Day 2 The Day of Waterfalls

Today is our day of travel to Vik, with plans to see various waterfalls along the way.  After having a nice breakfast at the hotel, we left the hotel around 9:30am.  To note, there we multiple "fish-related" items for the breakfast options.  Rick made an open-faced smoked salmon sandwich, but we took a hard-pass on the other fish items (note to the note: all other fish options were in glass jars with some liquid).

The weather today is cloudy and windy.  While on the road, there were times where there would be large snow drifts that would blow across the road and would reduce visibility to almost zero.  Below are some of my photos from the drive .

The first stop is the Urriðafoss waterfall .  This waterfall is about 30 minutes from Reykjavik and is a high-volume waterfall, but not high one. It was sooooo windy here!  But we persevered.  As you can see, lots of frozen water.  Rick note: when it is 0 degrees celcius and the wind is gusting to 50mph+, that is a biting cold.  I felt like my eyes were getting frozen walking into the window.  Sunglasses will be used at all subsequent stops when it is that windy.

Our next stop was the Seljalandsfoss waterfall.  This is a high waterfall that allows people to walk behind the waterfall but due to falling ice, it was closed.  There were a bunch of smaller falls in this same area so we took a little walk and took some pictures.

Some of the other falls in the same place.

All along the road, I kept checking on the road conditions as the website has a portion of the road closed on the way to Vik but we are going to chance it anyway.  We are hoping that by the time we get there, the road will be opened.  Fingers crossed!

The next stop is Skogafoss.  Right where we got to the road that leads to the fall, the road to Vik was closed so there was a long line of parked cars on the road.  They just had a highway patrol truck blocking the road to prevent traffic from getting through.  Luckily, we wanted to go to the fall so we kind of did some driving on the other side of the road and took some cuts to get to the turn to go to Skogafoss.  Since there’s not much on the road for dining, lunch today is a ham and cheese on baguette with some Pringles chips.  Perfect for on the road food.

At the fall, there’s a set of stairs that take you to the top of the fall.  I had to change my jacket because the other one would’ve been too hot.  Although it was much warmer here about 45 degrees, it was also super windy.  We did the stairs climb and that was our exercise for the day.  Here are some photos of us at the fall.  Please note the professional photographer (Richard Walery) was able to capture the rainbow in the photo he took of me (Rick's note: until I saw the picture once we got to the hotel, I had no clue there was a rainbow in it).  Also, check out the photo of the stairs, yep, like climbing Mount Everest.  As much walking as Rick and I have been doing, we were both wheezing and coughing from the climb.  Pulmonary thrombosis due to high altitude is no joke, but we did survive.

These are the photos from the top of the fall, after we climbed Everest.

Oh yeah, I also managed to capture a photo of the horses.  We will not be doing anything with horses so please enjoy this photo.

The nice thing about stopping here is that they opened up the road while we were there so when we were done, we headed onward to Vik.  Yay!!

The next stop is Reynisfjara Beach.  This is a black sand beach with basalt columns.  Very cool beach except that every once in a while, someone gets killed by a rogue wave.  (Rick's note: if I was going to get killed by a rogue wave, I would prefer it would be prior to climing to the top of Skogafass Falls.)  There are a lot of signs at the beach that tell you to not get too close to the water but I guess people really want that water photo.  It was also very windy here.  One thing that you can see is that there are no shortage of visitors to these places. Heck, we're here.

One last stop for the day, Dyrholaey Arch.

The cool thing about this place is to see the snow and ocean in the same place. Lots of frozen water here. Overall there is still a lot of snow everywhere and it dawned on me that some of the scenes were like Monument Valley, except with lots of snow. Some more road trip photos below.

Overall I would say we had really good weather today. It was dry and partly cloudy for most of the day and we were able to see all places on our itinerary. That is a win. Not sure that this will be the case for some of the days for this trip as there is a lot of snow in the forecast starting on Friday. So far, it has been too cloudy to see the northern lights but based on the forecast, Friday is supposed to be good, the forecast is 6 out of 9 so I am really hoping for a good show. Let's hope that is the case when Friday hits.

