We spent four days in Iceland, the land of fire and ice. Iceland has about 330,000 inhabitants and nearly 1 million tourists each year. It is one of the youngest land masses on the planet, still actively being created as magma squirts up in the rift between the North American an Eurasian tectonic plates. We saw plenty of volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers and glaciers. It is strange that a place can be so stark yet so verdant. The vegetation is working hard to build up soil and get a toe hold. Several times we drove half an hour without seeing a tree and in some cases little more than moss.
The Blue Lagoon - the biggest hot tub I've ever seen. We got off the plane and came here for mud baths and a long soak.
Jack at Oxararfoss near Thingvellir
Jack below Oxararfoss
Lupines
Zoe with a rock pile she built
The basalt cliffs of Almannagja near Thingvellir. This the easternmost edge of the North American tectonic plate. The Eurasian plate across the rift valley to the east is moving away at 2 cm per year. The valley floor slowly collapses into the gap between until magma flows to the surface filling it in
The basalt cliffs of Almannagja near Logberg, (law rock) at Thingvellir. With a few exceptions, this was the location that the Icelandic parliament met for almost 800 years starting in 970 AD. There is a lot of history here for such a young land mass.
Flosagja Canyon near Thingvellir
Another canyon near Thingvellir
A small hot pot in the geyser field where "Geysir", namesake for the word "geyser" is located
Stokkur, another geyser erupting near the original Geysir
Stokkur beginning to erupt
Gullfoss - you could hear this waterfall from a kilometer away and up close you could feel it through your feet and percussing in your chest
Gullfoss
Seljalandsfoss
A view from behind Seljalandsfoss
Near Seljalandsfoss
Skogar
Skogar
A terminus of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier - this is flowing down from the active the volcano Katla , just east of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that erupted in 2010
Jack on the glacier
The Mýrdalsjökull glacier
Black sand beaches from a promontory west of Vik
Same promontory looking northwest toward the volcano Katla
A basalt bridge on the same promontory west of Vik
Looking west at more black sand beaches from a different promontory
Natural arches at Dyrholaey
Laugavegur Street in Reykjavik
A view of Reykjavik from the Hallgrimskirkja bell tower
Another view of Reykjavik from the Hallgrimskirkja bell tower
The Blue Lagoon - the biggest hot tub I've ever seen. We got off the plane and came here for mud baths and a long soak.
Jack at Oxararfoss near Thingvellir
Lupines
Zoe with a rock pile she built
The basalt cliffs of Almannagja near Thingvellir. This the easternmost edge of the North American tectonic plate. The Eurasian plate across the rift valley to the east is moving away at 2 cm per year. The valley floor slowly collapses into the gap between until magma flows to the surface filling it in
The basalt cliffs of Almannagja near Logberg, (law rock) at Thingvellir. With a few exceptions, this was the location that the Icelandic parliament met for almost 800 years starting in 970 AD. There is a lot of history here for such a young land mass.
Flosagja Canyon near Thingvellir
Another canyon near Thingvellir
Stokkur beginning to erupt
Gullfoss - you could hear this waterfall from a kilometer away and up close you could feel it through your feet and percussing in your chest
Gullfoss
Seljalandsfoss
A view from behind Seljalandsfoss
Near Seljalandsfoss
Skogar
Skogar
A terminus of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier - this is flowing down from the active the volcano Katla , just east of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that erupted in 2010
Jack on the glacier
The Mýrdalsjökull glacier
Black sand beaches from a promontory west of Vik
Same promontory looking northwest toward the volcano Katla
More lupines - some places mountainsides appeared blue with lupine
A basalt bridge on the same promontory west of Vik
Looking west at more black sand beaches from a different promontory
Natural arches at Dyrholaey
Laugavegur Street in Reykjavik
A view of Reykjavik from the Hallgrimskirkja bell tower
Hallgrimskirkja
Another view of Reykjavik from the Hallgrimskirkja bell tower
Jack and Zoe woke up on the wrong side of the bed - there are a lot of quirky things in Reykjavik
I can't believe you're almost done!
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