July 17 – Southeast Coast: It was a twenty-hour day. Up at 6:00; out of here by 6:45, back at 12:15, bed at 2:00 AM. Long, but really a good day.

Food combination was interesting as well. Stopped in Selfoss at a bakery for flaky pastry, skyr, espresso. Later, at a truck stop we picked up some mutton salami sticks (and they are good). Lunch was at a food wagon at Jökulsárlón by the glacier lagoon where we had “lobster” rolls (quite yummy). Oh, lobster here means langoustines, all local. Then dinner in Vik finishing about 10:00 PM with local bread, fried camembert, lovely charr, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream – all but the charr shared. J and D had seafood soup as their main course.

The objective as we left Reykjavik was to drive all the way to Jökulsárlón and the glacier lagoon. This is about five hours of driving time. And it rained along the way, but cleared up by the time we arrived. The lagoon is at the foot of the glacier, and you can see its field. Big chunks of ice break off from the glacier and sit in the lagoon. As they melt, they move into a stream that ends up at the ocean at Diamond Beach. The chunks hang up there until they melt enough to be swept downstream. We spent quite a bit of time by the stream shooting to both still the water flowing around the ice chunks and slowing it down with a neutral density filter to silky smooth. Got back in the car, drove across the bridge over the stream, climbed to vantage points and spent time with the huge array of big chucks in the lagoon all crowded together. Had late lunch at Heimahumar Food Wagon as described above.

So, that was as far east as we got. Next major stop was heading west to Vatnajokull National Park to see the Svartifoss waterfall and some of the lesser ones there as well. While our midday at the glacier area was sunny, our visit here was rainy and chilly. The trail up to the major falls is, from the parking lot where we parked, very steep, difficult, and is about two miles up to the top. It was hard. We stopped a few times along the way to catch our breath.

The Svartifoss falls are known because of the black basalt columns that frame it. And it’s lovely. I stayed up at the hilltop vantage point since the trail down to the falls is steep and would be too taxing for me to try to come back up to where I was. But J and D did it and loved the perspective of the falls they got all the way down at the bottom. If it had been sunny and a bit warmer, I would have joined them. While the trail getting back to the car was downhill and we didn’t have to stop to catch our breath, the steep part was slick and as hard to navigate going down as it was coming up. I slipped at one point and ended up on my butt. No harm.

Back at the car, it was already after 6:00. We headed west and made a stop at a strange field of green covered lava boulders (Green Lava Walk). Weird and neat. Onward to Vik for dinner at Suður-Vík, restaurant, café, bar as described above. Lovely dinner and service.

On the road again about 10:00 we marveled at the changing light. Were driving some of the time directly into the sun. While sunset is listed at 11:05, after-sunset lit clouds were visible almost to midnight. And we could also see moonset. Got back at 12:15, but with downloading, shower, shave, it was 2:00 before I got to bed. Long but well-worth it day.

July 19 – Reykjavik to St. Louis: Got up around 8:00. Fixed scrambled eggs with leftovers from last night about 9:00. We left about 10:00 and went nearby to Perlan, which is something like our Science Center. Its attraction is an ice cave and timeline history of the glaciers and how they will all melt away in the next couple of hundred years. Ice cave is kept at well below freezing so no drips of water on the visitors. Was created using ice from the glaciers. Also could see chunk of a glacier with black lava lines showing when volcanoes under them have erupted. Fun and educational. The building has a large glass dome on top and an area we could go outside and do a 360 view of the city.

Left there about 11:45 for the brief drive back to the AirBnB where we said goodbye to our wonderful hostess and put our luggage into the Skoda Olympia, our Hertz vehicle of the trip. Found out when we checked in we had driven over 2,500 km, which is about 1,600 miles. Wowzer.

We drove out onto the Reykjanes Peninsula, drove past the airport and out to the tip where there is the Gardur Lighthouse. Nice and isolated and we wondered what the folks who live there do! Stopped to fuel up and I got a sandwich which Donna bought some wool … nice grocery store and nice discount store.

We were early at the airport, checked our baggage, and saw our flight was delayed since the inbound airplane was late. Went through security where, even though I had to take off my shoes and had zero in my pockets, I still “beeped” the scanner. So I was wanded and patted down before I could go on. Have no clue what triggered the scanner since I have gone through lots of them dressed exactly as I am today (including in Israel) and have not set them off.

