A little more info on  Egilsstadir, in the eastern Fjord area…It was a very nice town and I had a wonderful dinner at the N1 fueling station…I had a delicious Caribou Burger…yep…at a gas Station!!! BUT it turns out that it wasn’t actually Caribou BUT Raindeer…and no it wasn’t Rudolf…nothing glowing red in the meat! I did feel a bit guilty…until I discovered that like the sheep, they love to procreate…A LOT… in order to maintain the population so they don’t starve, they allow a 2 month hunting season…and Voila my Reindeer Burger…and Santa is not missing a one!

Now that my confession is out of the way, I will continue with my lovely drive from Egilsstadir to the Myvatn area of Iceland. The drive was quite easy and as usual, beautiful. On this drive I continued to see the Stacked rocks along the way(see picture below)…there are these piles of rock positioned in various locations along the road…and even off road on hiking trails…I finally discovered they date back to the early days of Iceland…people would stack the stones to mark where they had been…those stones were the only thing that could be seen after a snow fall and from distance…basically they are a very old fashioned road sign. There is a group that is trying to bring them back into fashion ergo the stones “staues” all over the roads and trails…a little Icelandic trivia for you! Between this info and the genealogy stuff from earlier, you should be all set to win icelandic trivial pursuit!

On my drive I had several Reindeer sightings…no I did not feel guilty that one of their brethren gave their life to feed and entertain me. I did capture a few pictures.

Once thing I have noticed as I have driven through Iceland…besides the insanely well maintain roads…even the gravel roads are well graded, there is no…and I mean Zero roadkill…and that is truly amazing…mainly because those darn sheep do have a penchant for noshing right off the main road…they do have their young well trained to fear the big metal animal that zooms by…and every once in awhile stops and pulls out a contraption…aims it at them and then leaves…on one of those occasions when I was partaking in such frivolities, a long horned mother started eying me strangely after I was there a little too long for her tastes…and since I didn’t take out “sheep attacking my car” insurance, I moved myself right along..

Another little fun fact for Iceland is that they, as I mentioned earlier, use Geo Thermal for their electricity…no nuclear or dirty fuels…they have an abundant resource here…and that makes ALL the homes and inside all places quite toasty…A women running one of the guest houses told me she lived in Norway for awhile and never got used to how cold  everywhere was inside…they all try to save on heat because it is so expensive…but here, it is the one cheap thing…lots of indoor heat and lots and lots of hot water!

When I  left Reykjavik, I marveled how how great the radio stations were coming in…well that lasted a few hours and then I was relegated to a lot of Talking…I don’t know what they are saying but all the stations seem to spend more time talking than playing music…thank goodness my friend Mark made me 5 mixed CDs…all 70’s classics…I have hit certain areas where I can get some decent music…the stations go between American classics 60’s-80’s to Techno…to American Rap…and they love Swing and 40’s Jazz too…I Love these stations when I can tune them in…they add to the driving ambiance!

There is an old saying is Iceland is Green and Greenland is Ice…I can’t yet speak to Greenland(I will soon though!) but I am here to tell you that there is plenty of Ice in Iceland…even in summer…which has yet to start here even into June…I do hear this type of weather this late in the season is quite unusual…last year they had a heat wave that started in May…it got as high as the 70’s …very very unusual…I am actually happy it’s not that warm…I am enjoying the challenge of the cold…and I have been, for the most part, pleasantly surprised at how my body is OK with the cold temps…I hope if I keep saying that then I won’t catch pneumonia…here’s to hoping! (-:

I arrived in the West area in late morning and was able to get to Dettifoss Waterfall fairly early. Dettifoss is Iceland’s most powerful waterfall…It is amazing… standing by it as it thunders down about 145 feet into a deep gorge that is about 328 feet wide is deafening….At the rim, you can hike back into some pretty areas but be sure to bring your rain gear because those Falls spit more water the further you go out…my poor camera…with all these falls…

Before I left my last guest house, I had the woman check on the roads for me…haha…not getting in trouble again!  She did discover that the road that most people take(the short cut) to go to a place called Asbyrgi was washed out…so she recommended I double back and go the long way…which was fine by me because it meant I got to drive through the Tjornes Peninsula which was on my list…this drive took me through a lovely village on the coast called Husavik…it was so sweet…I stopped and had a wonderful Seafood Soup filled with every kind of creature from the sea minus Loch Ness!(see pic below)… I was seated looking at the harbor…AND the weather was soooo warm…it was great…I meandered around the peninsula…and since the day was gorgeous…sunny and NO fog, I got to enjoy the beautiful coastal scenery…I made it to Asbyrgi, which is a horse show shaped canyon, that is supposed to be a hoof print od Ooinn’s eight legged horse Sleipnir. Now you all can google Ooinn since I have no idea who that is…just that the canyon is horse-shoe shaped and really nice to visit…and I had a lovely little hike through some woods and enjoyed taking pictures of the Canyon…On my way back, I stopped off the road and saw there was a long path for a Coastal Cliff  walk…Walk I did…it was suddenly cold and very very windy…as I was pondering whether or not to turn around, across my path with the speed of  light flies a PUFFIN!!!! Yes, I saw my first Puffin…it was too foggy in the north so I never got to see any…I stopped and watched a bit as seagulls and Puffins were racing around, using the wind off the cliffs to jettison themselves out…Let me tell you, those little buggers are mischievous…One would fly up and hover for a split second…as if to taunt me because I couldn’t snap my pictures fast enough to catch him…then he’d be gone…another one would flitter by…almost like a hummingbird…they’d bank off as if to wink at me…saying…’did you get that shot…?”  Well now I know why they have signs with stick figures falling off cliffs….they are probably for all the people trying to get a picture of the damned Puffins! I snapped a couple of really distant ones(see pic below)..but at least I saw them…they were quite fun to watch…when I put my camera down and gave into the lost battle, they seemed to really pick up their momentum…crazy birds!

When I checked into my next Guest house…where I am staying 2 nights AND where my missing computer is to arrive, I discovered that I was staying in a cute little 100 year old farmhouse…and I am sharing it with 2 lovely couples from Germany…We chatted for a bit and swapped Iceland stories…and off to bed I went…oh not before I had a wonderful dinner in the restaurant…in the main building where people with private baths stay! (-:

Well satiated and tired from my Puffin battles, I slept quite soundly when I finally went to bed after midnight…those who know me well, know I  am an early to bed, early to rise person…but here,because of the 24 hour sunlight…I am a late to bed, early to rise person…oh who cares…sleep is over rated!