Since arriving in Reykjavik Saturday morning, Anne and I had scurried about Iceland, excitedly exploring the island of fire and ice, but on our fourth day, we slowed down. We learned the Vik hotel serves its breakfasts until 10 a.m., so we decided to ease into Tuesday, delaying the half mile trek from our apartment to the hotel until 9 o’clock, and then lingering over another delectable buffet until the energetic staff began clearing tables. Only then did we return to our apartment, pack up, and check out, switching back to adventurous mood as we set out to explore Iceland’s Reynisfjara black sand beach, and much more.
At varying times Iceland’s erupting volcanoes have sent rivers of red hot lava into the icy North Atlantic, causing the ocean’s waters to sizzle as black volcanic rock is formed. Over centuries that rock erodes and wears down to produce shimmering black sand beaches, the most famous being Reynisfjara. This particular beach was featured, I am told, in Game of Thrones, as well as in other movies and shows, a little chunk of earth consisting not only of the black sand beach, but also towering cliffs and rocky lava formations that have formed into huge basalt columns.
Rain again!
It was raining lightly when we approached this iconic site, a prevailing soggy condition we had adapted to with aplomb. Yes, we really did adapt. After all, we had come to Iceland with rain suits, high spirits, and adventurous sentiments. And we refused to be deterred. As we stepped onto that black beach, we stopped to behold what can only be described as awe-inspiring nature. Take a look.
That gray promontory visible through the mist in some frames of the video is the not-too-distant Dyrhólaey, the site we had visited the night before (see here).
We began exploring, feeling the soft, almost mushy sand give under our shoes as we walked toward the cliff on our left. Following that we moved around the corner to inspect the tall rocky columns jutting up from the Atlantic, prudently keeping a proper distance from the churning Atlantic. We had heard, and signs had warned us, that unexpected huge waves and treacherous undertows wipe out travelers every year, permanently.
The basalt columns enticed a number of climbers, Anne among them.
After tramping along the beach, and soaking in the majestic surroundings, we walked inland about 200 yards to a neat cafe/gift shop. I said neat, because the building and the inside were indeed neat as the proverbial pin, with all merchandise displayed tastefully, and all in perfect order. Not only that, but the cafeterias routinely provided tasty offerings. We found a table for our leisurely lunch of ham and cheese croissants, and a Skyr cake with blueberries for dessert. (If you are not familiar with it, Skyr is an Icelandic product fitting somewhere between yogurt and cream cheese.) Our lunch ended our too brief interval at Iceland’s Reynisfjara black beach.
Next on our agenda was the Lava Center in Hvolsvollur, a drive westward of about 50 miles. The center was definitely worthy of a stop, and the hour plus we spent there paid dividends. (See more here). Much in the Center is interactive, and all exhibits worked flawlessly for us.
Anne in a special four-walled exhibit room in the Lava Center. By standing on an activating spot and pointing at a particular area of Iceland, she triggered further information from the display. The exhibits left no doubt that Iceland is indeed one of the most active volcanic areas on earth.
After learning all sorts of interesting tidbits at the Lava Center, we set our sights on our final destination of the day, the Geysir Hotel in the Haukadalur geothermal valley. The hotel lies just across the road from an active geothermal area, and it was completely remodeled recently in a marvelous modern style.
This is the smaller room of the hotel’s huge lobby. Anne said she would have loved to curl up with a book in the larger room, reading and luxuriating in that magnificent space, one exquisitely stylish, and very modern. (See more here.)
The hotel’s rooms were equally modern, but unfortunately dim. The darkness was only slightly penetrated by a few weak bulbs, this all presumably designed to match the shadowy mood of the elegant hotel. It didn’t work for me. On several occasions I uttered a mild (or maybe not) curse, because I couldn’t find a damn thing in my suitcase. I needed the flashlight on my iPhone to peer into the mysterious depths of my luggage. Anne and I mentioned this annoyance to a woman at the front desk, but she spouted what we had guessed she would, namely that the rooms were meant to be an extension of the mood of the entire hotel.
Despite what I’ve said above, I would recommend this hotel to anyone, and with enthusiasm! Everything within it is clean, neat, and unusually stylish. The restaurant was fine and, as apparently is standard in Iceland, the hotel’s breakfast buffet was excellent, not only plentiful, but also featuring numerous choices for individual tastes, and all absolutely delicious. Just one reminder, if you do plan to book a room here, remember to pack a flashlight, or better yet a lantern.
What to do for dinner?
We checked in at the Geysir Hotel after 6 p.m. and were disappointed that the in-house restaurant was completely booked for that evening. After reading through its extensive menu, we reserved a table for the following night. But where would we eat that night? There weren’t many choices. The woman at the front desk suggested two places, as I recall, one a small restaurant at the Skjol campsite, a drive of maybe 15 minutes away, which we chose. It didn’t sound promising, but we were hungry.
As we arrived at the site, we saw a few camper units, and even a few tents erected on the wet grass. (Yep, it was raining at the time.) The campsite didn’t appear to be thriving. A few yards beyond the campers was a modest building with a lit OPEN sign in one of the window. There were more cars parked nearby than in the photo below, but we weren’t overwhelmed.
Once inside, we discovered the place to be completely welcoming, not to mention warm, inviting, and full of life. In short, the place was jammed and buzzing, despite the fact that it lies essentially in the middle of nowhere. Many customers must have been locals, because the camp ground was sparsely populated. Despite the packed crowd, we were seated in a flash. We could feel the warm atmosphere soaking in as we ordered two Gull beers, the brand we had found to be zesty, and full of flavor.
