The Golden Circle in Iceland 7-16-11

You can hear it before you see it. Gullfoss waterfall. As the story goes, a young woman owned this property. The government wanted to put in a hydroelectric dam and ruin the beauty you see here. She threatened to throw herself over the edge it the project went through. Although the courts ruled against her, the project never happened due to the high public pressure not to build the dam, the hydroelectric company just gave up and the contract expired in 1928. She was a smart farmer's daughter because it is just beautiful. There is a bronze plaque there of her before you walk down right next to the falls. There is no barrier between you and the falls. You just have to use your own common sense not to go too close to the edge. We should have brought rain gear as, the closer you get to the falls the wetter you get. The wind coming off the glacier far away from where we were standing was what we thought was "high", seems it was light wind. Not for us. We could barely stand there in the wet and wind to take these pictures.



The English word "geyser" comes from this fascinating geothermal area that is crazy full of hot springs, creeks, and holes! To anyone reading this that has made the trip to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful and thought that was wonderful...Good Night Nurse...you would love this! Old Faithful is but a spit into the air compared to this explosive giant! The geyser that was named, "Geysir", hence the English word today, was discovered in 1294! Yes, that is right, 1294. It erupted for hundreds of years but gave out of steam so to speak and had to be "encouraged" to erupt when locals put soap chips into it and aggravated it enough! Luckily for the locals, about 12 years ago, another geyser erupted only about 100 yards away, this one is named Stokkut, which in English means, The Churn. The water in the hole actually churns around and bubbles up before it erupts. You can see that the locals made good use of the stones and made them the "security roped area". These stones and ropes were the only things between us and the geyser! We were standing about 30 yards from it when it gave way and shot up about 120 feet into the air! It was very scary but very exciting. I think we were the only ones that screamed, I am not sure why. The build up of this hot water and gas was quite a show!






Pingvellir National Park. This is the very spot in 1944 where everyone in Iceland that wanted to celebrate gathered to really have fun celebrating their independence from Denmark. Their was a Parlament building here at one time but it was lost to fire. There are hands on learning centers here about their history and a "creek" that our guide called a river that is deep enough and clear enough to dive into in scuba gear! It was SO cold to the touch I do not know how they could do it. When you are looking at the pictures of the "creek/river" it is not a fake! The water Nicky is sticking his hand into is CLEAR. It was almost like Walt Disney made it with a fake bottom and a pump to put in the clean water. This is not Disney, it is real!
This is also the place where back in the day, if the Vikings did not like you or you had a difference in opinion from them, you were killed. The men by being beheaded and the women by being drowned in this beautiful clear water. The history of it all is marked along the path and a count of how many were killed. Amazing.










Before there were mile markers along the highway, you had to mark your way it something. In some countries, they just used one stone. Here in Iceland, they marked their way with a signature stack of rocks, so they would know their way back from where ever they walked! Great idea, right? However, the regular American teenager, does not have the stone stacking skills as the Vikings of long ago. Kathleen was much better at marking her path. Maybe the wives of the Vikings were in charge of this task?