Tired

Exhaustion set in yesterday and I went to sleep without updating the journal… oops. The day was another day of travel, although we made several stops along the way, including the big three Icelandic sights of Thingvellir National Park, Geysir, and Gulfoss. Thingvellir is both a historical and geological site as it was home to the first Icelandic Parliament over a thousand years ago, and also marks the boundary between the European and North American tectonic plates. There are also geese there, and everyone likes geese. Geysir is (unsurprisingly) home to a geyser that erupts relatively frequently. Rope barriers separate the thermal features from the boardwalks, and when a local Icelander saw a few folks crossing one he was quick to comment “Come back please, this is very stupid. It takes only one minute to boil a tourist.” They came back. Gulfoss means “Gold Falls” and is a tremendous, two-tiered waterfall. From there we drove through volcanic moonscapes before reaching the Hotel Highlands where an Arctic fox appeared outside the window during dinner. Everyone but Larry and Mavis decided to forgo any late evening photography, and for the first time in about a week I enjoyed more than five hours of sleep for the evening. Today we’re back out to photograph in a volcanic caldera that Hawk describes as one of his favorite spots in Iceland, so it should be another good day.