Day 4 - The Golden Circle

Look familiar, Hawaiians?

Today we set off for a day trip around the Golden Circle. We kept laughing because even though it was on the main road- it was still so cute and tiny (two lanes), and every so many miles (even in the middle of nowhere) there would still be a roundabout!  

At our first stop (Iceland's largest lake), we finally had our first real taste of Icelandic weather.  Our van registered the temperature at around 40 degrees, but with the wind blowing as strong as it was, I bet the wind chill factor made it closer to 35.  My father, a traditional "man's man" had to be coaxed to leave the warmth of our car (a luxe Chysler Town & Country van) on more than one occasion.  :-)

What made it fun was discovering all of the plush, green moss covering the ground that must have been at least a foot deep.  It made for some awfully bouncy running.

Ryan has been rocking two winter hats from Uncle Joey that have had heads (admittedly mostly seniors) turning all week.  The latest was a busload of them madly waving at him and a few snapping his photo as he passed by.

Joey getting tired of the sheep playing hard to get

There are gazillions of wild sheep grazing everywhere (Spam:Hawaiians = Sheep:Icelanders), usually right next to the highway.  Locals have cautioned us to slow down around them because, and I quote, "They are really dumb."  :-)  Poor fellas.  Being dumb and delicious (to some) can't possibly help with your life expectancy.

Our first main stop was at Pingvellir (a national park), a UNESCO World Heritage site.  I really wanted to go there and catch a glimpse of the massive (growing) fissure at Almannagja.  Apparently, tectonic plates are situated below that are pulling North America and & Europe apart at a rate of 1-18mm per year.  It was fascinating to walk all around the cliffs and see the rocks tearing away from each other.

And at the bottom of the cliff, we could see the little summerhouse and church that are used by the Prime Minister for his summer house and the park warden's offices.

From there we drove to our next main stop, the Geysirs!  We were able to see the smaller of the two shoot off about a half dozen times.

Though it's certainly not as impressive as Yellowstone's Old Faithful, its always a sight to see and fascinating to a three-year old.

There were tons of little ponds with water at a boiling temperature instructing us to keep out.  I always love the colors of the water in these situations...

This is the largest geysir there (prounounced GAY-seer), which only erupts 3 times a day (we missed it).  But apparently it can shoot up to 80 meters in the air and thumb its nose at Old Faithful.  ;-)

Our final main stop was to Gulfoss, the double cascading waterfall.  There was an incredible hike down from the visitor center all the way down to the falls, but it was oh so worth it.  We got sprayed a lot, but got to take some amazing family photos.

Gullfoss

It felt like we were right in the middle of the rapids, kinda unnerving, and definitely wet & cold.

And we loved their gift shop's happy vibe...starting from the front door.!

My little Nordic Viking in training...

Oh the way home we snapped a picture of the moss-covered lava rock...so surreal to see the two of them together.

One other thing we've noticed- unlike in Hawaii when you are encouraged to leave lava rocks where they lay, not desecrate them or remove them...Icelanders do not have the same set of cultural rules.  We see lava rocks for sale EVERYWHERE, with bored holes into them even!  I think here...they're just rocks.   So if you've always wanted to own a piece of lava rock and have a strong hankering for some minke whale, you know here to fly to...(hint: not Kona)...but Iceland.  They will gladly sell you both.

Tomorrow we leave our much loved, modern city apartment (we had four nights here) and head to the freeeeezing southeast for two nights in a cabin near a national park- time to bust out the thermal underwear!