Just like Disney World, once you clear security you are in the Duty Free area and its shops. We all bought some Brennivin to take home! Then into the main waiting area where there are shops and food. Found out the gate for our flight would not be posted for a couple of hours, but there was an estimate we’d leave at 6:50 (instead of the scheduled time of 4:30). So we sat around, had snacks, talked. When the gate was posted, we went through passport control and out to the gate where a long line had already formed even though boarding was at least an hour away. No seating area around the departure gates. We stood or sat until boarding started. Since I had Priority Boarding, I could get ahead of the crowd and go on board, stow by carryon stuff, and sit down. Lovely. J and D came on not too far after I did.

Seat 1A again. Bulkhead, but no big deal since plenty of legroom and overhead space for all that I have. Into the flight, I was given when I had pre-ordered in food: a vegetarian plate that had four big balls of falafel, some barley, an some chickpeas. Hot and tasty. Coffee was instant, but okay.

Hope to get into St. Louis about 9:00 CDT which is 2:00 AM in Reykjavik. Ah, well. It’s been a wonderful trip on so many levels. Being able to spend this much time with Donna and Jeff is a treat. And Jeff has been great in navigating us from place to place as well as picking out where we went and when. We had some long days. We had some wet and chilly weather. We had some sunny days or parts of them. Got to play with long exposures at waterfalls and moving water using a neutral density filter, something I’ve wanted to do and it plays into part of what I am presenting to Camera Club in September.

The scenery changes around every corner. There are different versions of lava fields – some smooth, some jagged, some moss covered. Large areas flat as they could be and covered with green. Almost no trees except where they had been planted as snow or wind breaks. Mountains with snow. Waterfalls all over the place besides the ones we stopped to shoot. Horse herds in vast fields. Large areas where hay was being cut and baled. Sheep, of course. Cliffs and varied coastlines. Black sand beaches. Geothermal areas and plants, hot springs (and Blue Lagoon). Glaciers and icebergs on their way to melting and moving to the ocean. We took a ferry out to a volcanic island and climbed through lava fields. And the Sun. I have written about the light and sky in an earlier post.

We ate great food (and, yes, it’s expensive) that included cod, langoustines, lamb fillet, lamb hotdogs, lobster soup (really langoustine soup), lamb soup, plokkfiskur as described in earlier post. We cannot think of any meal we had that was less than really good. And there was Brennivin! Whoa! Except for one morning, we had breakfast in our lodgings and fixed eggs and had the wonderful Icelandic sweet rye bread and skyr.

Really an interesting Summer with Israel followed closely by Iceland. Hard to beat next year.

July 18 – Reykjavik: Given our long, long day yesterday, I slept until about 9:00. Others were up and doing computer and other stuff. I joined in to label images from yesterday. Fun to see how the day progressed. Today we really don’t have an itinerary. We have scoped out most of the areas Jeff wanted to explore and are tired.

Around 11:30 we went into city center to find a place for breakfast. Some restaurants stop breakfast fare at 11:00 but found Café Paris that had lots of stuff on the all-day menu. I had two double espressos and a ham and mushroom omelette. Nice but the eggs Benedict J and D had looked better than my omelette.

Something was going on near City Hall since the street outside was lined with buses, had lots of people in suits or dresses as appropriate, and streets blocked off by police.

We then walked uphill to find a particular yarn shop only to see we’d been by there before on earlier walks. Spent time in the Hallgrimskirkja Church. We had been their briefly earlier, but took the time to shoot exteriors and interiors. Walked way downhill back to car and returned to our abode for a long rest. Starting to assemble things back near suitcases and camera backpacks in anticipation of leaving tomorrow.

Our AirBnB hostess is super. Comes over to check on us and see what we need. Accommodating for things like allowing us in her house to use dryer, had some food for us in fridge when we came, etc. And what we had with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a living room/kitchen area were just what we needed. It’s a separate building from her house and has a reserved parking spot.

Dinner at 7:00 at Messinn. Really elegant food. Started with beer and a shot of Brennivin. Shared some cured salmon and break. J and D had Plokkfiskur: fish, potatoes, onions and béchamel sauce. Very yummy. I had redfish in a great sauce. Shared chocolate brownie and ice cream.

Shopped a bit after eating and then back home to rest and sleep. Don’t have plans for tomorrow, our last morning. Will use leftover Plokkfiskur in our scrambled eggs, though.