Our trip around Iceland went well. (This and the following journal entries through Aug. 31 are being back-dated for the days they cover, but all are being written on September 1st. Selected photos will follow these entries later tonight.)

Before we could begin our trip around Iceland, we had to make a quick stop at Holar to drop off a few project items for storage and wrap up a loose end or two. We stopped at the site of the local thing and took a few photos on the way, then decided to drive up and around the peninsula the long way to Akureyri because the day dawned beautiful - the first since Shelley's arrival - and we wanted to see some of the northern vistas that beckoned to the north.

This part of the trip took a little longer than expected because the main road turned to dirt after about half-way. This slowed us down, of course, but we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of hill and dale and farmland and seaside during the drive. We also found the 5 km one-way tunnel up there, and drove on through it (it really is one-way because it's wide enough for only one vehicle at a time, however the side wall contains numerous enlargements that accomodate one vehicle pulling off to let another go by so it's no big deal for oncoming traffic to give way).

Seeing Akureyri for the second time came as quite a shock because on this occasion, with a cloudless sky, it looked nothing like the previous time when covered with rain and mist. After passing through town, we headed for Myvatn, which means Midge Lake, an area of outstanding beauty and geological interest to the east. The Ring Road (route 1) that we planned to take all the way around the country goes right through the Myvatn area, so we stayed on it.

At Myvatn we walked a few short hiking trails down by the lake, and although we brought anti-bug head nets, we did not need them. We also hiked up the crater rim of Hverfjall, a nearby prominent cinder cone, and enjoyed the view from the top for a while. After that, we drove over to the nearby bubbling mud pools and took in the sulphur fumes. Had we more time, we would have spent another day in the Myvatn area, but given ultimate goal, we decided to head for Grimsstadir to find evening lodging.

We reached the turn-off to Grimsstadir with plenty of daylight left, and decided to continue on to Egilsstadir because this area didn't have much of interest to us right then, and we had a beautiful evening coming on, so we decided to use it while we could. After all, tomorrow might bring fog and rain and shut down the grand views we had right then.

Not long after that, the Ring Road loses its hard surfacing. Our poor little car. We chose to rent a cheap vehicle, assuming that the Ring Road had pavement all the way around. Ooops. Bad assumption. Speaking in retrospect, now, our car handled all the non-paved areas of the Ring Road, but AHEM, it would have been more enjoyable in a vehicle with higher ground clearance, four-wheel drive, and better shock absorbers.

Anyway... we pressed on to Egilsstadir and arrived there around 9:00 pm, rather tired of being in a little car travelling on bumpy road. We pulled in just ahead of a heavy fog that had been chasing us, and decided that we'd try the local hostel for lodging. After all, it was only another 25 km away, down one of them fjords.

So we call the hostel and they say to come on over and we tell them we'll be right there. Yeah, right. At this point we have picked up the pavement again, however the road to the hostel goes way up... and then way down... which is no big deal, except that the fog is so thick (even thicker than on the New York Throughway in the middle part of the state) that we are forced to drive less than 10 km per hour down into the fog, on hair-pin turns, for about 20 km.

We finally did reach the hostel about 10:00 pm, woke up the warden, got a room to ourselves, and plopped down exhausted. But we felt good that we got a big chunk of the trip done and could take the rest at a leisurely pace. If you look at a map of Iceland, you will see that we travelled almost the entire northern portion of the country in one day, and had some good hikes and sightseeing on the way. We did pass up some nice waterfalls and Iceland's "Grand Canyon" partly because they lay to the north of our route, but mostly because our little car would not have survived reaching them.

If we had to do this trip over again, which might be the case someday, the first lesson to recall is: rent a vehicle that can handle the roads. During our trip we saw many examples of small SUVs, like Jimmys, that would have been better for the trip. We don't need big off-road SUVs, but a little one would have helped a great deal. I don't know the price difference, but I would strongly recommend not trying to drive the Ring Road in a standard micro rental car.