Final Leg - Iceland

We're on our final leg of this journey with 2 1/2 days to spend in Iceland before flying back home.  Our flight landed at a good time in the afternoon on Monday so we picked up our rental car and headed to the Grabrok Guest House where we worked for one month last Septemeber.

 The Grabrok Guest House is 90 miles from the airport and the photo above is just a sample of the scenery we passed by.

 This is Matheau - The manager of the guest house.  It was great seeing him again AND he made us dinner!

 More great scenes on our drive back to Reykjavik

 We took the long way around the fjord and got to see a lot of iced covered waterfalls

On Tuesday we decided to drive Iceland's "Golden Circle".  It's about a 180 mile loop that hits a lot of really great spots.

It also goes right through a town we remembered well from last year that had a wonderful bakery serving Illy coffee and these awesome Chocolate Coconut Rum Balls. - Kokoskulur in Icelandic.  We've got to learn how to make these things!

 This is the Kerid Crater.  We missed this little spot last year but glad we were able to see it this time around.

Our next stop was at "The Great Geysir".  This area is a large geothermal hot spring with several hot pools in the area (too hot to go in at 212 degrees F!)  The "Great Geysir" only spouts off every couple of years, but this one, called the "Strokkur Geysir" (Icelandic for churn)  goes off about every 6 minutes.  It's pretty amazing to watch!

 This is the area around the geysirs; steam coming out of the ground nearly everywhere you look.

 Gullfoss Waterfall - It was great seeing this waterfall again in another season.  Snow and Ice crystals all around the falls that we didn't see in September.

 Great view of the river going through the rock crevice after the falls

 Now that's a bus!  This would be a great way to see parts of Iceland only accessible with a 4 wheel drive!

 Iceland is full of horses (Icelandic Ponies).  We came across several up against a fence close to the road so we decided to pull in to see if we could pet them.  Then we saw a small box with a sign that read, "You are welcome to feed the horses their horse candy."  You open the box and they had small cups with a few chunks of feed.  They asked you to pay 200 kn (about $2) and it was all on the honor system.  You put the money in a tub and get your horse feed.

 We saw another tourist sign we hadn't seen before to an old cave.  It was only 3 km off the main road so we decided to check it out.  This photo shows some of the open land Iceland has.

 This cave was actually a home to a few families in the early 1900's.  One young couple made it their home, built a house-front on the opening of the cave, and had 3 children here.  You can see it started to snow while we were here.

 This is the rock area on top of the cave.  This cave area is made (formed) from a sand and gravel mix; really soft material.

 Our next stop was Thingvellir National Park.  This area lies in a rift valley that marks the boundry of the Mid-Atlantic crest.  It's also known as the first Norwegian settlement area from 874 AD.

 We read there was a natural hot springs pool up the coast, on the edge of the ocean, about 45 minutes from where we stayed in Reykjavik.  So we put on our bathing suits (32 degrees outside) and headed out.  We got there and no sign of hot water anywhere; nothing but pure, cold ocean water.  Beautiful, but no thanks!

On Wednesday, our flight didn't depart until 5:30 p.m. so we spent the morning and afternoon touring the city of Reykjavik.

 This is one of the oldest junior colleges in Iceland dating back to 1056

This is the largest church in Iceland with the tower at 240 feet tall.  

The church had this massive pipe organ inside and actually had an organist playing and a lady singing when we visited.

 Colorful harbor type buildings

 This statue was outside the tourist information center and called "The Unknown Bureaucrat". We thought it was pretty comical.

 We heard this hotdog stand has the best hotdogs in Iceland so we had to try it out.  They were pretty good!

 Checking out the harbor area

 That's all for Iceland.....

We flew from Reykjavik to Montreal, Canada and had to spend the night.  We just got a hotel inside the airport.  This was our view from the 9th floor.

On our way to Oklahoma in the morning and another journey completed!  It's been a great ride!