Pingvellir National Park Campground Thingvellir

... So both of my options involved purposely submersing myself in water, either 1) go to the Iceland Airwaves final bash party at the Blue Lagoon (aka a TON of hungover/drunk people jamming out to techno in the geothermal pools, or 2) go back to Þingvellir and go snorkeling on the mid-Altantic ridge. I havent been up for partying lately so I chose the latter, and Im so glad I did. We had a super small group which was great, it was me, a 14 year old kid ...

... Johannes comes over to me and pokes my chest. What a nice guy. He asks if I'm OK and I signal, NO, going UP! So I surface. He comes up and I tell him I can't equalize and I'll just continue to bob along on the surface after him.

So my big underwater dive in a dry suit in Iceland lasted all of 6 minutes and was 24' deep! BUT wait! the fun is NOT over yet. In all, we've only been in the water for about 15 minutes. We swim further into the lake and make a left turn into what they call ...

... falls set up perpendicular to each other and than the lower falls drops 75 meters into a canyon it has carved in the rock. From the parking and viewing areas it is impossible to see down into the bottom of the canyon. The picture, once again, doesn't do justice to the depth and narrowness of the canyon, but I tried.
The area around Gulfoss was also the first place we could see a trace of the glacier up high on the shoulder of the distant mountain.

... to divine the correct path and off we went. (Yes, I know I'm taking all the credit.)
Day two was all about the "Golden Circle" which is the number one day-trip out of Reykjavik. It manages to squeeze an entire national park, the 4th largest geyser in the world and a magnificent waterfall plus gift shops and restaurants into one marathon tour.

For us we enjoyed getting to the first of many hundreds of excellent informational pull-outs on the road to ...

... because by my count, I am up to five. At least that's five according to what my travel guides have told me over the years. So I am collecting Techtonic Plates! Today I added two to my collection. In Iceland, I went to the location of the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate and the place where they are spreading apart to the tune of about 2 1/4 centimeters a year. It was a bit hard to understand the guide at times but ...

... We passed lots of sheds and barns like this one bermed with soil and covered with turf.

We also passed through more moss covered lava - what a sight! as well as fields of red grass. We hiked up to this spring and yes it really does just come out of a hole in the ground right there. Beautiful clear water. Our route also took us past Hekla - another active volcano that is overdue for an eurption ...

... truly is beautiful. 

From Gulfoss we headed to the tectonic plates which is slowly dividing Iceland in half. The plates is also the sight of the first official Parliament in the world and also the place where Island got there independence from Denmark in 1944. The water in the rivers was the clearest I have ever seen, you could see down for around 15 to 20 meters right down it was stunning, it is where people go diving it was so clear. When there we ...

... hungry, so weren't best pleased to be handed piece of fruit and a yoghurt! Luckily, there's a small shop that sells Pringles. So, the first thing I bought in Iceland was a tub of sour cream and onion Pringles for 200 kroner!

Apparently the tour guide's heading back; Megan says she'll shout at us! When she left, she said "Can I leave you? You won't start killing yourselves or each other... at least there'll be more space for everyone else!" Oh Jeez ...

... waterfall they threw 'criminal' women down from, packed in a bag. 'Criminal' could ...