Day 5 in Iceland

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I asked my kids to write today's blog but they fell asleep on me so you're stuck with me again. I'll try this get their perspective another night.

Spent the morning at Skaftafell National Park - a popular place for camping, hiking and glacier tours. We did a relatively short hike to Svartifoss water falls. The unique feature of Svartifoss is the hexagonal basalt columns surrounding the falls. Very picturesque. From here, we drive back down highway 1 to Vik. Highway 1 is Iceland's "ring road" circling the entire island. I hope to return some day and spend a month exploring all the other regions we missed this trip. I recommend it for anyone traveling here in the future.

Vik is a large town compared to most we've seen. By large I mean it has a few streets and a grocery store. I suspect the population is half of Idyllwild, but, like I said, that is larger than most. It's nestled in this beautiful green valley with the ocean to the south, a large bluff to the west and the Solheimajokull glacier to the north. It's probably best known for being a common area to see puffins. For us, it was simply a place to fuel up, get a hotel and access some of the surrounding areas including the black sand beaches.

The black sand beaches also features basalt columns and have some cool caves. Here we saw the biggest tourist crowds we've experienced yet. Amongst the people we saw were 4 brightly colored, orange-robe wearing monks, a model doing a bridal gown fashion shoot, and a real bride and her groom posing for wedding pictures. The funniest thing we saw was a monk posing atop a basalt column pretending to meditate while the other monks gleefully snapped photos on their smart phones. Didn't seem very monk-ish to me, but what do I know. I think the picture of them I included below needs a funny caption. Any ideas?

After the black sand beaches, we headed to a sparsely populated bluff covered in dense grass and purple flowers ascending 800 meters above the coastline. Climbing it gave us tremendous views of the valleys, mountains, beaches and glaciers. On top was the grave of the brother of the man who first colonized Iceland back in the 800s. The information sign claimed that strange, unexplainable things happen to people here. The only strange thing about it to me was how we could be in such an amazingly beautiful place and not see another person for 2 hours. After this, Ginger got the car stuck in black sand, dug it out than drove to a set of dark damp caves facing the coast. The adventure never stops...

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Comments

[The dad]

Four little monks standing on a ledge
Couldn't get humpty back together again The first one rang a bell that didnt work The next one pulled of dumptys leg insane The third one said om Malik padma om And the forth one call 911 on a cell phone Which brought the local majistrate Then had his body removed to a restaurant no doubt And such was the fate of the Buddist Monks But they continued on and bo photo's them some more One hes really funny so he pulls a funny face Which makes indie laugh and cry for Moore No sooner he stoped the second one fell on the floor We didnt know what to do with a broken monk Laying on thr floor so we asked ther otherr three To carry him across Iceland to ther local store. Your farther, away than before