The menu was rather extensive. We decided on a pepperoni, mushroom, and black olive pizza, along with salads. After ordering, I looked out through one of the broad windows. It wasn’t dark yet, and the flag marking the campground stood straight out, flattened and fluttering nervously in response to the powerful wind. Raindrops were falling. And I couldn’t suppress a smile.
A memorable pizza
Our pizza arrived, along with two generous bowls of a mixed salad that was deliciously zesty. But it was the pizza that ruled over all. It oozed with a smoky luscious flavor, and satisfied me better than any pizza I could remember. And the crust? Perfection itself. Taken all together at that moment, the excellent food, the happy, homey atmosphere, my daughter across the table, I felt myself glowing with pure joy, so much so that an odd notion occurred to me, one that reflected my feelings. “If I could do cartwheels,” I told Anne, “I would do one right now beside our table.”
We drove back to the Geysir Hotel and called it a day. (In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not misspelling the hotel’s name. I’ll explain next time.) Stay tuned.
If you haven’t read my earlier posts from this Iceland series, see them here:Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
Among the unanticipated pleasures we discovered while exploring Iceland, the island of fire and ice, were the hotel breakfasts. Iceland’s hotels, at least the ones Anne booked for us, set out each morning long and heavily laden buffets so tasty that breaking our fast became a daily delight. I’ll tell more in one of my coming posts, but now let’s focus on day 3 of exploring Iceland. We visited glaciers, icy lagoons, and checked out another impressive waterfall.
After a peaceful night in the Vik apartments (see here), and our scrumptious breakfast at the Vik hotel, we set our sights on the largest glacier in Iceland, Anne steering eastward along Route 1. The speed limit on that road is roughly 56 miles per hour (90 km/hour), and our target glacier, Vatnajokull, is about 120 miles distant from Vik, so our expected duration of the trip was about 2 1/2 hours. For most of that time we drove through rain and fog, but our Land Rover (mentioned here) kept us comfortable and dry.
The Good and the Bad
We encountered good and bad experiences along the way. Let’s get rid of the bad first. We had been told that highway patrols in Iceland usually do not bother drivers if they drive 100 km/hr or less. We also knew traffic cameras were scattered along the route. So Anne set the cruise control at 98, and we rolled along smoothly through the rain. At one point, when we were behind two slower cars, I pointed out there was room to pass with no oncoming traffic ahead.
Anne accelerated, passed both vehicles, and smoothly eased back into the proper lane just as a warning sign flashed. We had just passed a traffic camera, and I felt terrible. Without my prompting, Anne may not have passed at that precise time. Speeding fines in Iceland are exorbitantly expensive. I’m not sure exactly what speed the camera recorded, but I fear it was above 100. I haven’t heard whether a chain of bad news (through Hertz) has yet reached Anne. But it likely will.
A much better experience came about as two events coincided. First the rain let up and nearly stopped. Minutes afterward, as we drove through the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur (try your tongue with that one), a towering waterfall loomed to our left. The scene was so enticing that it demanded a stop, so we pulled into an adjacent parking lot and walked along a lower road near the base where we took photos.
This photo doesn’t capture the full impact of the scene. The wind was strong at the time, and the falling water often was blown off its downward course, at times curling half way to the left side of the picture. To gauge the length of the water drop, check out the fence posts below the rocks. For a time we simply stood silent, enjoying the beauty, and the force, of nature.
Anne had booked a boat ride for us on the Fjallsaron Glacier Lagoon in the early afternoon, so after a final admiring glance, we returned to our car and drove the remaining distance to the lagoon, arriving just at lunchtime. Fortunately, a cafe is located on the site, and we had time for a lunch of vegetable soup and bread that tasted home-baked. Then we checked in for our Zodiac boat ride (see here), where a small crowd was gathering. Along with others we were outfitted with waterproof jackets and life vests. See Anne below. Then we marched over a hill and down to the shore of the lagoon where we were photographed before entering one of the rubber boats.
Soon we were skimming over the icy water, powered by hefty outboard engines while weaving around icebergs of various sizes. (See our eager faces above.) We learned that Vatnajokull is huge (one edge of the glacier is visible in the background). The glacier covers more than 8% of the entire country and it extends over more than 3,127 square miles. Its average ice thickness is about 1,300 feet, but is some places it is well over half a mile deep. We were told that this lagoon hadn’t existed 100 years ago, and that over the past 20 years it had doubled in size. I later read that no glacier has more precipitation falling on it, or more water draining from it to the sea, than this south side of Vatnajokull. Apparently so much water is stored in this glacier that even Olfusa (the river with the greatest flow in Iceland) would require over 200 years of continuous heavy flow to carry all that water to sea. Fortunately, the sun broke through before we disembarked, putting a glow on everything. We walked up from the shore to a small hill where we paused to absorb the brilliant scene.
Another Glacial Lake
Another glacial lagoon was on our program for day 3, this one being nearby and called Jakulsarlon (see here). Not only was this lagoon close, it was grandly picturesque, and it sat right beside Route 1, it lying to the north, and the Atlantic beach to the south. We parked in the convenient lot beside the road and walked to near the waters edge, awed by the seemingly stationary icebergs floating just ahead of us.
We had learned that the denser the glacial ice, the bluer it appears. Notice the varying colors as you recall that most of an iceberg is underwater, the exact amount varying by the density of the ice, and the density of the water. In any case, there is plenty of ice below the surface here. It was raining at the moment, but it didn’t bother us at all. We found a convenient bench and rested our happy muscles. We even asked a fellow tourist to take our photo as we relaxed.
