What are the chances of that??

We woke up in the campground in Myvatn. Dave was ready for action immediately upon waking – time to hike a volcano! We decided to pass up the chance to shower at the campground since we'd had the chance to shower and soak at the nature baths the day before. I made us some coffee and we threw down some skyr and Dave drove us the short way over to the volcano.When we arrived, there was one other car there-- always good to have places to ourselves. It felt pretty warm but it was windy so we got our jackets and hats and the usual assortment of snacks and water bottles and started walking up.

In the “you know you're not in N. America” moment for the day, we laughed that the book stated this hike was “easy”. Yeah. In a sense, it was. There weren't huge rocks to scramble over, nor was there a soul-crushing view straight off a cliff from the teeny tiny trail. But it was a long, steep climb upon volcanic gravel. Most people wouldn't think it was easy. Thankfully, we aren't most people. We cruised to the top. Here's what we saw.

This first pic is actually from the night before, around midnight.

We walked part of the way around – between 1/3 and 1/2, I'd say. It was cool to see some of the places we'd visited the day before from up top – I could see the smokey pools at the nature baths quite well through my binoculars.

We rolled on back down to the RV – quite a few people had arrived in the meantime and the tour buses were coming in. The tour buses are interesting. Where the heck are they coming from!?!? Some places we'd been, the tour buses were day trips out of Reykjavik. Today, our hunch was cruise ships in Akureyri (sounds like mortuary). We hadn't yet been to the second largest city in Iceland, but we were heading that way once we finished at Myvatn.

We briefly stopped into another little tourist spot – mainly to use the WC and take a peek inside the little gift shop. While browsing, I found these – another example of the fabulous sense of humor the Icelanders have. It's witty but not raunchy. I love it.

So, another interesting thing about Icelanders is that many of them (perhaps as much as 50%) believe in trolls:) I find this ridiculously endearing. We definitely have seen little caves or “houses” in the sides of mountains or hills that could be troll homes! Anyway, part of the country's folklore are the 13 yuletide lads. This little gift shop had a lot of Christmas stuff – so I spent some time looking through the books and reading up on the 13 lads. Pretty fun! Want to order this book to read at Christmastime. 

From there, we cruised over to a neat set of short hiking trails around the lake itself. Good grief was I glad we had the mosquito nets. The midges were nuts over there! Check out how awesome we look in our nets!

This is a good time to talk about how quiet Iceland is. I know I've mentioned it before in passing. As I stood overlooking Lake Myvatn, I realized there was no sound. I could hear myself inhale and exhale. Occasionally, I could hear a bird chirping in a nearby tree. It was the most exquisite, blissful quiet I think I'd ever experienced. This has been true over and over again in this country. Even in a crowded restaurant, it will be so quiet we'll feel we need to whisper. And it isn't weird nor does it feel creepy or bad – it's beautiful. People are social and friendly and kind...but quiet. There is no loud thumping music, no rambunctious cacophony blaring from TVs everywhere, no children screaming and crying everywhere we went. Seldom do we get the chance to experience the peacefulness of such intense quietness. I was reminded of these little rooms in the Bible and Business buildings on campus at ACU where I got my bachelor's degree. They were called the quiet rooms. Each one was decorated differently – even down to what furniture might be in the room. There was no talking in there. You could go and sit and just be still and escape whatever you left upon entering. Imagine a whole country of that – welcome to Iceland.

Anyway, it was getting to be time for lunch and we needed to either eat in Myvatn or wait a bit until we rolled into Akureyri. We decided to go ahead and eat. We first went to the place the book recommended. There were only 3 choices and it only recommended one:) Well, they weren't really open, per se. The waitress went and talked to someone in the kitchen who graciously offered to feed us soup and bread but they told us they were actually not open to the public until dinner. Man. We love Iceland. That just wouldn't happen in the US. We politely thanked them but declined and went across the street to try our luck there. A rather inpatient looking man with long hair slicked back into a ponytail gave us the stink eye. What's with this section of town? They allowed us to dine on the lunch buffet only – no menu. We noticed most of the tables were reserved – the tour buses were coming. We tried to eat fast so we'd be done before they arrived.

Good buffet – salad bar with lots of yummy stuff including olives, fresh sheep's milk feta, lots of veggies – even beets! Mushroom soup. Trout. Potatoes. Seafood casserole. And then a tiny section of true Icelandic fare, including the infamous putrefied shark, liver sausage, and some other less tasty sounding items.

