Beating Back the Jet Lag

Our first day, Eryn suggested we do "The Golden Circle," a short drive near Reykjavik with some pretty nifty sights. First thing to see is Thingvellir, a rift valley at the junction of the European and North American tectonic plates. Iceland expands here a tiny bit each year. There is this beautiful lake where, if one were not there in winter, you could scuba dive down to have a look-see. We settled for looking at it from the water's edge. Just behind Eryn and Stephanie are some little piles of stones. This is an interesting bit of local custom which I never really got a handle on. As best as I could figure, people gather stones together and put them in piles as a sort of geological graffito as if to say "I was here." From time to time, you see out in a field some really large piles about five to six feet high made of two to three tremendous stones about 3 feet across. My guess here is this announces, "I was here and I am a BAMF."


Here you get another view of the lake.

Our next stop is the part of the valley that may have the most significance for world history. In the valley around a 1000 years ago, Chieftains from the island gathered annually to write the laws for the nation. The gathering was called the Althing and lays claim to being the longest continuing legislative body in the World.

This is the sunset looking back to the area where the previous photo were taken:
The original Althing was not a building, but a gathering. It is now housed in downtown Reykjavik.

The valley has "folds" in it from the pressures of the tectonic movement. In one of these folds a rise on one side creates a rock wall and on the other side a natural stage of sorts. A speaker would stand on the stage, The Law Rock, and speak to the crowd before them using the back wall to contain the sound. Eryn and I try our hands at being Law Speaker:
















On around the tour we get to some volcanic hot springs. Nearby is one called Geysir, from which comes the one English word that derives from Icelandic. It is a bit irregular in spouting, but it has a smaller cousin that we got to see several times. The sun had set and the moon was rising making this shot possible:








One more stop for dinner and the last view, Gullfoss, one of your larger Icelandic waterfalls. For those in middle Tennessee, it reminded me a bit of a really big Burgess Falls: