Know or Don't Go

Trying to keep up with these young whippersnappers is hard work! Woke up a bit stiff from all of yesterday's adventures... But when I say I woke up, I use that term loosely because I was still sleepy when the two adventurers got me to a secret hot spring lagoon at 5 a.m. Don't worry, it was daylight. It is always daylight in this country. If that doesn't mess with your internal clock that is already battling jet lag, nothing will. Anyway, I am sad to say I wasn't adventurous enough to brave a hot spring dip. I like all my geothermal experiences to happen after 6 a.m. It's a personal rule of mine.

After Gray and Heather fulfilled their crack of dawn dip goal, we headed to Iceland's biggest waterfall. I really, really wish I could tell you the name. Probably something-floss or -laugen. It was AMAZING! We rank our Icelandic waterfalls based on chances of survival if one was to fall in. It's a pretty lame ranking system because so far the chances for any of them are ZERO.

Post-waterfall, one of Gray's Iceland goals came true. To feed a wild horse, of course. And like any good road-trippers, we have a produce section in the car (not to be confused with The Pantry AKA glove compartment), so he had a carrot at the ready. A couple fellow enthusiasts were on the side of the road, but the horses ditched them all when Gray approached them with vegetables and he suddenly had three new BFFs... But they just wanted him for his carrots. He ate an English cucumber, they ate carrots, and all parted ways.

You know you're getting way too immune to Iceland amazingness when you drive along and say calmly, "Oh, a geyser. Look, it just spouted." Actually, in this country we would spell it GEYSIR. Then we would probably turn on our turning signal, because people here love their turning signal. They do NOT love it when you don't love yours. We saw the geyser spout three times in ten minutes (with all of us losing the bet of which time it would erupt), then we moved on.

Moved on to a tomato farm! It was the coolest place that produces a ton of tomatoes a day. I wasn't exaggerating, I meant a literal ton. 2,000 lbs, if you will. We had a wonderful lunch there, although you might be reading that as sarcasm since some of you know I've never used "tomato" and "wonderful" in the same sentence before. That's true, but did I mention the tomato soup and bread buffet and table basil with little scissors so you could snip off some basil for your soup?! We finished off the early afternoon with some berries at a berry farm, which were "next level raspberries" (quotes by Gray).

There is a rule in this Subaru. You see three cars turn on a random road, you follow. That we did and came upon the coolest oasis of secret gardens and falls. See photo for mental image, it's 12:30 a.m. at the moment and I just can't do it for you. Side note: the blankets we rented from the camping supply store (Gray's second brilliant idea, second only to an in-car wifi hotspot... Can you say GAMECHANGER?!) was excellent for gnat swatting. They were everywhere at those falls, even though the lady at the tomato farm said, "We are an island. We don't have bugs." We beg to differ. We especially liked there were no signs or even paved roads to show how to get to the place. It was Iceland's way of saying figure it out, tourists. Know or don't go, as we say.

Flash forward two hours to a remote hot spring location... We had to ford a river in the car. Think Oregon Trail and Fort Laramie when you have to hire a guide to help you cross because you're in a rush to beat out your wagonmate's case of scurvy. Minus all that but plus Heather and I saying, "We don't know about this...." To which Gray responded, "If you're scared, close your eyes!" It wasn't scary or dangerous, so everyone calm down about that back home. The hot springs were surprisingly crowded, full of backpackers and other random wanderlusters.

We had lamb soup at an Icelandic homestay (please remove your shoes and show us all how you are the only Americans in here by your lack of socks), then started the trek back to Reykjavik.

More soon and I promise to up the fun once I get more than 4 hours of sleep!