Iceland! Day 1

A week after school started Jason and I headed off on an adventure to Iceland! Jason has wanted to go there since he was a missionary (Iceland is part of the Denmark Mission, but he never had a chance to go as a missionary), so we decided to make it happen! 

The night before school started I twisted my ankle pretty badly (as I sometimes do). We were a little worried because basically, everything we had planned to do was some form of hiking. So, I rested it as much as I could the week before we left, brought a hiking stick that I used like a cane (thanks to my sister Emily for that bit of inspiration!), and walked VERY SLOWLY holding onto the arm of a very patient husband...and we were able to do everything we wanted to do! (Here I am at the airport in a wheelchair, because, yes, I needed one!)

Walking out of the airport on August 22 was a bit of a shock- it was SO cold (about 50 degrees) and super windy! We were glad for every bit of warm weather gear we brought. On a couple of days, we even had 50-mile-an-hour gusts that literally knocked me down once or twice (granted, I wasn't super steady on my feet) and sprinkles of rain, but on other days we had blue skies and lovely mid-60s with only a slight breeze.

We did quite a bit of driving in the week we were there- over 1,000 miles in fact- so we got to see a lot of the beautiful countryside. There were so many areas where the only car was us and the only signs of life were sheep or horses.

On our first day drove up the western side of the Island and hiked the Garbrok volcano. This was one of the windiest days and where I got knocked down! This volcano erupted about 3,200 years ago- about the time of the ancient Egyptians. This was the northernmost spot on earth Jason or I have ever been.

Then we went to the lovely Krauma Spa. The pools are hot from hot springs and cooled to safe levels with glacier water-only in Iceland!! It was a nice thing to do when we were tired from our overnight flight. 

On our first night in the country, Jason had a hard time sleeping, as he often does the first night somewhere. He got up around 3am and went out into the living area of our little place and got on the internet. One of the first stories on CNN's website was that there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland! He looked up where it was happening, and found that it was only 45 minutes away from us! He read that the roads around it were closed (of course), but that you could see it from the road. He woke me up and asked if I wanted to go see it. Before we left for our trip Jason mentioned how cool it would be if we got to see a volcanic eruption (there had been one a couple months before we left), so of course we were going to look at one so near us! 

Even when we first started driving the sky was tinted red. It got much redder the closer we got, and sure enough in 45 minutes we could see the Svartsengi fissure volcanic eruption. It was two-and-a-half miles long and amazing to see in person. When we drove by again at the end of our trip on our way back to the airport it was daytime, and we could see how it had changed the landscape. Much of the land had closed up with hardened lava, so it was spurting up higher than when we first saw it, but it was just so impressive seeing it in the dark that first day.

It was a pretty good first day!