To Iceland!

Jeff and i decided it was time for another adventure, this time with a baby.  We also decided to go someplace cold in the winter which is unusual for us.  I said something to Jeff while watching a holiday movie about wanting to add seeing the northern lights (aurora borealis) to my bucket list and a week later i saw some inevpensive trips to iceland.  I jokingly mentioned it to jeff and next thing i knew we we had tickets to go to iceland!

We have an 8 1/2 month old daughter, Wren, that we took with us which made travel slightly more complicated.  

We flew fron Boise to Seattle which was an easy flight.  We fan a 3 hour layover so we brought a bed sheet with us an spread it on the floor with baby toys so thar Wren could crawl around and wiggle before being confined on the plane again.  This worked great and was fun for all of us!  We called it out airport picnic.

The flight from Seattle to Reykjavik was 7 hours.  Wren slept about half of it.  Jeff and I took turns entertaining and holding her.  I didn't manage to get any sleep which made for a really long day.  We arrived in Reykjavic at 7 AM so we stayed up all day.  Wren was awesome and napped on and off all day and never really got very grumpy.

We left Reykjavic and started the "golden circle" drive.  It was very pretty and we stopped and took photos along the way.

The sun was this low at noon!

Iceland is crazy windy, you can see the patterns carved into the snow by the wind.

Another random stop.

Iceland has these fat, fuzzy horses that are adorable!  Many farms have them and they were at many places as we were driving.

We started by seeing the location of the first parliament building, ever.  The first parliment was in Iceland and on the origonal foundation they have a historically accurate replica.  There also was a 900 year old church next to it which photographed really nice. 


Next we checked out a geyser.  Apparently this geyser, named Gysir is where the word geyser came from.

Jeff and Wren in her carry pack.  Jeff has been taking her so that i can take photos.

People through the steam around Gysir.

Gyser errupting.  
The ground steaming from geothermal activity with a snow covered mountain behind it.

Next we saw an enormous waterfall.  The one problem with waterfalls in winter is they are hard to photograph because the foamy water is white and the snow is white and it all blenspda together.  This thing was enormous that you could feel the rumble a little.

Gullfoss waterfall

Here is another angle on Gullfoss.

We finished up with a little more driving, a fantastic dinner and moon rise over the Icelandic horses...  Yep, a fantastic first day of vacation.

 

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