Land of Fire and Ice

Since we’re here in the summer, Iceland so far has just shown us fire -

The volcano, Fagradalsfjall, that started erupting in March (after an 800 year sleep) was our first stop after landing at 0630. All arriving tourists, even though vaccinated, had to be tested for COVID, and are supposed to quarantine until results are back in 4-5 hours. So, being the intrepid travelers we are, we got our rental car, headed to the volcano, and proceeded to hike all morning (well away from others) until our negative results came in - as we were hiking back to our car, after a tough 7 mile hike. My eldest son requested oozing lava video:

We were able to walk right up to the edge of the new lava, and feel the heat coming off of it. This was the newest land on earth! (at that moment)

(if you don’t see the videos above, you need to open this post in your browser)

The extent of the new flow is amazing -

(see the “tiny” people near the left edge of the smoke?)

After hiking up and over a steep ridge to get to the actual volcano, we were disappointed in what we could see -

The darker smoke near the left side of the picture is the actual volcano, but while we were there, it didn’t bless us with any spewing lava, so we just had to trudge back to the car.

As we drove on to our lodging for the next few nights, we passed an area with interesting moss (?) growing over volcanic rocks (from an eruption 5,000 yrs ago). This picture is looking back at the smoke from the volcano -

The lupines and buttercups lining the road at times threw some bright color our way -

I hope to have much better lupine pictures, as our trip goes on.

The house we’re staying at is near a horse farm, and the Icelandic horses are beautiful, shaggy, and look quite rugged -

The buildings here are heated with geothermal energy, and you can understand why, when you notice the ground around here just smokes, randomly:

So I can get this post out before we head off to our next adventure, I’ll let this guy say goodbye for us…