People started jabbering as we sat there, so we turned around and saw seals playing in the water, surfacing now and then in the frigid waters. We lingered, letting the scene seep in, and then drove back to our modern apartment in charming Vik. We treated ourselves to a leisurely evening cocktail before heading to the crowded and hip Smidjan Brugghus where we ordered and savored our simple dinner (huge, succulent burgers and fries washed down with drafts of Gull beer).
The bathroom in our unit contained a large washer and dryer, both front-loading, and complicated. The washer was a Bosch and the dryer a brand I did not recognize. Anne solved their mysteries after we returned from dinner, and she put them into action. So washing and drying clothing ended day 3 of our exploring Iceland, although while our clothes tumbled we previewed our coming day, which would include visits to volcanic black sand beaches, cliffs of basalt columns resembling organ pipes, and other attractions. I’ll tell you how it went. Stay tuned.
After lingering over our luscious breakfast buffet at the Foss Hotel on Sunday morning, we were eager to continue exploring Iceland, the island of fire and ice. Our first day (see here) had whetted our appetites for more. Anne caught a Hertz shuttle and picked up the rental she had ordered. She snared a good one, a practically new 2022 Land Rover Discovery (the odometer read just over 3,000 kilometers), and by the time she parked the vehicle outside our hotel she had figured out the vehicle’s basic controls. And the weather? Please examine the photo Anne took as she rented the car. (We learned to love gray clouds and rain during our stay.)
We quickly loaded loaded our luggage and headed out for our day’s destination, the town of Vik (pronounced veek by Icelanders). Our trip is marked in red on the accompanying map, with our destination located near the lower right corner. Notice the dropped pin on the map. It marks the site of Seljalandsfoss, the only waterfall in Iceland you can walk behind, and one we planned to explore on our way to Vik (see here).
A slight detour
Because we had an urge to check out Iceland’s Atlantic coast as quickly as possible, we took a longer route and headed southwest from Reykjavik on Route 41 with Anne at the wheel, retracing the road we had taken from the airport to Reykjavik’s city center upon arrival. Here’s a tidbit for you: Route 41, we were told, is the only divided highway in all of Iceland.
Although that momentarily surprised us, we soon learned that Iceland has little need for multi-lane highways. The 2022 population of Reykjavik is reported to be about 123,000, and Greater Reykjavik, which includes the capital city itself and the six municipalities around it, is comprised of something like 240,000 residents. Yet that relatively small constellation of folks represents more than two-thirds of Iceland’s total population (about 346,000 inhabitants). And, we discovered, traffic outside of the Reykjavik area was almost uniformly light.
A two lane road (the Ring Road) encircles the entire island. It usually appears on maps as Route 1, and it stretches for about 880 miles to wrap entirely around the island. During our little detour to the coast we stopped at a fishing village, Grindavik (see here), for a snack before making our way to Route 1 and heading eastward. The scene above is typical of much of our time on the Ring Road, especially the thin traffic, the cloud-fog shrouded landscape (often barely visible on our first day of driving), and the prevailing weather. Often we saw little but the bottoms of hills and mountains, and even those at times were nearly obscured by fog. Did you notice the raindrops on our windshield? Healthy cross winds also came into play, but our sturdy Land Rover paid them little attention as it rolled stalwartly along the pavement.
Here I’ll interrupt myself to mention an oddity of the trip, a first for me, and for Anne. Never before had either of us spent time in a foreign country without exchanging U.S. dollars for the local currency. But during our eight joyous days in Iceland, we exchanged no money, nor did we touch a single Icelandic króna! How did that work?
Credit cards carry the day
Iceland is remarkably credit card friendly. Even locals rarely use cash (except for bus transportation, I was told). We discovered that even the smallest businesses would take Mastercard or Visa, so we just flashed our cards to pay for whatever, small or large. I had signed up for a Discover Card as an economy move (Discover does not add foreign transaction fees to charges as my Visa card does). This saved me some money, but not all establishments honored the Discover card.
Here’s a tip for you if you ever plan to visit Iceland. Filling a car’s gas tank isn’t simple. In fact, it offers unique frustrations for the unwary. One doesn’t simply pop in a card at a station and start gassing up. Nope. You have to use a previously assigned PIN with your credit card, and often you also have to estimate the amount of fuel you want to purchase in advance, along with other surprises. Such details aren’t important here, but, if you ever plan to head that way, prepare yourself.
On to Seljalandsfoss
It almost certainly would be impossible to miss the majestic Seljalandsfoss when driving past it. The waterfall, with its broad width and its parking lot churning with cars, jumps out at you with force. As we pulled into a parking spot on the busy lot, a man, obviously an American, approached us with a parking permit, explaining that he and his wife mistakenly had each bought a parking pass, and, since only one was needed, he generously gave the second to us, a friendly gesture much appreciated.
Before walking the couple of hundred yards to the base of the waterfall, we donned our rain wear (it was raining lightly, but we suited up because the heavy mist and splashing gives one a good soaking as one nears the Seljalandsfoss waterfall, which drops about 200 feet (roughly equivalent to a 20 story building). The water tumbles with prodigious power.
Stopping before we headed to the path behind the waterfall
When we came along side of the falling torrent, the path behind the falls looked considerably more daunting than we had expected, but, after the briefest of pauses, we plunged ahead and made our way over the treacherous trail strewn with uneven, slippery rocks. I took a brief video of the scene during our moment of indecision.
