Week 4: London, Iceland and the drive home. May 22-28

5/22 - Monday I needed to run into London to pick up biscuits for Jon and Belle from Fortnum and Mason.  I took Finn with me for a final ride on the tube. The shop is on Piccadilly street and as we walked the road we looked into a very fancy café called L'Eto. Lots of people were stopping to take pictures of the cakes and pies in the window... so I asked Finn if he'd like one.  He chose a forest berry ricotta cheese cake and I had a hazelnut chocolate cake. This is one of Finn's few genuine smiles on this trip, not because he didn't have fun, but just because he didn't like to smile for the camera.  While we were in the city, Melissa and the girls were playing at Glynis' house.

We joined them and had a nice lunch of leftovers. Lilian is playing with one of the few toys Glynis and Brendan were able to find.  Brendan estimates they were at least 50 years old. 

After lunch we went to Boston Manor Park to see the improved pond, 6 goslings (conveniently located next to the walking path), and play at the playground. 

Don't trust these smiles, all three were crying and asking for help on this log pile. And I was crying inside and shouting at them for not trying.

By 5 PM it was time to head back to the hotel to finalize packing for the next day's flight.  A last goodbye to Glynis, Brendan was out keeping busy.  On the way home we stopped to have the car washed, a requirement of the Turo.  It was a hand wash style station with a bunch of eastern European immigrants slinging sponges and power sprayers.  They opened the doors and sprayed all the door frames.  Lilian cried when they opened Melissa's door, possibly because I had opened Melissa's window earlier to remind them they never sponged the car and she got sprayed in the face.  When one of the women opened Finn's door to dry it, she saw he was nervous and told him in a heavy accent, "You no crying, you are strong man, not small boy!"

5/23 - Tuesday we headed to the airport and made it through check in/security pretty quickly, then after 30 minutes into our 2 hour wait we received notice our flight was delayed 3 hours.  The weather in Iceland was bad, lots of rain and wind. Several flights later in the evening were cancelled, but ours was just delayed.  The kids dealt with the long airport stay pretty well.  Finn carried Lilian's bag for her several times. 

About halfway through the flight Melissa managed to shower herself when she opened her water bottle for a sip.  She was wet from hair to legs. 

After deplaning at Keflavik airport, everyone went to the restroom.  Hannah locked herself in the stall. Melissa and a worker tried to unlock it from the outside, but Hannah eventually got it herself. 

We spent 23-25 at Úthlíð cottages. It was a fun 2 bedroom cottage with a hot tub in a remote area.  We knew Iceland had short nights this time of year, but this phone of a sheep with her twin babies was taken from our bathroom window at 11:39 PM.  It never got truly dark.  The cottage was fairly well covered with curtains, but we did end up putting pillows in the small window in the kitchen to block light for Finn, he slept on the couch the first night and in the loft the second night.  

5/24 - Wednesday we drove to Oxarafoss. It was a nice short hike. the fall was pretty and the trails led several different areas.  We didn't hike much, Hannah fell on a rock and bumped her knee.  

The girls identified this patch on the trail as "heart island." It was at the beginning of the trail and served as a bit of motivation to help Hannah walk back out to take a picture at Heart Island. 

We drove a little more through Thingvellir National Park.  We stopped at Hrafnagjá Observation Deck. Very pretty, and the kids opted to stay in the car so we could take a few seconds just to look. It was very windy for the whole time in Iceland. 15-30 MPH winds kept Melissa's hair in my face anytime I got close enough. 

We were on our way to Geysir and Strokkur. The kids joined Thor's army, in the gift shop.  

Geysir was the first geyser described in print and known to Europeans. Geysir doesn't erupt very often anymore, but Strokkur, just 50 meters away erupted at least 3 times while we were walking the area.  We saw a puny one, a medium and one which went probably 30 feet in the air and dropped a large amount of water just a few feet up the trail from Finley and I.  Thank goodness we stopped to wait for the girls to catch up or we'd have been covered in hot water. 

After our day out in the wind we soaked in the hot tub.  The hot water in the cabin and in this tub are direct from the geo thermal source under ground, and boy could you smell it!  We had fun soaking and splashing for about an hour. 

5/25 - Thursday we packed up the car. Our next rental was only about 75 minutes away, but check in wasn't until 5 PM.  We decided to visit Bruarfoss, and we walked for 3/4 of a mile to find the falls 300 meters from the trail head.  The trail marker was wrong, it would have been almost 4 miles round trip.  So we sat on the bank of this river and threw in volcanic stones.  All the stone is igneous and we saw many different types of lava rock at our stops.  

Gullfoss is a large fall and well developed all around.  Walk ways, restaurant and gift shop, etc. Note that in this photo another visitor offered to take, Lilian is hiding.  She regularly refused to show her face for pictures. 

In this selfie as we hiked back up the trail, Lilian is smashing her way between our legs and crying that we are not allowed to take photos without her. Silly Lily! 

