Iceland Farewell

Monday, Dec. 11, 2017

Hard to believe, but it is time to head home. The last few days have been so busy that I haven’t had time to work on the blog. I will finish the postings when I get home. Until then here are the pictures from our farewell dinner last night. It has been a fantastic trip with great people.

Barbara and Ken

Ken was the life of the party with his witty jokes and sharing his

past travel experiences. (How's that Ken?)

Suzanne and Joe

Gary, Thrushdur (I can’t spell his name without Icelandic keyboard) and Peter our Tour Leader 

Diane 

Dick, Jean and Suzanne 

Pam and Greg (thanks again for the dinner invitation 🙄) 

Our travel group. 

Iceland Day 6

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017

To start our day we visited the Ocean Cluster House. When I saw this on the itinerary I kind of expected to walk into a wholesale fish warehouse. Man was I surprised. The Cluster House is more like a think-tank. To quote their website:

"The Ocean Cluster's mission is to create value and discover new opportunities by connecting entrepreneurs, businesses and knowledge in the marine industries."

We had a very interesting presentation on how different sea product businesses work together to reduce waste and develop new products.

A display of some of the products ranging from skin creams to dried fish heads.

We also had the opportunity to taste some of the products. The cod liver oil (in the bottle on the right) couldn't stand the competition from the chocolates.

A Danish Royal Naval Ship

The building in the middle of the picture is our hotel.

We had a free morning so I wandered around town to take in some of the sights. Towering over Reykjavik is the Hallgrimskirkja church. 

Across from the church is a museum that has sculptures from Iceland's first sculpture. The garden behind the museum has several of his sculptures. Many of them have very peculiar themes.

The lake in central Reykjavik was frozen and some brave people (or maybe those with no common sense) were walking out to a small island in the middle.

As you can see the edge of the lake was not frozen due to the geese and ducks.

A church next to the lake.

I think I have worked with this block head in the past.

The ice skating rink was beginning to get busy.

For the afternoon, three of us opted to visit the famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa. It is located in a lava field close to the Reykjavik airport.

The surrounding lava field

The geothermal water contains silica, algae, and minerals. The blue color comes from the silica and the way it reflects the sunlight.

My partners in crime Joe and Susan.

Can you tell I had the lava scrub facial with the Groucho Marx eyebrows.

It was a fantastic experience and one I would enjoy again.

We headed back to our hotel and prepared for our farewell dinner. The dinner is covered under the other blog post.

Iceland Day 5

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017

We started today very early so we could visit Thingvellir National Park. This is the site of the very first Iceland parliament meeting in 930 AD. Parliament meetings were held here until 1798. There were no permanent buildings and the attendees stayed in tents.

This is also the site of the continental drift between the North American and the Eurasian plates. You can see the cracks or faults throughout the area. 

We arrived just as the sun was coming up.

Onward to Langjokull glacier.

An Icelandic forest. Two things we were told not to kid about was the Icelandic horses are NOT ponies and that any time you have more than three trees together it is considered a forest as there are very few trees left in Iceland.

Okay, someone must have told them about our aborted glacier trip with the broken super truck so they put this one on steroids. It's supposed to be the largest vehicle in Iceland and was specifically built to take visitors to the top of Langjokull glacier.

I wanted to drive it.

It was very nice inside. I felt as if I was on a distant planet traveling across the terrain.

The tires had automatic air pressure tubes so the tires could be flattened for greater traction and then pumped back up for regular travel.

It was a vast barren area covered with snow and ice.

Langjokull glacier is the 2nd largest in Iceland. On top, there is an entrance to a man made ice cave. It took four years and 2.5 million dollars to complete. It is estimated that the cave will only last about 10 - 15 years.

Putting on our ice cleat crampons.

Explaining the different layers of ice and how they can date them based on the ash layers from volcanic eruptions.

A machine that is used to shave the ice off the ceilings and sides as needed.

There were a few chambers that could be used for gatherings.

A crevasse in the ice.

The Chapel room were weddings have been performed.

We took time for a group picture.

A pool were water has to be constantly pumped out to keep the cave from flooding.

Look closely and you can see a deer head carved into the ice.

Welcome back to the surface.

I was able to get a shot of this bird on top of the glacier with the sun behind him.

Since the sun doesn't rise very high above the horizon in the winter, it gave a wonderful opportunity to take sunset pictures while we were descending from the top. I think they were just as beautiful and impressive as the northern lights. 

On our way back to Fludir, we stopped for a very brief visit to Hraunfossar waterfall. It is a series of waterfalls along the Hvita River with water flowing from ledges of lava rock that line the river banks.

This picture is a little fuzzy but it was already pretty dark.

the Hvita River

Tonight we were back in Reykjavik to spend the night. I took a walk about town. They had this ice rink in the town square.

Another long but exciting day. It's hard to believe there is only one more day before I head home.