Did you notice the folks walking behind the falls? They were on an easier stretch of the path. After we emerged from our adventure of encircling the waterfall, and feeling exuberant, we hiked a short distance to second waterfall that splashed into a cave and evaluated that before returning to the car to continue our drive to Vik, feeling quite pleased that we were exploring Iceland on our own.
As often happens in Iceland, we soon ran into another impressive waterfall, this one called Skogafoss. We couldn’t pass it by, so we stopped for a good look. I was satisfied with our adventure at the previous Seljalandsfoss, so I decided to enjoy this wonder of nature from the car, but intrepid Anne marched to the base of the falls and had her presence there documented with help from a nearby traveler.
This waterfall, about 80 feet across, also features a drop of some 200 feet, and nearby on the right side is a rugged stairway leading to the top of the hill and the falls. Anne couldn’t resist the challenge of tramping up those hundreds of steps, which took some good minutes, but she was rewarded with a majestic view of the falls and the river that feeds it. Skogafoss clearly is no puny attraction.
After our second waterfall interlude, we quickly covered the remaining short distance to Vik and checked into the Vik Apartments (a part of the Vik Hotel). Anne had booked us there for two nights. As we were checking in to our modern 2-bedroom apartment, a minor miracle occurred. IT STOPPED RAINING. It was dinner time then, but the patches of blue sky cried for more outdoor exploring.
Which we did! We had passed a recommended stopping point as we approached Vik, because the top of the attraction was shrouded in clouds, and we knew nothing would be visible if we drove up to the summit of Dyrhólaey, a promontory rising 400 feet over the ocean and known for its spectacular view of Iceland’s South Coast. Dyrhólaey was named for the massive arch in a rocky mass just off its shoreline. (Apparently the name means “door-hole” in Icelandic). Now with the clearing skies, we hopped into our Land Rover and headed the short distance westward to drive to the top of that imposing rocky mass. As we approached it glowed brightly in sunshine.
We drove to the top of this hunk of rock and got some interesting photos
Above is a photo of the “door hole” through which I’m told certain boats have cruised, and even a stunt pilot reportedly flew his small plane through it. The shoreline along here is covered with black sand, a type formed when volcanic rocks (most commonly basalt) have eroded. This sand, much like the more common beige-colored variety on most of the world’s beaches takes millions of years to emerge. How ever they are made, black beaches are striking. In my coming post of Day 4, I will show you just how neat they can be.
After spending the better part of an hour wandering around on our lofty perch, we drove back to Vik and walked a short distance from our apartment to one of the few restaurants in the small town (Vik has about 270 residents). We arrived at the Strondin Pub near 9:30 p.m., and found the place to be cheerfully noisy and very crowded. While waiting for our table, we each ordered a Gull beer (pronounced something like “gutl,” a bright brew that I heartily recommend).
After we were seated and served, we gave our soups two enthusiastic thumbs up, but our Atlantic Char, recommended by our waiter, was decidedly “fishy.” A minor disappointment because the Char was the only less-than-delicious dish we had on our entire trip! We passed up dessert, returned to our apartment, and smiled as we reviewed our second day of exploring the island of fire and ice. Then we went over our next day’s schedule, a full day promising to include such excitements as a boat tour on a glacial lake and an up close and personal visit to a black beach. Stay tuned.
Do you enjoy tramping through spectacular terrains, like an array of glaciers, waterfalls, and active volcanoes? If so, head for the land of fire and ice. I suggest that destination with great enthusiasm because I recently spent eight days exploring Iceland, a truly amazing island. One thrilling adventure led to another, time after time again, and the combined impact made me glow brighter than most travels ever have. And, as long term readers know, I’ve nosed around quite a few spots on this earth (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).
To come back to Iceland (see here), my impressions of that sizeable island have been formed mainly by my recent trip. Admittedly, I knew little about the place before visiting it, although I had watched its weather closely during my three years of Air Force duty in Europe many decades ago. My recent visit was a gift from my daughter, Anne, for my birthday. I had reached 90 earlier this year, and she 50, but we delayed the trip until August, thinking that would be a fine month to venture northward.
Anne and I boarded an Icelandic Airlines flight in Chicago late one Friday evening and flew to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, in just over 6 hours, arriving shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday local time (Icelandic clocks are set five hours earlier than those in Chicago). Reykjavik has the distinction of being the world’s northernmost capital of a sovereign state, and the upper edge of Iceland lies just below the Arctic Circle.
It was misting when we arrived, but fortunately rain held off for most of the day, and we managed to complete the Reykjavik food walk Anne had planned for that afternoon. Not a single drop spattered us during the 2 1/2 hour walk led by Thor, a native Icelander who spoke perfect English with an American accent. He took us to five different eateries, some fancy, some not, and provided a nice introduction to the streets of downtown Reykjavik. Our first stop on the tour was at the Forretta Barin where Anne and I had a beer and the best lamb we ever tasted. It was so good that I would eat lamb at least every week if it were always so delicious.
I’ll now jump to our last stop of the walk because we finished at a well-established bakery, one first opened in 1932, some 90 years ago. Since I was an early January, 1932, baby myself, and probably even a few months older than that ancient bakery, Anne took my photo in front of the place. Note the hiking pants and boots, all waterproof and soon to be tested.
Our food walk group included an interesting mix of individuals, among them were three dentists who had graduated from the University of Michigan dental school, a retired professor from California, and four sisters, Ireland born, but now living not far from Anne in Chicago; one had just graduated from law school, another was a medical student, and a third had recently set a number of Illinois state high school records for weight lifting. A most impressive and delightful set of siblings.