We went shopping in the city of Selfoss because there weren't any restaurants near our rental.  We had a few nice restaurant and café meals for lunch, but our rentals were remote, so we cooked dinners.  Hotdogs, pizza, and schnitzel which must all be normal Icelandic meals because that's what they sell in grocery stores with no English print.  
After shopping we still had time to kill before check in, so we could a little park in a residential neighborhood and the kids rolled down this mound and rode the teeter-totter and swings for most of an hour. 

Helena, the owner of Skálatjörn guesthouse, raises some Icelandic goats.  She has a goat tour in the evenings and we got to play with the goats and their kids.  The kids were between 2 and 6 weeks. She has about 10 animals and they hadn't been outside yet.  The kids had lots of fun and loved it when her white cat came in to visit also. 

I think this was one of the 2 week olds. Look at those horns!  Male and female Icelandic goats both grow horns. Melissa and I had just as much fun as the kids. 
Helena said she's happy to show visitors the goats because, "you can only see so many waterfalls. You need to do something different while in Iceland." 

5/26 - Friday was wet and windy.  The rain was pouring all day. We decided to brace the weather and visited a giant puffin statue (Lilian elected to stay in the car) on our way to...

Seljalandsfoss. The waterfall was very pretty and you could walk behind it.  We all got soaked! Between the rain and the spray it was impossible to stay dry. 

Thought this shot was pretty cool. 

On the way to the waterfall we passed the LAVA Centre.  Melissa googled it on the drive and we decided to visit on our way back.  This was walking through a hallway recording all the known eruptions in the past couple hundred years. 

This shows the magma running below Iceland (look at the top) down into the core of the earth, based on scientific mapping. 

Then the sun came out! Oh, wait. We went to Skyrland. In Selfoss there is a food court, which smelled amazing and made me wish we hadn't stocked our rental's fridge. They have a walk through museum about skyr (Icelandic yogurt).  This is the summer booth to give visitors a glimpse of Iceland's brief summer weeks.  

This is a cows=universe mirror hall.  It was weird, but Finn and I liked it. 

And admission to the exhibit includes a skyr sample!  It was really yummy.  The blue and white one on the bent spoons is coconut skyr with blue spirulina algae supplement and shaved white chocolate curls.  Yummy bacteria and algae sludge! It was wet and cold still so we headed back to the rental for dinner.  

5/27 - Saturday was perfect weather! The sun came out, the sky was nearly cloudless and the wind was even down to just 10-15 MPH.  As we were driving toward the airport we saw this black horse standing face to the wind with his mane and tail flowing.  I stopped and backed up.  The whole herd came over to the gate.  Most of the fields and fences either have a deep ditch or double fences preventing you from getting close to the animals.  At this gate we were able to get close enough to pet them. We all got out and pet lots of horses.  Then all three kids got shocked!  Finn and Lilian had just little buzzes, but Hannah had a full power shock on her chest.  The noise drove all the horses away and they wouldn't come back.  At least we actually got to interact with the Icelandic horses. 

We drove along the south coast all day toward the airport. We saw glimpses of the sea as we drove the road Gaulverjabæjarvegur. We spotted a pullout.  The kids again said no to getting out.  So Melissa and I ran down to touch the sea and collected a small handful of sea glass and a few shells. 

We both think Iceland is a once in a lifetime visit for us. We only saw a tiny portion of the island and really enjoyed what we saw, but it just feels like we won't need to go back. There sure were some beautiful moments like this though. 

The Twins Go to Iceland! Melissa found a book about boy/girl twins who visit Iceland.  So here are our twins with that book in front of a cut out of a Viking long boat at Audur's arrival spot and the Hafnarnes Lighthouse and viewpoint. 

Or what we will refer to as death beach. We found a bird skull and the jaw bone of some sea creature. Kids played on the rocks and tempted the waves for 30 minutes before we jumped back in the car to "go between the parts, which are moving."

Our first day in Iceland Lilian asked when we could "go between the parts, which are moving."  It took us a minute, but we realized she was remembering one of Melissa's Iceland lessons at homeschool. Iceland is the meeting of the North American and Eurasian plates. The plates are pulling away from each other at 2 cm per year.  So here's a bridge over the gap!

And an expanse of volcanic sand underneath said bridge. The flight home went well, but it was hard to leave at 5 PM, fly for over 8 hours, and arrive at 7:45 PM. We were exhausted.  Then we drove 1 hour west, my choice, and stayed in Georgetown, CO. 

5/28 - Sunday was a driving day.  We reached Moab about 4 PM and were home at 5 PM.  Melissa hired Allyn to clean our house while we were away.  It was awesome to have every room thoroughly clean and everything off the floor, for about 10 minutes.  It is good to be home, but our body clocks are off! I'm typing this at 5 PM on 5/29 and Lilian has been crying (her body thinks it is 11 PM) and Melissa and I are exhausted!  The twins are chasing around with neighbor kids... so I guess they'll crash later.  
Overall, it was a success.  We left home April 30th and arrived home May 28th. I don't think we ever had a solid "I want to go home!" meltdown.  It was awesome.  We're going to do it again.  
While in Croughton Melissa, Sarah and Iain were talking about the distance to Paris, sounds like were visiting the continent next time.