Moonscape

Millions had been spent to perfect the Lunar Rover. It faced a harsh mistress with no room for error. Each cast of the die could prove literal.

We were already awestruck by the eerie green glow that fluoresced on everything like a giant black light... Then we topped the rise.

We were on the lip of what had once been a giant crater... until dust and boulders filled the bowl. The pockmarked plain below us, miles wide, was strewn with lava rocks and sculptures.
The flickering light on the chartreuse plateau created moving shadows... animating the sculptures and everything else on the floor of the crater.

We steered the little vehicle along the lava flows among the boulders. We disembarked at the bottom of the ridge. Even on foot, it was difficult to move through the fine emerald powder sparkling around us.
We each found a clear spot among the rocks and fell flat on our backs. We waved our arms and legs and made "snow angels" in the green drifts.

The black sky directly above us seemed to have been rent with a rip... revealing a glowing green substance that we don't normally see. The rip continued to heal and tear and undulate back and forth across the darkness like a writhing eel.
The hypnotic effect was relaxing... but dizzying. We climbed aboard and our vehicle returned us to the top of the ridge.

We stopped to drink in the panorama again. The lunar rover proved itself in the Icelandic lava fields to train for its successful mission. The lunar-looking landscape showed the challenges it faced.
The aurora above us showed its dance in many more colors to those farther south... but it only bared its soul in Verde chrome to those directly beneath it.
The snow angels below did not move... but the flickering shadows around their wings let them fly.

We climbed back into my 1969 Datsun station wagon and worked our way through the lava fields back to the base in Keflavik.
"Too bad NASA didn't have one of these..." I thought. It only cost me 25 hundred dollars brand-new off the showroom floor ! :)