Enjoying cake with four Irish lassies
After our tour of organized walking and eating ended about 5:30 p.m., Anne and I headed back to our Foss Hotel, taking just the slightest detour through the main shopping street in Reykjavik, Laugavegur. In the middle of the street, which was limited to pedestrians, someone had painted an ultra long hopscotch lane, one often used. We watched a variety of kids and adults hopping happily along the course. One guy, probably in his 30s, did a great job of keeping his balance as he hopped high on one leg and landed perfectly within each square, bouncing quickly along the route with considerable skill. Anne took photos of the 50th square, and the 90th, to commemorate our birthdays.
After reaching our hotel, we turned in fairly early, for the next day would be our first of road travel. I’ll say more about exploring Iceland in my next post.
You probably saw earlier this week that the The United Nations chief warned that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” Notice he didn’t say explosions, he didn’t say destruction, he said annihilation. He went on to mention the obvious tinderboxes, the continuing nuclear activity in the Mideast and Asia, and of course the threats of Mr. Russian Strongman, who according to The Associated Press said soon after his troops attacked the Ukraine, “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history.” Putin polished his unmistakable meaning by adding that Russia is one of the most potent nuclear powers.
I mention this newsworthy item because I rarely see articles about the threats of nuclear warfare in newspapers. Nor has it been a hot topic in the TV news I watch. On the other hand, who can miss the heavy winds blowing constantly about global warming? When it comes to temperature, the sky is definitely falling. Angst that our temperatures may rise a degree or two by the end of the century is palpable and widespread. If temperatures do warm as feared by many, will humanity be annihilated? I certainly hope not. I imagine that folks alive at the future date will adapt, and that they will not greet each day with horror. I’ve compared the challenges of global warming versus nuclear winter in an earlier post (Read it here).
Having lived long enough that I’m now less than a decade from becoming a centenarian myself, I have no hope of being around when 2100 dawns, but I sincerely hope billions of people will still be breathing fresh air then, my descendants included, and that our planet won’t have been scorched by rising temperatures. To achieve that pleasant goal, it seems quite clear, we need to avoid nuclear annihilation. Do you think it would it be wise for us citizens, and especially for our representatives, to be more concerned about avoiding nuclear annihilation? Perhaps it would help if our leaders took a good look at Nevil Shute’s On The Beach (See here) the realistic, post-apocalyptic novel which takes place about a year after nuclear World War III, a time when radioactive clouds are slowly circling the earth and killing all remaining humans and animals in its wake. (If given the choice between the two, I’d opt for a slightly warmer earth.)
NOTE:
As you may have noticed, I’ve been missing in action for about a month. I apologize for my absence. I’ve been plugging away on other matters that kept me occupied and left little time to post anything here. Now I have another short interval scheduled, one that has me more focused on cool weather, and rain, both likely in my immediate future. I’ll be heading for Iceland this weekend, thanks to my fine daughter who is taking us there to inspect the island for a week or so. Iceland’s temperatures in August usually range between the mid-50s to the mid-40s, and rain falls often, so we’ve prepared ourselves for that. We’ll be flying to Reykjavik and exploring the southwest coast by car. I’ll let you know how things go.
Have you seen the latest political poll? I read recently that 20% of respondents (as of June 2022) approve of the way congress is handling its job (see here). Are you as shocked as I am? Do you know anyone who thinks congress is doing its job well? Can you guess who those one-out-of-every-fives might be, those who approve of the mess congress is making? Could they be government employees? Or might they simply lack analytical skills?
Congress excels at shouting among its members as arguments erupt about regulating every animal, vegetable, and mineral in the country (Do something! is the cry.), while the same group is simultaneously spending us into bankruptcy. I don’t claim to be an economist, but I have been exposed to the basics of that dismal science, as documented by my undergraduate degree (B.S. in Economics, University of Wisconsin).
Surging inflation is the latest fiasco out of Washington. Various factors can induce inflation, the prime ones being excessive government spending and printing too much money (let’s not forget FOMC chairman Jerome H Powell and his cohorts who kept interest rates ridiculously low while flooding our economy with cheap money, one of their reasons being to get inflation above 2%). Boy, did they succeed! So now Powell et al. are raising interest rates in a hurry to recover from their blunder. To add one more obvious cause, a general shortage of services and goods also is inflationary.
With interest rates rising, another problem is looming. The cost of servicing our huge national debt at higher interest rates will siphon more and more dollars from other government spending. The numbers are huge. Here are some data provided by Red Jahncke in a column in the June 30th Wall Street Journal. Take a deep breath and read on.
Total federal gross interest cost over the 12 months ending on May 31 was $666 billion. If we include the impending extra interest on Treasury bills and the maturing notes, that figure rises to $863 billion. This is a staggering cost. National military spending was $746 billion over the past 12 months; Medicare spending was $700 billion. (My emphasis) Ouch, think of spending more for governmental debt than for Medicare, or for national defense? Is that where you want your tax dollars to go? Will our representatives ever be held accountable?
To put the above numbers into context, congress’s deficit spending will cost us, the taxpayers, nearly a trillion dollars per year, just to pay off federal borrowing necessitated by congressional splurging, which of course has inflated our national debt. As I type this, the debt is $30,550,000,000 (Yep, that’s 30+ TRILLIONS), and rocketing upward by the second. If you want to see how fast the ugly beast grows, just take a look here. Warning! Watching it grow will make you shudder.
