Reykjavik, Iceland

Last month, my family and I (and B and P) went on a trip of a lifetime - to Reykjavik, Iceland!It was absolutely amazing and I can't wait to go back and take everyone I know with me.  The terrain is so unusual and so varied that every few miles it was like it completely changed.  Since we were there in May, the sun set at some point in the very early dawn.  I can't actually verify this since the latest I went to bed was midnight and sunset was just kind of hanging out in the same place it had been for the previous few hours.  The food - fresh fish! - was delicious and everyone was super friendly and nice, even with my disastrous attempts to pronounce the name of that volcano that erupted four years ago :-)  One of my favorite parts of the trip was the "water culture", warm baths, hot mineral water that everyone just sits and soaks in.  It was heavenly and we got a soak every day that we were there. 

Sorry for all the pictures.  It's hard to describe what an amazing country Iceland is.  Maybe this makes up for all the posts I haven't done in the past couple of years?  :-)

The Blue Lagoon.  Spent four hours soaking and swimming and applying mud.  So awesome!

This is a nation of knitters!

Waterfall from glacier runoff. 

You can follow the tectonic divide between the North American Plate and the European plate for miles.

A cute sheep!  Or maybe, a "pre-sweater"?

You can see bits of the glacier rising up behind the volcano.

Gulfoss waterfall.  Such power!

Another view of the tectonic divide.

Strokker.  A natural geyser.  It went off every few minutes.

At a southern point.  The beaches were black sand from the volcanoes.

An overview of Reykjavik.  I loved the colorful roofs.

Trees.  We didn't see all that many trees but there were a few pine trees and a few like these.  They were Aspen-like, but not exactly Aspens.

We saw a roadside sign with a picture of strawberries and found these amazing raspberries instead.  Grown in a greenhouse, like most of their produce. 

You could hike up behind this waterfall.

The scenery was so amazing and much more varied than I thought.  And as you can see, we had great weather.

Sometimes we felt like we were on Mars :-)

A public art tribute to the Vikings.

My favorite picture.  This was after our first soak in the hot baths.  So happy!  I need to travel more - I forgot how much I love it.