Day 4 To Vík í Mýrdal and back

Today we drove to the southern most city of Iceland-Vík í Mýrdal.  Despite John's complaints of having to drive the 5+ hours, he told us tonight that he recommend to a couple guys he met at a bar that they should drive there.  This was a true Kadi trip--"it's not IF you get there, but what you see along the way."  

Yesterday I was complaining that I can't navigate this city/Reykjavik--it is a huge challenge as the street names are 15-30+ letters long.  Well today John and I came up with a system that I would tell him the first 4-6 letter of the street so we can find the signs.  Also, I am finally getting a grasp of the city of course with 1 day left.  

Again the morning started very foggy but it was beautiful to see.  We were driving along this moon scape and all of a sudden there was fog in the valley we were headed into.

 Urridafoss-waterfall

The water comes from a melting glacier, so it looks dirty.

Waterfall from melting glacier and side of rode during car ride.

Glacier Mýrdalsjökull

Skogafoss (foss must mean waterfall)

Sheep-they are everywhere 

Reynisdrangar-Legend says that the stacks originated when two trolls dragged a three-masted ship to land unsuccessfully and when daylight broke they became needles of rock.

Dyrhólaey

 Is a 120-metre high promontory, not far from Vík. The place got its name from the massive arch that the sea has eroded from the headland. (The name literally means "door-hole"). When the sea is calm, big boats can sail through it.

Puffin

We saw a seal-WOW!

Another natural bridge

cairn-a mound of stones piled up as a memorial or to mark a boundary or path.

I was told once that they were called traveler's stones

sheep in the road (there were 3 and they wouldn't move)

looking back at the arch from Reynisdrangar

This was my absolute favorite place of the whole trip.

I love these cliff.  They remind me of sheepeater's cliff in Yellowstone-

my favorite place of last years trip.

Finally we made it to Vík í Mýrdal the southern most point of Iceland.

Troll outside a shop in Vík

storage built into the mountainside 

Rainbow at base of Seljalandsfoss

Behind the falls- we got very wet and cold

Seljalandsfoss

This is a grocery bag from the grocery store we shopped in.  Clay called it the constipated pig.  So now we reference where we are walking in downtown Reykjavik to where the constipated pig is located.

Shopping tonight

Swimming pool next to hostel

Garbage cans in kitchen of hostel

The kids and I braved the ritual of pre-showering (naked w/ all the women or men soaping up the right places) and then soaking in a thermal pool, finally the kids jumped off the high dive.  They even made friends with 2 english children and 2 icelandic children.

If you want to read about the popularity and rituals of getting ready to swim in an icelandic pool please read this article.

July 26, 2013

We had pizza again tonight (we had pizza the first night too) it was really yummy and last night we went to an all you can eat salad and soup place that turn out to be Indian based, it too was yummy.