To bring this down to the level of individuals like you and me, our present national debt comes to nearly $92,000 per citizen. So if Mom and Dad and each of the kids would write a check for nearly a hundred grand, payable to the U.S. Government, we would be free of debt, at least until our Washington hoodlums resumed spending more than our government takes in. It isn’t their money, but they do love to spend it, and sometimes, it is clear, merely spend it to get reelected. Some aren’t even shy about admitting that fact, as I read recently.
“It is actually delusional to believe Dems can get reelected without acting on filibuster or student debt,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in December. Rep. Ayanna Pressley said in May: “Democrats win when we deliver, and we have to deliver in ways that are impactful, tangible and transformative, like canceling student debt.” A headline on an April column in the Los Angeles Times read “Elizabeth Warren knows how Democrats can win the midterms. It starts with canceling student loan debt.” For the full text of this article, see here.
Ah yes, the government’s “free” cafeteria (remember, we taxpayers end up with the bill). Is it possible that the above dollars for votes scheme may backfire? I think President’s Biden latest goal is to cancel $10,000 of student debt for all those indebted. But what about those who have paid off their student loans? What about the rest of us who never had college debt? What can our sleazy politicians offer us? Couldn’t we all use an extra ten grand? Where shall we stand in line with hands out for our comparable bribes?
If this sounds like a shot at the above politicians, it definitely is, but I am an equal opportunity marksman, as I’ve demonstrated earlier (See here, here, here, and here), and I see no redeeming value in congressional republicans. If we ever needed term limits for our congressional crew, I am convinced we need them now more than ever.
Writing about politics raises my blood pressure, so I’ll avoid the topic for a while now. Next time I’ll get back to talking more about the science of aging. Stay tuned.
If you were around for a good part of the last century, you probably have noticed what I have, the exorbitant costs of medical care, not to mention other unwelcome changes, here in the USA. Call a physician’s office these days and you’re likely to get a recording, not an answer by a live human. Want an appointment with your doctor? Don’t expect to get it soon. And when you finally arrive in the office, are you happy as a nurse or the doctor stares at a computer screen while talking with you? The human interaction between physician and patient had degraded as the cost of medical care has skyrocketed.
Here are some numbers from a a table I copied from a book (sorry, I’ve lost the reference; it may have been titled Dark Medicine). The table compared numbers from 1975 and 2017. I had trouble reproducing the table, so I’ll provide the data in narrative form. In 1975, health care spending was $550 per person compared with >$11,000 per person in 2017. Quite a jump, don’t you think? Time allotted for doctor’s office visits in 1975 were 60 minutes for new patients and 30 minutes for return visits. In 2017, the times had been reduced to 12 minutes for new patients and 7 minutes for return visits. How is that for cutting you short of time? In 1975, the average hospital daily room charge was about $100. In 2017, the charge for a daily hospital room had increased to $4,600. Not an increase designed to draw applause.
According to a more recent article (in the February 24, 2022, New England Journal of Medicine), U.S. national health care expenditures increased from 4% of the gross domestic product in 1950 to nearly 18% of GDP in 2019. In short, now nearly one dollar out of every five spent in the USA now goes to “healthcare.”
The “healthcare industry” has become the biggest business in the United States. How did this massive growth occur? Here is my simple two word answer. Government intervention. One can quibble over the details, but certain facts are undeniable. In my younger years, free care for indigent patients was common at all levels of medicine. Practicing physicians often received little or nothing from patients unable to pay, yet they made a very good living despite that concession.
Hospitals did much the same. When I was a medical student at the University of Wisconsin and later at the University of Kansas, patients without financial resources were known as teaching patients and hospitalized and treated at no cost to them. The patients usually were attended to first by medical students, then residents, and finally by staff physicians, but they received free standard care. That system was still common practice when I interned in 1969 at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, with the hospital and physicians writing off the care of teaching patients.
The system wasn’t perfect, but it worked well. All of this changed, of course, when the government got into the business and launched programs that overrode the old system. With government money available, doctors and hospitals were eligible to be paid for services they once had provided free, and they not surprisingly chose to collect the cash. Free care went out the window. With government money, of course, came governmental control, illustrated by the emerging web of proliferating laws and requirements along with the burgeoning army of bureaucrats hired to ensure compliance with the new laws. This new army now naturally has its fingers in the “healthcare industry” pie, pulling cash from it.
An equally impressive growth of private medical insurance has occurred simultaneously, it too with its heavy dose of administrators and its own regulations and requirements, thus inflating the cost of medical care without adding one drop of health to anybody. No wonder “healthcare” has become the largest industry in the country.
As the growing mass of governmental and insurance company dictates landed on physicians, doctors were forced to hire new employees simply to fill out forms and comply. In turn, this necessitated the government and insurance agencies to hire teams of employees to read those newly required forms to ensure compliance with their regulations, thus bloating the overgrown monster even more.
All of this meant that physicians in private practice, distracted by the increasing regulations and needing to oversee compliance, found less time to spend with their patients, even as they increased their staffs, and their overhead. It soon became difficult for many doctors to survive independently. Hospitals and other organizations began buying physician’s practices and folding the doctors into large groups. According to recent articles in the press, physicians these days are burning out as rapidly as Fourth of July fireworks.
So has all of this improved our satisfaction with our medical care? Not for me! According to a 2019 article in Forbes (see here), American families in that year were paying nearly $20,000 per year for insurance premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs for healthcare. The exorbitant costs of medical care.