Now we were ready to leave Myvatn and head to the big city. Since it had already been a week since we seen a big city we were pretty shocked when we got there. We hadn't seen this many people since the day we arrived nor had we any encountered stoplights. We followed the blue sign with a little i on it meaning information center until we found a really large building right on the harbor front. We parked Mr. happy and walked around trying to figure out where the information center was exactly -- good grief these big cities are complicated! Finally figured it out, went inside and there was a nice big information center and gift shop. Of course, first we went downstairs to use the WC. this is a really good example of what most of the WC's. Generally speaking if you've been to IKEA and you think about the things that they sell and that style then you'll have an understanding of how pretty much everything looks in Iceland – even the WC's:)

We went back to the information center. We wanted to ask someone about taking a day trip up to the Arctic Circle. We also wanted to find out where we could get a good cup of coffee. we looked around the shop for a moment and then it was our turn to speak to someone. The shop was pretty crowded that day – but as we parked the car looking at the harbor front, we did notice there was a huge cruise ship in port. We talked to a really nice girl who gave us the scoop on going to the Arctic Circle. She also gave us a map and talked at length about the best places in town to get a good cup of coffee. Apparently when you ask her where to get a good cup of coffee you're going to get along detailed response -- this woman knew her coffee.

So, we took off looking for one of the places she recommended. It was only a couple blocks away so we left Mr. happy parked where he was. Before long we found the hostile which had a coffee shop on the front facing the street. We went in and ordered two carrot cake slices and 2 cups of coffee. We chose a spot right by the front window so we could watch the hustle and bustle on the main street. As we were sitting there, the strangest thing happened. In all of Iceland we really knew one person -- we met him the day we arrived. He picked us up at the airport and took us to get Mr. Happy. As we sat there in a completely different town more than a week later -- he walked by. We just couldn't believe it! What are the chances? Ha! So funny!

After we finished up our afternoon cake, we walked out and decided to take the main street back the opposite way from which we came. It really was a cute street lined with shops and restaurants. We realized we didn't really know the custom for how to cross the street as a pedestrian. Some of the intersections had stoplights that would give us a walk indicator light. Sometimes, they didn't. In those instances it was very helpful when a local was also waiting there with us and we just followed them. As we got to the end of the street, all of a sudden there was Sverir again! He was everywhere!

So we went back to Mr. happy and it was time to leave town for a bit. Oh we'd be back and probably tomorrow but tonight we knew we were heading to Godafoss. We drove back along the fjord and pulled over briefly at this cute little spot just off the road. There happened to be a man there shellacking the picnic bench it was an older man was just standing there with a little bucket of shellac happily painting the bench his wife was waiting for him in the car park there nearby. Dave stepped out to take a few photos and the man struck up a conversation with. Turns out the park was created by the local Rotary club. Or was it the Lions? Whatever. He was a really nice man and he told us to take a walk back into the trees and we'd see some more waterfalls – it was just a very beautiful place to take a walk. Here's what we found.

But afterwards Dave asked the man where we might find a restroom. The man started giving us directions to the nearest restaurant so that wasn't quite helpful. We did notice that there was a swimming pool nearby so we decided to go there and check it out. The town swimming pool was in fact nearby. And it happened to be right next door to the camping ground. We pulled in and went inside to the bathroom areas and were delighted to find showers also inside. And even better the showers were free. We didn't want to take a shower right then, but we thought this is exactly where we can come back tomorrow to take one!

Dave had found a little area that he wanted to go visit and thought it would be a good spot to have dinner. We headed that way. We came across this really cute little church in these cute grass covered houses. These places were actually a little hotel but no one was there when we pulled up. We had a nice dinner. 

Now was time to head back to Godafoss. We were hoping that when we got there there wouldn't be many people there. Was just a short drive back and before long there we were. Now Godafoss is another large, popular, infamous waterfall. But as we've seen before, it was just off the road and barely marked. Just before it or after it (depending on which way you're driving) there's a gas station and a small campground. Otherwise there's nothing else around. It was another you're not in North America moment to have something this huge and amazing and have a teeny tiny little sign and really no infrastructure built up telling you that you're there. I love it.

There were quite a few people there. Including small mini campers like ours parked in the main lot. We wondered how many of them would try to stay overnight despite the no camping signs. There were no bathrooms in the main lot you had to go all the way back over near the gas station and campground-- that's another indication you're not North America! It would never be required to walk that far –haha. We decided to move the RV over by the bathrooms in the campground. Once we were all set we walked out to look at the falls for a bit. Dave of course stayed out for hours taking pictures on both sides of the falls. I came back to Mr. happy, washed up the dishes, got everything prepared for bed, and did some reading and writing for a while. The light was particularly good tonight and I figured Dave was having a fantastic time taking pictures. Before long he was back. He threw the door open and said, “Tonight I'm like Donna Summer! I was working hard for my money! Whew!” 

It was another good day of exploration in Iceland. And another good night of picture taking. As we lay down and Mr. happy to go to sleep, we felt very thankful for our sleep masks. Dave pointed out that we hadn't even named our sleep masks and that we must do so. He said, “Clearly, my velvet love mask is named Luther because he provides me the sweet comfort of silky darkness.” And I said, “Well, my sleep mask's name is Cedric.”

And so Dave, Luther, Cedric and I went to sleep.