(Eden)

Today we: Woke up and enjoyed the insane wind blustering across the lake towards us. Had a search and rescue party spread out to locate my phone, which ended up being inside the campervan. It felt amazing to get a full night’s sleep. 

After a simple breakfast of hot oatmeal, cold cereal (including Weetabix!), orange juice, and coffee (for dad), we finally got on the road (maybe by 1030?). We headed to Kerið Crater, where we walked the ridge high above the lake and then the perimeter of the volcanic lake down in the crater. Before leaving we sampled some Icelandic lamb soup from the food truck in the parking lot. Yum, although not all of us are huge fans of lamb. 

Then we backtracked north again to Þingvellir National Park: insane beauty. The kids table made sandwiches for all as dad drove, an epic reversal of normal roles as we passed sandwiches forward to Mom and Dad. The park was beautiful and blustery: meandering between walls of volcanic rock, views upon views, an impressive waterfall, Dad’s ideal drone shot (drones weren’t allowed, but he still got nice pics), skipping through the canyon, poking along through woods that reminded us all, separately, of our favorite New Hampshire camping spot, Pawtuckaway State Park, convo about our individual funny manifestations of benign OCD stuff as we walked towards the church, and back up again to the entrance.

On the way out of the park the kids table constructed a charcuterie board, which was infinitely fun to create and pass forward to the driving team.

We impromptu stopped at a dairy farm recommended to us by the visitor’s guide I picked up at the penis museum, run by four siblings. We shared some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had while watching the milk donors themselves, and then got a start on the digestion while bouncing on an insane inflatable bouncy bubble while Mom chatted with Lancaster girls. 

Our next stop was Geysir, the OG geyser that all others are named after, apparently. It erupts pleasantly frequently, like every 5-7 minutes. We watched a few cycles, took pics and vids, and walked around a few of the other geothermal features before escaping the sulfur smells. 

Then to Gullfoss waterfall: what some have claimed is the most beautiful waterfall in Iceland and more beautiful than Niagara. It was beautiful. Misty and rainbowy. I feel like I should write more about this and less about the dairy farm but by this point we (I) were feeling a little sleepy. It was stunning and I was really glad to see it but I also think waterfalls scare me enough that I’m not overly excited to keep seeing them. Bad news for tomorrow!!

Then to the Friðheimar tomato farm. The main restaurant was closed but we sat at the bistro, sharing tomato soup and filling up on bread. We ate under the grape vines and adjacent to the tomato greenhouses. Today was very farm to table — since we also split a lamb soup at the crater. I guess there’s a huge incentive to eat local given the constraints of importation.

Then a beautiful almost-sunset drive south to finally meet up with Route 1, the Ring Road, to pass through Hella for our campsite tonight. It is part of a camping pass that we bought for not much and means we have hundreds of neighbors but you would never know it once the blinds are up.

Dinner quickly became legendary, and involved ramen. Except it was spicy ramen because I didn’t read the label but just got excited about it because all of my friends eat it. But importantly none of us had tried it before. I put in three packets of soup base for five ramens and it was still the spiciest ramen I have had in a long time.

The legend: Elliot asked how much we would pay him to drink the dregs of his broth. Harrison said $5. Elliot began drinking. Now that I’m writing it is infinitely less funny to articulate into words so maybe I’ll stop. But mission successful and Elliot is now $5 richer.

All of this is so deeply insufficient but just need to put SOMETHING down.

Dad was commenting today about how it is interesting that almost all of the sites have a parking fee but no per person entrance fee. In a way, a larger family benefits from this policy, although we were comparing it to the US, where for the national parks, at least, you could buy an annual pass that would give you affordable access to all of the sites. We are paying approximately $12 per place to park the camper and have always found a way to squeeze in somewhere. Both mom and dad are getting proficient at parking in tight spaces!