Bill and Jen's Adventures: Iceland, Day Two

We arrived at our rental home after dark on the first day, so we really weren't able to see much. Once the sun rose the next morning (around 10:00AM!) we were happily surprised to find ourselves secluded, far away from the maddening crowd.

Our Air B&B

Our house was located on the west side of the island, about two hours drive north from Reykjavik near a town called Bifrost.

View from our Air B&B

We chatted with a couple at one point while we were out and about, farther north, that first full day. They asked where we were staying and I explained that our rental was near Bifrost, and I pronounced it buy-frost. That seems correct, right?

Well, the folks could not figure out where we were staying and kept asking us to repeat the name of the village. 'Buy-frost,' I kept explaining. Finally, a lightbulb goes off in the woman's eyes and she says, 'Oh! You mean Bee-frooost (with a rolled R-sound).'

Yes, yes, I mean Bee-frooost. Of course, I mean Bee-froost!

View from our Air B&B

We drove around to see some of the Northwestern sights on day two (first full day). We only had about five hours of daylight each day, so we had to make the most of them!

Views from the road

Views from the road - a defunct volcano

We stopped to see an extinct volcano. There was a walking trail, but since the weather was so cold and the hiking conditions fairly dire, we simply pulled our car over, got a good look and called it a day.

Basalt stacks - as seen from afar

Our next stop was to locate the geological formation of basalt stacks. We found them and were able to drive fairly close to them.

Basalt stacks - as seen closer

Cindy, capturing the moment

We parked on the road (yes, this was a fairly main road in Northwestern Iceland!) and stopped for some photographs.

Bill, capturing the moment

And cheesy, frozen smiles!

Ready for a short hike?

Many of us hiked even closer.

Basalt stacks

While others stayed back by the cars.

Selfie skills!

Hikers making their way to the basalt stacks

Apparently, those who hiked up to the stacks partook in a wee bit of snow ball fighting.

Dan standing against the basalt stacks

The whole gang - selfie skills!!

Unfortunately, for the next several hours, there were no signs of civilization. This is what we saw:

As seen from the road

Stone monument of some sort, as seen from the road

There were some road signs… that weren't too helpful as you drove past at 50MPG...

easy-peasy

Thankfully we finally, finally (!) found a small cafe that was open. To give you an idea of how expensive food is in Iceland, my small bowl of mushroom soup cost the equivalent of $18. Yikes!

Small church

The cafe was in a small village with a beautiful, tiny church in the field behind the cafe.

Glacier to the left of small church

We had about a two-hour drive to get back to our rental home and it was soon going to get dark. We were trying to make our way to a famous glacier that was supposedly nearby. I asked the host managing the cafe how much farther it was until we could see the glacier as we would have to be turning back soon.

He was confused and asked, 'Glacier? You want to see the glacier?'

We replied yes, we were hoping to see the glacier. At which point the manager pointed to the hill disappearing into the cloud cover beside the church and said, 'Well, if you could see it, you could see it!'

D'oh! There would be no glacier viewing on that day...

Ocean near small church and glacier

But we saw coast. We all thought the volcanic rock dusted in snow looked like fresh, homemade brownies. Perhaps we were still hungry from our meager yet expensive cafe lunches.