This flood of money is going somewhere, and we know a few places. According to the above article in Forbes, so-called non-profit hospitals are adding billions of dollars annually to their bottom lines, lavishly compensating their CEOs, and spending millions of dollars (generated by patient fees), to lobby government and defend the status quo. Uh huh. That makes sense. Who wouldn’t go all out to make sure that a rich stream of greenbacks would keep flowing in their direction? After all, what are lobbyists for?
There is, of course, plenty of fraud as well. Few government programs avoid that. A recent article in the Washington Post (see here) reveals that a California health system employed a woman to scan health histories of thousands of elderly Medicare patients and then pressure doctors to add false diagnoses found in current medical records. (The woman became a whistleblower.) The point of adding outdated and irrelevant diagnoses such as stroke and cancer to the medical records — often without the knowledge of the patients themselves — was to make the patients appear sicker than they were, and thus send bills to the federal Medicare Advance insurance program inflated by millions of dollars, according to federal allegations.
Finally, we mustn’t forget our health insurance companies. It was reported last week (See here), that the CEOs of American’s seven largest publicly traded health insurance and services companies cumulatively earned more that $283 million in 2021 – by far the most in any year of the last decade. These inflated earnings naturally add to the exorbitant costs of medical care.
There you have it. We’ve barely scratched the surface, but I think an image of this particular governmental-induced sludge is emerging. I chose sludge specifically after reading a recent article in The Wall Street Journal discussing pleas for our government to “do something”(see here). Here is a quote from the above mentioned article. “The American political system has accreted so many solutions and sub-solutions to so many problems that what we have created is a system mired in sludge.” Absolutely true! I can think of no better word than sludge to describe our current ungainly, over-regulated, under-performing, crazy system leading to exorbitant costs of our medical care. What do you think?
HOUSEKEEPING NOTE:
After having written nearly 90 essays and posting them here over the past 18 months, I am going to take a necessary break. I have a growing list of unfinished tasks I’ve avoided while considering topics to be reported here and doing the necessary background work. I need to catch up on other parts of my life, but I plan to return, maybe within a month, assuming my aging brain continues to function with a modicum of efficiency. While I’m gone, please feel free to browse through my earlier posts. I think some of my best writing appears in those early pieces (a few of my favorites are here,here,here, and here), and all still are available here on this blog. In the meantime, enjoy life, and stay tuned.
A burgeoning flood of laboratory data, along with emerging studies on human subjects, indicate that Urolithin A effectively tames inflammation. Importantly, this molecule also stimulates mitophagy (See here), and it is emerging as a potentially important therapeutic agent. The next two paragraphs, taken from recent scientific review articles, lay out the direction this specific branch of medicine is heading, a direction I believe has great promise. Read on.
“Chronic inflammatory diseases are the most significant cause of death in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks chronic diseases as the greatest threat to human health. The prevalence of diseases associated with chronic inflammation is anticipated to increase persistently for the next 30 years in the United States. in 2000, nearly 125 million Americans were living with chronic conditions and 61 million (21%) had more than one. In recent estimates by Rand Corporation, in 2014 nearly 60% of Americans had at least one chronic condition, 42% had more than one and 12% of adults had 5 or more chronic conditions. Worldwide, 3 of 5 people die due to chronic inflammatory diseases like stroke, chronic respiratory diseases, heart disorders, cancer, obesity, and diabetes.” (This quote comes from an excellent review article published in 2021. To find it, click here, and then click of Free full text.)
A powerful anti-inflammatory agent
“Urolithin A (UroA) is a gut metabolite produced from ellagic acid-containing foods such as pomegranates, berries, and walnuts. UroA is of growing interest due to its therapeutic potential for various metabolic diseases based on immunomodulatory properties. Recent advances in UroA research suggest that UroA administration attenuates inflammation in various tissues, including the brain, adipose, heart, and liver tissues, leading to the potential delay or prevention of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In this review, we focus on recent updates of the anti-inflammatory function of UroA and summarize the potential mechanisms by which UroA may help attenuate the onset of diseases in a tissue-specific manner. Therefore, this review aims to shed new insights into UroA as a potent anti-inflammatory molecule to prevent immunometabolic diseases, either by dietary intervention with ellagic acid-rich food or by UroA administration as a new pharmaceutical drug.” (To read in full this informative article, click here, then click on View Full-Text.) There is no doubt that Urolithin A tames inflation.
Important basics to remember
Before I go on, I think it bears emphasizing that healthy nutrition and continuing exercise are known to slow the declines in muscle strength as one ages and to inhibit the development of metabolic diseases. We must not forget these two healthful practices as we consider other options that stretch beyond them.
If you have been following this blog for a while, you may recall my mentioning the old truism that people who eat nuts daily (or at least often) tend to live longer than those who rarely eat nuts (see that post by clicking here) In that article I explained that some types of nuts contain resveratrol, the substance that extends lives in lower forms, and possibly in humans as well, thus supporting the hypothesis that the resveratrol in nuts may explain why nut eaters live longer.
Another possibility
However, the precursors of Urolithin A also are found in certain nuts, so one might argue that Urolithin A’s anti-inflammatory effects could be responsible for lengthening the lives of those who often eat nuts. This too seems to be a reasonable assumption, even though not all of us have in our gut microbiome the necessary bacteria that convert the above-mentioned ellagic acids to Urolithin A.
