Yesterday: All day pulling GPR machines at next year's site of Stora-Selya. Had some decent rain early, but day ended well. We all worked late, putting off dinner for an hour and forgoing showers. Much to be done.


Today: Most of the day pulling GPR again at Stora-Selya. Finished up back at Medalheimur. No wind at all in the morning, and bright sun. Afternoon turned dull and a little breezy. Mad rush to finish up everything, since today is the last day of digging. Dinner late again, but got showers.

Pulling GPR over a 9x35-meter area is really boring, given that you go back and forth over it in rows every 25cm apart, walk the same line back to draw the next one in the same direction, and then done, rotate 90 degrees and do the same thing all over again.

However, the guy in charge of the GPR surveys makes the time go much faster by telling stories of his adventures and misadventures while traveling and working on other projects. He's got quite a few. I'd like to have the mind to remember things like he does, but alas, I'm terrible at story telling. Or maybe I just don't have enough memorable adventures.

A number of people plan to rise early (about 4am!) to finish some on-site work before the backhoe arrives to push all our hard-dug dirt back into the big holes we made. We then have to move all the cut-off sod back on to the top of the fill manually, to make the place look more-or-less like it did before we arrived.

Thursday has been designated for cleaning and packing: house, lab, equipment, cars, etc. We all leave for Reykjavik Friday at 2am (!), somehow cramming us and our stuff into our vehicle fleet. This seems unlikely to me. Place your wagers now.

Most people leave Friday at 10:30 am, but two of us not until Saturday. We will be staying with one of the project leaders who has a friend in town, who's letting him stay in his house. This worked out well, given the outrageous prices there, even for a hostel bed. We plan to see the national museum and then do some shopping.

Off now to do some official photography of one or two artifacts we've found, including a pre-1000 gaming piece that came out of the "pit house" at Medalheimur.

Panorama of Medalheimur fjarhus on its last day. The deepest parts are about one meter in height. Tomorrow we'll cover it with a sheet of plastic and the backhoe will fill the hole completely with the piles of dirt and stone that you can see, and others that are out of sight.