Bill&Theresa: Myriads of Midges!

Arctic circle that-a-way!

Golfklubber? Sounds right!

Akureyri from across the fjord.

We began with a little tour around Akureyri before leaving town, and went to the other side of the fjord, for a nice view of town and the airport. We even got to see a plane take off and a few little planes flying.

An AIRPORT!!!!

With AIRPLANES!!!

A foggy mountain with a tiny plane (starting to sound ominous)

That looks like Air Greenland!

"Gothafoss"

We then headed to a double waterfall. The main falls were horseshoe shaped, and sort of looked like a mini Niagara Falls. A bit down the river was the second falls (God*afoss)(d* is a d with a cross (like a t), which is pronounced ‘th’, so like Gothafoss), which was a little smaller, but still enough to generate a rainbow. Mike and I tromped down to the bottom of the big falls, while Theresa and MaryAnne opted to hold the high ground.

We moved on to Myvatn area. The lava came up into ice which erupted into steam pushing the rock up and turning the molten rock into a mess of rock and steam. The first stop was an area (Skutustad*agigar) with numerous pseudo craters, made by the lava and ice, not a normal volcano vent. But the main feature was the midges, these little “flies” that really like going up your nose and into your mouth. Into your ears and dive bombing your face. It was great …fun. We sort of hustled around the site taking the briefest moments to snap and run. Then we had lunch there. Plenty of seats outside afforded the opportunity to enjoy the view and take in more midges. But we opted for the inside, and enjoyed our lunch.

Check out the curve in the water! (yeah, again)

I think I see a rainbow.

Bill and Theresa

Check out those "stairs"!

That is as close as I can get without swimming.

Mike and I went down to get "misty".

This is where we were..."Gothafoss"

There by midges here...surprised you can see through them!

Ah! The English subtitle helps.

Not really seeing how these look like Trolls.

The next stop, Dimmuborgir, had ragged outcroppings of rock, which legend says were trolls who did not finish their work before the sun came up and turned them to stone forever. The locals tell their children stories about the trolls and what they do to bad children, and then take them there a little before Christmas. In various parts, someone will have set up a scene like the trolls were living there, and some adults will grow beards and dress up funny so the kids think they are seeing real trolls. We hiked around and kept our mouths closed as the midges were there too, but not quite as bad.

After walking around, we checked out the little shop, and found some funny things.

The trolls live here. Apparently.

OK, maybe these could look like trolls. If you've never seen trolls. Have you?

An overlook of the area. This would have saved a lot of walking!

This is "about" where the North American and Eurasia tectonic plates come together.
The actual "line" sort of moves, so we're going to say it is the road. We're in Europe here.

Lots of hot steam coming through the earth. Bringing sulfur!

The next stop (Namafjall Hverir) had numerous steam vents spread out over the landscape. In some places, the gas (steam and sulfur) just seemed to come through the ground. In other places, there was a sort of grey mud, and bubbled and popped. The midges were less intense, but not gone. The sulfur smell was not that bad (Theresa might say otherwise) and it seemed to displace the midges (at least when you are well into it)!

Bubbling mud.

Wow! The Earth is ANGRY!

The flow through here was so forceful you could hear it 100 feet away!

After our trek, we picked up a lot of mud.
For some reason, our tour guide and one
of the tourists decided they needed to try
to clean my brand new shoes. (I did not ask!)
(They did not clean anyone else's.)

A great view from the highest elevated farm in Iceland.

Finally, we were back on the bus for the long ride home (with a “comfort stop” along the way). It was at the “highest" (altitude) farm in Iceland. We have no idea what they farm there, but they had a little shop, some stuff to look at, and a bathroom.