Day two

Hello All,

It was another winner.  I thought yesterday that if we had flown here and had the day we had and then drove back to Reykjavik and flown home, we would have gotten our money’s worth.  Ditto today.  But first I have to share a story I forgot last night.  At one point as Rebecca and I were walking up from one geyser to another, I reached over to put my arm around her and gently led her to me.  When I turned to her, I saw a very confused young non-English speaking kid who wondered why a middle aged man was picking him up.  Simultaneously I heard Rebecca laughing to the point of tears. 

We slept well and managed to make it until 7:00.  This is easier said than done when this is what 11:00 PM looks like outside - 

The hardest part was waking up enough to check the time because you can see light around the shades.  It would be 2:00 AM or it could be 9:00.  Tonight, the sunset is 11:18 and the sunrise is at 3:10.  I don’t suppose I’ll see either but I’m guessing it would be hard to tell anything had happened.

This video is for the sound but it's not very loud.  These birds were everywhere and made the most un-birdlike sound. I think it was from their wings when they dove.

Our breakfast was sandwich meat and bread and jam and the hostess made us a waffle.  It did the trick.  Our first stop on the drive was to visit Iceland’s most famous person –

Alas, we didn’t see her.  We stopped a bit further down the road to see a crater.   

To get a sense of scale, notice the people at the bottom.

The water was amazingly blue which of course the pictures don't capture very well.  The crater is at the water line so that isn't accumulated rain water but ground water.

Can you pick out the David Daniels look alike in this picture?

One artsy reflection picture

For lunch we stopped in Selfoss and had one of Iceland's famous hot dogs at a very unfortunately named stand - 

I can recommend the hot dog however.  Mine was a deep fried wiener with cheese, garlic, crushed up Doritos and some sort of white sauce - 

Here is a condo complex and a couple of houses in a neighborhood.

All of the roofs are metal or corrugated steel which was interesting.  

We went shopping and for some supplies and broke down and bought some skinka.  Turns out, it's just ham.  We didn't buy this however - 

For about an hour we drove through endless fields and flatlands.  They were beautiful with sheep and Icelandic horses which I'm sure we will run into to take a picture with soon.  We could see snow capped mountains in the distance and as we got closer there were smaller mountains in front.  Then we saw this -

As we got closer, it turned out to be this!

And a short walk behind the falls and we got this!

As I had bought a raincoat for this trip I decided to get a bit wet.

There were to other waterfalls next to that one. When we saw this one, we decided to climb up. 

Rebecca, who has a heights thing, did a remarkable job but at this point decided it was enough.

Trust me when I say, it was a lot scarier than it looks in this picture.  There is no path to speak of and a lot of it is through the waterfall itself and so it's muddy.  Here is what the top looked like though I must say it was much greener than it looks in this video.

We were both completely mentally and physically exhausted when it was over but a guy told us that there was one more fall to see farther on.  That didn't mean I could stop in to see if a troll was home.

He or she wasn't.

The last waterfall here turned out to be the most incredible thing I've ever seen - ok, maybe it was the grand canyon but I was 14 so who remembers.

There is no way to really explain what this was like.  But here goes.  Here is the falls from a distance -

It looks fair enough.  But the thing is, you walk through a stream on rocks, trying not to fall in for about 20 yards.  You have no idea what it's going to be like.  And then it's like this.

If you know anything about Rebecca, you know she loves a mound.  So she headed straight for it.

And we're lucky she did!

I think I had planned on this stop taking an hour.  It took two.  It was incredible.  Fortunately, since we were hot and tired and mentally fried and sunburned, our next stop was at Iceland's oldest natural hot spring.  It's not really advertised but you turn of the ring road and onto a very rocky dirt road until you come to this - 

Then you walk on a crazy rocky path next to a river

The second one is leaving but it's more like what most of the "path" was.  Eventually you end up here

There was a small building to change in which was fairly disgusting and gender neutral (I think I saw Kaitlyn in there) but the spring was great.  It was fed by a pipe on one end.  The water coming out was practically boiling hot and there was one area  on the far side where hot water ran down the mountain.  It was best not to get too observant of it though because it was completely green with algae.  Here is Rebecca rinsing her swimsuit in the sink at the hotel.

After the 20 minute walk back to the car we had had it.  I looked at the itinerary and noticed that we had one more waterfall on this list.  I didn't have the heart (or the feet) to mention it to her.  Turns out, it was visible by the ring road.  We both looked at each other and said, "Do you want to go see it?"  I said that as long as we could get close to it in the car we should swing by.  Here is what, at this point (about 7:00) we couldn't muster up any excitement about.

I mean, it's day two and we're so jaded, this didn't seem worth our while!  That's how amazing it is here.

So, that's day two.  We were going to go out and eat but we opted for skinka and skyr and bread and paprika potato chips and cheese, and anything else we could get our hands on.  Oh, mushroom spread.  Apparently that exists.  Oh, oh, and we found a liquor store so we bought and drank some Viking beer.  

It's now 11:45 so I'll put what night time looks like here tomorrow. 

G'night