Sunday after church we loaded up and headed to the airport. Emily and Kate were twining in their matching travel lounge set.
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We had a bit of a delay in Boise but it all worked fine for us to arrive in Iceland on Monday morning around 9:30am Iceland time. No one was enamored with Iceland Air; a seven hour flight with no meal or snacks is no bueno. Greg had he and I bumped up to first class so we actually got a meal - shhh.
The wait for a rental car was over an hour so we got all caught up on emails, New York Times games, and got our first Icelandic pastries for breakfast (let the pastries begin!).
We finally got our roomy van and began our trek. The first stop was a grocery store with a piggy logo where we scored "cool American" Doritos, lunch foods, and three kinds of Squashies. We also bought our first bottle of "natural" water - poor assumption the natural meant still- I was so wrong.
After a 90 minute drive of interesting landscape we stopped at the Kerid Crater and took a quick walk around the beautifully colored water.
Then on to Bruarfoss. This incredible waterfall struck awe in all of us and convinced us that Iceland was pretty special. It also began the waterfall rating system that we used for each waterfall we visited. Each water fall was ranked on 5 features: color, width, height, magnitude, and uniqueness or what we called the special factor.
Bruarfoss:
Color 9
Width 6
Height 4
Magnitude 4
Special Factor 8
(we loved the split in the middle, the cliffs, the brilliance of the water, and how peaceful it felt there)
Total Score of 31
Gullfoss was incredibly crowded, invoking an Yellowstone in summer feel but the sheer size of the falls was unbelievable.
Gullfoss:
Color 1
Width 9
Height 8
Magnitude 9
Special Factor 3
(There were rainbows over the falls from all the water in the air due to the continuous splash, but for us it just didn't feel that magical)
Total Score of 30
It was pouring rain by the time we got to the next fall, Kate's cold had kicked in full force, and we were started to be pretty tired from all the travel and walking. So sadly some of us stayed in the car where we had a lovely view of the falls but didn't get the wet experience in person. So these numbers come from Andrew and Greg's evaluation alone.
Seljalandsfoss:
Color 5
Width 4
Height 9
Magnitude 5
Special Factor 7
(They loved that they could walk all the way around and behind the falls and that it was so tall)
Total Score of 30
On the drive to the hotel we found another waterfall and stopped for a look.
Skogafoss:
Color 4
Width 6
Height 8
Magnitude 6
Special Factor 3
(we liked walking right along the river coming out of the falls)
Total Score of 27
We enjoyed the Icelandic scenery as we drove around- the strange spongy ground like Alaska, the geyser basin like Yellowstone (we didn't stop but could see and smell the geysers), and the rainy cold weather like Scotland - we were loving day one.
We found a local place for dinner and went straight to an exhausted sleep.
Day 1 - 11, 926 steps
Interesting fact:
Foss means waterfall in Icelandic.
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