Iceland Photojournal/Rich

Sorry this post got delayed; I wantd to write during our twelve hours in the Reykjavik airport but Tirrill really needed to play Civilization. Here's pictures from Iceland in somewhat chronological order.

We arrived and started driving immediately, and so our first view of the country was this, driving along the Ring Road to a beautiful sunrise:

After we checked a couple of places and realized nowhere in Iceland opens before 10 AM, we made a desperation stop at a random stand-alone house on the side of the road. Expecting nothing, we ended up finding a free bathroom with running water and a hike to Godafoss, a waterfall that Tirrill had told us about on the way in. Apparently around 1,000 years ago, an Icelandic fella converted the place to Christianity and shoved the Pagan statues down this waterfall in a symbolic gesture.

We made it close to halfway around the country before we hit our first stops, which were some craters near Lake Myvatn:

We drove from Reykjavik in the Southwest corner up North, across the entire North, and back down South to the Southeast corner all in the first 24 hours. We took our first night of sleep at Jokulsarlon, a set of floating glaciers gradually being carried out to sea.

Our drive took us to Skaftafell next, which is the Southern part of the Vatnajokull national park. This was our first big hike, but nice guy Tirrill carried the three of us when we got tired so we made it to the top.

That night we drove to Vik and splurged on a hostel. In the morning we hit the black sand beaches:

Some of us were more successful climbing the rocks than others.

Pretty close by was Skogarfoss, which was one of many times we accidentally got ourselves soaking wet by venturing too close to nature for our pictures.

Time number two: at Strokkur.

Continuing the trend of accidentally getting wet: Gullfoss.

We hiked in a circle around Kerid volcano crater, which was the only natural attraction in Iceland we ended up having to pay to see.

Next stop: Thingvellir, a set of passes in between rocky cliffs with a ton of moss-covered rocks littering the way. Mostly we just felt like we were about to be attacked by Orcs or Wildlings the entire time we hiked there, which is doubly spooky after all the Game of Thrones we've been watching recently.

We tried to drive to Landmannalaugar (about 3 hours off the Ring Road), and the road to get there was closed. Not to be deterred, we explored the surrounding area and bumped into this lake, which was a pretty solid consolation prize (except that we're also convinced it was a nuclear waste site).

Looking for a place to stay, we ended up in a town famous for it's geothermal rivers and finally got to bathe in Icelandic rivers. And then bathed in an actual shower because we emerged dirtier and much sulfur-ier than we were when we got in.

Cliffs on the shoreline and a pretty big drop off:

And finally a day in Reykjavik, where I'm pretty sure 99% of the population lives. But still, nothing opens before ten.