33 Hours in Iceland!

We've been traveling up a storm in the last two weeks!  Here is the recap in pictures of our trip to Iceland.  It lasted 33 hours, including just 6 hours of daylight and 0 kids!

The sunrise and sunset was unbelievable.  This was the sun rise.  We were afraid we would miss it because we were driving to the first stop in the Golden Circle tour.  Lucky for us the sunrise lasted about 2 hours so we arrived at Þingvellir National Park with time to spare to see the sun rise.

Stop #1 on the Golden Circle Tour:  Sun coming up over Þingvellir National Park

Driving up to Þingvellir

Just beautiful!

More colors - I have so many pictures and each one looks different because of the different colors!

We made it - this was the side opposite the sun rise and the pink reflected beautifully on the white snow.

This is a framer!

Sorry - totally cheesy selfie but I am obsessed with this picture and the natural light - and of course the love!

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge - you literally walk through the gap that separates the Eurasian and North American Plates.  The plate you see here is the North American plate.

In the ridge!

Ice at the base of a waterfall

If you look real close you can see JJ standing on the rock formation of the North American plate!

Waterfall in Þingvellir

Stop #2 on the Golden Circle tour: Geysir.  Apparently the original Geysir (for which all geysirs are named) doesn't erupt very frequently anymore but Strokkur nearby erupts every few minutes.  This was after an eruption.

Strokkur - this was the best I could do to capture it.  It's funny you see all the people with their cameras pointed, ready to capture it because you never know when it will come!

There is also a store at Geysir with lots of wool apparel.   The stuffed wildlife made me chuckle.  The stuff was awesome but very expensive. 

Little Geysir!

On the road to the next stop on the Golden Circle tour, I made JJ pull over to take a picture of this horse.  I am obsessed with Icelandic horses - they are awesome.  Particularly this color - it's not super clear in this picture but they have this great blond spiky hair.  I like to call them Tina Turner horses

There were a ton of these trucks with monster tires.  That's how you roll in Iceland!

Meanwhile, back in Hampstead, Alison, our babysitter sent this picture of Tyler having a blast without mom and dad!

Stop #3 on the Golden Circle Tour: Gulfoss Waterfall.  This was beautiful - can you see the rainbow in the picture?  It was cool to see parts of the waterfall totally frozen over

Stop #4: Kerið volcano crater.  You just drive off to the side of the road and look at this big hole in the ground.  You can hike down it in the summer time.

Kerið selfie

Thinking about the hike - I advised that we keep moving :)

Leaving Kerið we started to see the amazing sunset you see in the distance.  JJ floored it and we raced to get to the coast in time to see the sunset. Luckily the sunset lasts just as long as the sunrise so we had plenty of time. 

We drove until we hit the coast.  I took a picture of the GPS because after a while it had no idea where we were and didn't show any roads around!

We made it to the ocean in time to see more beautiful colors!

This is where we pulled off - there wasn't anyone nearby - we had that sunset to ourselves!

JJ and our Suzuki that we toured the Iceland Golden Circle tour with!  He's driven in a lot of countries now and I'm happy to be just a passenger!

Final stop on the Golden Circle Tour:  The Blue Lagoon - a hot spring spa area.  It was pitch black when we got there and although it was lit, you couldn't see very well.  We had to look at postcards the next day to figure out what it looked like in daylight!

In our robes ready to head into the Blue Lagoon.  The algae in the water makes it blue (hence the name) and is formed by the nearby geothermal plant.  The water is said to be healing and our skin had never felt so smooth after our soak!  We got an upgraded package and got a scrub and drink in the lagoon!  It was lovely....

Meanwhile, back in Hampstead, Tyler enjoyed the Christmas lights and a lollipop with Alison.

Our hotel room for two nights.  We apparently could have had 2 more join us!

Sadly we didn't see a dazzling display of Northern Lights that we were hoping for.  We technically did see them though.  The cloud-looking band in the middle of the photo is actually a Northern Light.  Not dazzling, but still a light!

Our hotel had the best peanut butter and honey that I have ever tasted.  I had to take a picture in case I can ever find it somewhere.  We had peanut butter and honey toast both mornings.

I took this photo at the airport the first night because it was so nice to just relax in a bar while waiting for our flight on Friday instead of worry about a crazy toddler running around the airport.  Not to mention that I felt light as air not carrying on all the things that we need for Tyler on a flight.  It was the first time I had flown without him since I was working.  It was a fantastic trip but we missed Big T so much.  When we came home I ran up the stairs with tears in my eyes and arms outstretched for a hug.  He proceeded to push me over to get to JJ to jump up in his arms.  Then he wouldn't talk to me the rest of the day.  Ouch!  We have since reconciled and things are back to normal again :)