Apparently only about 40% of us, at most, have detectable levels of circulating Urolithin A after eating the foods mentioned above. The rest of us are out of luck. How, you might ask, can we identify the lucky ones? Can we determine whether we have the necessary gut bacteria to convert those ellagic acids to Urolithin A? It wouldn’t be easy. I’ve searched online to see if any tests might be available, but nothing popped up. Numerous research laboratories could perform such tests, but I found nothing commercially available. So, if you’re among the unlucky majority, you could stuff your tummy with pomegranates and end up with no healthful Urolithin A in your blood stream.
Hope for the unlucky 60%
What is described as pure Urolithin A is now available from at least one provider (See here). Full disclosure: I have been taking this product for the better part of a year (I believe in supplements), and I do believe it has strengthened my muscles and likely has improved my mitochondrial function. I have no connection with the company and will add that the product is expensive. A paper published this month (May 2022) reports that this specific Urolithin A improved muscle strength, exercise performance, and mitochondrial health in middle-aged adults (see that article by clicking here). I was particularly impressed by the evidence that this molecule stimulated mitophagy and improved mitochondrial performance, especially since mitochondrial performance is known to diminish as one ages. It seems beyond doubt that Urolithin A effectively tames inflammation. It is, I think, a compound to keep our eyes on.
A look ahead
I have identified a few more substances, molecules that may improve health and extend lives, that I plan to describe in later posts, but next time, if my intention holds, I plan to take a detour and look at changes in our medical system over the years, changes that have been, in my opinion, mostly bad. Stay tuned.
Fountains of youth and magic elixirs have been touted for millennia, each illusion tantalizing many, and disappointing all. That era has ended, replaced by the awesome science of anti-aging. New strategies are evolving to improve and prolong the function of practically every part of the body, organs like the heart, brain, kidney, lung, and more.
Optimism that human healthspans and lifespans will be extended is boundless. Here is what the CEO of a UK-based anti-aging biotech said recently as he likened the outcome of anti-aging research to the study of flight. “In 1903, two brothers flew a glorified kite for 14 seconds, the Kitty Hawk. Fifteen years later they were flying planes in WWI, and 35 years later, the Germans had invented the jet. Sixty-five years later we landed a man on the moon. For robotics and for aging, divide that number by 10. That’s how fast this is going to happen.” (see here)
Geneticists and Biochemists
Over the past few decades geneticists have identified gene variants that extend the lifespans of multiple species. Simultaneously we’ve learned how individual lifestyles influence our epigenome, that clever regulator that follows through and turns our genes on, or turns them off (See here). And biochemists have unraveled intricate pathways within our cells that influence the rate at which they age.
Researchers have learned how to stimulate autophagy (we’ve talked about that neat process here and here), the housekeeping maneuver by which our cells maintain their health, as well as
mitophagy, a related process that renews our mitochondria (the organelles that supply most of
the chemical energy needed to power the cell’s biochemical reactions.)
Autophagy and mitophagy improve health and very likely prolong life.
Other sources of information
As the title indicates, this is merely an introductory peek. Any single sentence above could be expanded to full book length by scientists in the field (which I am not), so I am staying simplistic here. But many of the details are absolutely fascinating. If you would like a check out some the marvelous things being discovered, you can find further information in either of these two reviews (here, and here).
All that glistens is not gold
One must proceed with caution. There still are plenty of useless nostrums for sale. The CEO I quoted above also said this. “There’s an enormous number of charlatans . . . Walk into your local drugstore, you’re going to see about 50 products that claim to be anti-aging, and I can assure you that none of them are.”
Here is what someone wrote in 2014: Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. (See here)\
But there are good products too
Although there is lots of worthless products out there, even dangerous ones,
there are good ones as well. Some have great potential. I plan to describe a number of those in
future posts, offering more about the awesome science of anti-aging.
Featured Image Cartoon from: <a href=’https://www.freepik.com/vectors/different-ages’>Different ages vector created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com</a>
Today, May 9th, is Victory Day in Russia (1) as it celebrates the surrender of Germany in WWII. And Russia is at war again today. An early column by E. B. White may provide an historical parallel.
Decades ago E. B. White wrote in The New Yorker, The long vigil at the radio is beginning to tell on us. We have been tuned in, off and on, for forty-eight hours, trying to snare intimations of our destiny, as in a butterfly net. . . We still twitch nervously from the likelihood of war at 86 on the dial to the possibility of peace at 100 on the dial. . . We sit with diners at the darkened tables in the French cafés, . . .we march alongside the German troops approaching the Polish border. . . If war comes, it will be war, and no one wants that.
Border Parallel?
In the spring of 2021, Russian troops began approaching the Ukrainian border. In mid-January of this year, as many as 100,000 Russian troops had been amassed along that border, leading President Biden to say on television, “How can I say this in a public forum,” He hesitated briefly before saying of Putin, “My guess is he will move in.”
Date of White’s Column
Mr. White wrote his column on August 27th, 1939. Hitler’s troops invaded Poland five days later,
on September 1st (The New Yorker published White’s column on September 2nd). On September
3rd, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, the beginning of World War II, a
conflict that quickly expanded, as we all know.
Historical Parallel?
On February 24, 2022, Russian troops invaded the Ukraine. Land and air battles erupted, leading
to massive destruction of cities and human lives. NATO is ramping up its efforts to provide more
and more weapons and supplies to the beleaguered Ukrainians. Fighting is ferocious. War is here,
and escalating. Most of us do not want it. Weapons are more powerful than ever (2). Unleashing
even a fraction of present-day nuclear warheads likely would eliminate all of humanity, or cripple
it in unimaginable ways. Where do we go from here? Do our politicians know?
German soldier photo from National Archives (image 200-SFF-52)