Iceland

We’re back from the valley of the ice and snow and ready to share our adventure with you faithful blog followers. But as this was one of our longest and most nature-based trips, we think the pictures will provide you with most of the detail you need. Plus I’m lazy.

Bottom line: Iceland helped me realize that Earth is a neat place. Here’s a rundown:

Reykjavik: Small. Lilliputian really. Also reminded me of a frontier town. We had Indian.Thingvellir: Think Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. Europe and America meet here and are continually tugged in opposite directions by super strong (tectonic) forces (to continue the metaphor, think their careers). But no matter the tugs, they just love each other so much that they stay together… and in the process create lots of cool geographic features (babies?).
Gullfoss: One of Iceland’s biggest waterfalls. This was perhaps the most wind I’ve ever felt. My lips were literally blown open at one point like a skydiver’s. It was crazy wind.Geysir: Geysir is where our word geyser comes from. Unfortunately, it stopped routinely spouting in the 1950s when tourists through rocks in there. Next door is the smaller but still awesome Strokkur. It splashed me with superheated water. No fun.


Kerith: This is the caldera from an old volcano. Or perhaps not. No one knows for sure.

Hveragerdi: As the most geothermally active town in Iceland, this place takes the steam pouring out of the ground and does great things with it: Warming greenhouses so they can grow bananas and papayas, cooking food, and heating buildings, pools, and roads. Crafty.

Skinny dipping: Yup. Cold outside but warm in the water.
Seljalandfoss: The most amazing waterfall I’ve ever seen. You get to walk behind it. Very enjoyable.
Skogafoss: A huge waterfall by the North Atlantic. Very nice to look at, especially the rainbow (which you can't see here).

Vik: Meaning “bay” (as in ReykjaVIK, KeflaVIK, VIKing, etc.), this place was only a small town on a bay. But it had black sand, awesome views, and a gas station with food.
Solheimajökull glacial walk: We walked on a glacier. Scarier than I thought because you’d have to step over these huge and jagged ice caves that were as much as 10 feet below you … with flowing water at the bottom. And ice can be sharp. Trust me. Scary.
Krysuvik Seltun: A big depression where the earth’s crust is super thin, meaning lots of bubbling pits, sulfurous mud pots, and masses of gasses.

The Blue Lagoon: It’s like taking a bath with 200 of your closest friends. As Iceland’s only tourist trap, we had to go to this place. It’s basically a large swimming hole carved into the rocky landscape where a local geothermal electricity plant (which boils water with the heat from the earth) dumps its used water so tourists like us can pay lots of money to swim in it. By the time it gets to us it’s like bath water. Elizabeth enjoyed this.