Iceland, you tricky little nymph.

The land of pranksters, fooling would-be invaders by naming their rolling green hills "land of ice." The land of a nationwide hoax, known as the impossible language of Icelandic. After visiting, I am pretty sure there's no such thing as the Icelandic language. It's just a bunch of people who speak English and pretend to understand one another's gibberish in order to make linguists feel incompetent. "Byggingarverkfraeoingur" means "civil"? Yeah, right. I civilly reject this as complete boloney. I'm onto you, Iceland. I'm onto you.

But that doesn't mean I'm angered by you. Quite the contrary. An island of misfits where the people are outnumbered by sheep 3-to-1 and the human population doesn't even come close to hitting a half-million sounded like my dream. The more I read about this nation of elves, trolls, fairies and Bjork, where the populace opts to believe in magic and the women rule, the more I felt Iceland and I were kindred spirits. Move over, "Dancing With the Stars." Here the night sky lights up in waltzing auroras, spiraling in euphoric waves that would leave Carrie Ann screaming. Nonstop. As in, she might suffocate from forgetting to take a breath because of prolonged screaming. Someone should really warn her never to go to Iceland.

My husband, toddler and I began our European vacation with a quick stopover in Iceland before heading over to Germany for my friend's wedding. The final layover in Iceland before heading home gave us the opportunity to leave Reykjavik and explore the real country in a four-day road trip.

To start this voyage, we rented a vehicle from SADcars. In a country where the language (gibberish) complicates communication, it turns out that you should take the words written in English quite literally. Everything about SADcars was, well, sad, from the busted car to the engine, which sounded like a feral cat in heat, to the mountain of broken car seats the employees pointed to, saying, "Pick one, and if it's broken, pick another. Seems the fifth try's the charm." Gee, thanks. How byggingarverkfraeoingur of you to offer such sage advice.

When we finally headed on our trip, I made my husband drive at half the speed limit for fear that our fifth car seat still wasn't up to snuff. And still, navigating was nearly impossible. Billboards flew past, with town names coming in at no shorter than 20 letters and deviating from one another by only one vowel buried somewhere in the ninth syllable. When we arrived at our first destination, it was past 10 p.m., and we couldn't find our hotel anywhere. With the GPS broken, I assumed I had directed us to the wrong town, one with a name that looked similar to the town we intended to visit. I bought a map at the only gas station still open.

Turns out I was right.

And wrong.

In addition to the impossible language, Iceland has two towns with the same name. I had led us four hours in the wrong direction. We found a local room for the night and in the morning were greeted with something remarkable: a new perspective.

Looking out over the river-cut pasture, we realized we were looking at the real Iceland. The rural beauty, savage waterfalls and rustic homesteads that we would have missed entirely. And this awareness altered the rest of our trip.

The entire vacation, I'd been lamenting how I did not know how to travel with a toddler. Having lived as a backpacker, sleeping on park benches and subsisting on a diet of granola bars, I didn't know how to adjust to accommodate another person, especially a little one I wanted to protect. But here, in a town far off the beaten trail, I figured it out. It was easy. I just followed my kid's lead.

With our Icelandic itinerary abolished, we pulled over whenever anything caught our fancy. My son ran up to wild horses and frolicked behind waterfalls. We climbed mountains and splashed in the sea. We searched for trolls and fairies, and though we never saw one, I know our trip was impacted by their presence. Who, if not a trickster elf, set us off toward the wrong town initially?

Sometimes you feel refreshed after a vacation of big margaritas. And sometimes it takes a vacation of big magic. Iceland is magic.

Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. Check out her column at http://didionsbible.com. To find out more about Katiedid Langrock and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.