One of the scenes that keeps coming back to me of my first visit to Iceland is this one. In northwestern Iceland, after driving over endless moss-covered lava fields on a horrendously narrow road which dipped and wound through dangerous car-eating holes & skirted tire-popping jagged rocks, we found ourselves at the cliffside shore. Carefully picking our way down the cliff to the beach, which surprisingly had white sand rather than the more common beautiful black ground lava sand, we jumped down onto the pristine shore.

I never wanted to leave. I'm sure it is stormy, freezing, wet and cold at this very moment, if not snow laden, but the picture in my mind is as lovely as ever.