Rick's section for the day:

Skogafoss Waterfall view...or The Stairway to Heaven (or someother place much warmer...) On our itinerary for today, there is an innocous entry that reads "Skogafoss waterfall - climb the stairs for the view". Well, that entry seems innocent enough. And at the base of the stairs, my wife let me know that she read others recommend climbing the stairs to see the view of the falls from the top. All I have to say is, Liars! Each and every one of them. Where to start...at the base of the ascent, the steps are cut into the hill and are perfectly placed at about 1.5 steps (not quite one step and not quite two steps...diabolical). Rosie told me, it was better to try to alternate which leg was the step-up leg when going up this part. She was wrong, that method sucked too. Once we got past that test, we were onto the the metal steps. I have read and watched a bunch of stuff about Everest ascents and I pictured these like the Hillary Steps on Everest. They were never ending. On the upside, there were little platform every 10-15 steps where I could pretend to marvel at the view while trying not to look totally gassed as 80 year old ladies cruised by me. This was also the place where I dillusionally thought that using our elliptical machine for more than a clothes hanger would be a good idea but luckily that thought passed quickly.

It was also on one of these platforms where I think I discovered a new condition and I am the first one to ever have it. On those Everest documentaries, they often mention HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema), I think I disovered LAPE (low-altitude pulmonary edema). The symptoms are the same cough, breathlessness with activity and at rest, and difficulty walking uphill. Just to let you know, when we got back (plot spoiler: I survived), I did Google the altitude of the Skogafoss Waterfall area and it is 62 meters (I am surprised I did not need supplemental oxygen). Getting to the top was cool even though I decided not to go to the observation area just over the falls since it was quite the drop off. Rosie and I walked a little more up-stream to see the river before it goes over the falls. While it was cool, I am not sure it was quite worth it. But I did bite my tongue on the way down and resited telling people to turn-back now and save themselves...

There was one thing I really like about the march up the steps. This could be because I was delirious from LAPE, but the wooden part of the hand-rails looks like little brown loaves of Wonder Bread. The stock photo below that I found on the internet does not do the wooden part of the rails justice but that is what kept me going to the top...knowing I would see my little wheat Wonder Bread on the way down...

After checking into our hotel, the Volano Hotel, near Vik. We drove into Vik for dinner. The options were pretty limited. We went to a brew-pub and had some standard American fare. Rosie had a pulled-pork sandwich and I had a bacon and onion ring cheese burger with a spicy mayo. Both sandwiches were super tasty. The ordering process was super efficient. Pull up the menu from a QR code at the table (with the table number embedded in the QR code) and then pay in the menu app using a credit card or ApplePay.

After dinner I thought it would be a good time to gas up. We were warned by the rental card agent that our American (chip and signature) credit cards would not work on the un-manned gas station pumps in Iceland since they require a chip and PIN card. Note for the Visa people reading this blog, get on it...this is annoying! The rental car agent recommend that we visit the gas station while the mini-market is open and buy a prepaid card which will work in the un-manned pump in case we need gas after-hours. So I went into the store and bought a 10,000 krona pre-paid card (about $70 USD). Once I got to the pump, I saw that it did accept ApplePay so that is a plus for future after-hours gas pumping. I guess if I was an optimist, I would say the gas pumping in Vik was very efficient. The pumps did not have any of that vapor capture nonsense of the California pumps and the pumping went super fast. My 10,000 krona pre-paid card was gone in about 1-2 minutes to fill my 60% empty tank. Pumping $70 of gas at Costco in California can take 10-15 minutes between waiting in line and the lowish per gallon cost at Costco. On the upside, I did not see the per litre price in Vik so ignorance is bliss. BTW, I just Googled it, the price is about $3/liter...ouch. All in all, it has been a great day hanging out with my Rosemary and seeing new stuff. To more of that tomorrow!