asks what time is my flight? He had to ask me three times because he had a gravely, mumbling voice. Later my guide even said he was hard to understand. I told him 3:15 and suddenly we are going much faster along the road. Then he turns to me and says, where is the flight? OMG! HE doesn't know! I don't know! They said that he knew! So now he is driving much faster along the snowy roads plus dialing his cell phone to find out where he is supposed to take me. My guide and bus driver at the other end are having a hard time understanding him and keeping the connection going but he finally figures out where I am to go. Someone calls the airline and tells them I am on the way. 
 
We are truly speeding along the road, passing every car in front of us when feasibly possible to do so and occasionally NOT feasible to do so. I am determined not to look at my watch and not to look out the front window but I am also wondering if I will survive this ride! I hope he doesn't hit an icy patch as he passes a car, goes around a corner, over a bridge or anything.Finally we reach the outskirts of Reykjavik and I look at my watch and it is 3:15! OMG again! this is the time I am supposed to be leaving! The airline has my credit card number so whether I am on the plane or not, I am probably paying for it. My heart truly sinks to the floor as I expect I have just lost a lot of money and a chance to see an erupting volcano. 

  We continue into the city though, barely keeping still at the few stop lights that were red. Then he screeches and slides around a corner and I see a plane on the runway, a small plane that looks like just about the right size to fly over a volcano. POOOOOOOHHHH! I figure that's my plane. But I get the money out to pay the taxi and start gathering up my stuff so I can at least take a different taxi back to the hotel so I can quietly sob into my scarf!

 We screech to a stop in front of the terminal and he jumps out and runs around to my door to open it. A lady comes out the front door and says Volcano? and I nod. I throw the money at the driver as she grabs my arm and we run through the airport! She hands me a small ticket which is my boarding pass and yells GATE 3! and points. I run out the back door and down the walkway to gate 3 where a man comes out and says "relax and enjoy it" and I run to the plane and clamber up the stairs. THEY WAITED FOR ME!!! Of all the things I expected to happen, having an airline wait for me for this adventure was never in my realm of possibilities.

 It is Iceland Air and a much bigger plane than I expected. It probably holds 44 passengers or so. But for the volcano flights, they only sell window seats.  I had expected to sit in my seat and at every other pass, I would see the eruption. BUT there were only 10 people on the plane! Glory BE! Not only had I made it, we were all going to be able to move from side to side to see each and every time we passed the fissure.

 It was about a 30 - 40 minute flight from Reykjavik to the lava field. That time was spent getting my breath back and my heart to start beating normally again plus listening to our guide who was on the plane to explain everything to us and enhance our voyage. There were a mix of English speakers on the plane and Icelanders and most with regular cameras but one gentleman with such a lens that I immediately got "lens envy" for it. Of course with a lens the size of a small suitcase and no tripod, I have no idea how his photos came out but he seemed quite pleased at the end.

 Finally we near the eruption site. All of us are looking back and forth, not sure which side will come up first. It's my side! I won the first toss! We see a massive black lava field first and then a bright glow comes into view with a huge ash and smoke plume leading away from it. As we get closer, we can see rivers of lava flowing away from this fissure with pockets of hotter lava mixed in the flow. OH I am in heaven! It is so much more than I expected and hoped for to see.

 Since we are overhead, it is quite difficult to see spouts of flame and gasses but after several passes over the fissure, I could see them and could tell when the magma was boiling up to the top of the fissure crater where it was all escaping from the earth.  The plane makes its first pass and turns for the second pass. We all move to the other side of the plane. I'm sure the pilots must be used to this because we must have caused an imbalance in the weight distribution for flying.

 Another pass and another move to the opposite side of the plane. I start noticing other things. The plume extends all the way across the lava field and thins as it disappears into the distance. The plane never, ever crosses through the ash plume. The lava field is spread over many acres and while it looks quite solid, there is no snow on it anywhere and at various times, we can see tiny hot spots as the lava breaks through the surface. At the edges of the field, the snow slowly builds as it moves away from the field. There are places in the lava field where there is steam and smoke escaping. The lava rivers are moving out but one looks very much like it is flowing back into the ground and back under the black crust. This seems to be the case as one pass there are a few red spots, the next pass even more, and by the fourth pass over this one site, the lava has broken through the crust "downstream" from where it went back into the ground and is starting to flow again on the surface. Oh wow! I call it "seeing a lava river being born". works for me.

 Since there were only 10 of us and we made roughly 10 passes over the field and fissure and lava rivers, each of us was given the opportunity to go stand behind the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit and look out the window at their view. How magnificent is that! I can tell you that it is truly fantastic and just brilliant! My husband made the comments that my photos from the cockpit were not as great as some from just out the windows. Yes, probably true since I would have been leaning over the pilot and the controls to put my camera as close to the window as I was in the back of the plane and I think he wouldn't have liked that. But the view from the cockpit was just a dream.

 More passes and watching the lava bubble and pop and jump in the fissure and watch it flow into the channels it had already made and watch it move through the field. What an opportunity that finally I have been able to see an eruption AND it was one where no one was hurt and no property damaged. Even better than my childhood dream!

 Finally it was time to continue back to Reykjavik. Our guide came around to show us the various facts regarding this volcano and how it compared to past ones, whether it will keep going or not and such. She also had a piece of lava from the field below us. Mighty sharp with crystals embedded in it. It was so sharp it was hard to find a place to hold it plus it was heavy. Don't think they get much pumice here.  

 This eruption caused the biggest earthquake swarm they have ever had and the amount of lava in the first three months of the eruption was equal to the amount of lava that produced the island of Surtsey back in the 70's which took 3 1/2 years!

 Like most people, I am never satisfied with one dream being realized. Now I have a larger and more fervent desire to see more eruptions AND from the side views where I can see how high the lava is shooting. We were under 2000' above the eruption but my next adventure has got to be a helicopter so I can get closer - much, much closer.