I had wanted to get up early to make sure we got to the National Park early enough but I decided to sleep in because of having to go to sleep so late the night before. We missed breakfast so we ended up stopping at a bakery in town for donuts. We walked around Stykkisholmur for a while and then headed on our drive down south towards the park.
We got sort of confused while driving and I couldn't find some of the roads I saw on the map. So, we ended up having to go back out on the main roads and it took us a really long time to get the Thingvellir National Park. This is a park where the tectonic plates are separating and making huge rifts in the ground. It is really pretty there and all of it sits on the biggest lake in Iceland. I was afraid that we may not be able to get dinner if we didn't head immediately to our hotel so we looked at the park a bit and then drove to Geysir.
We arrived at our hotel - the most touristy place we had been to so far which makes sense because the geysir park is part of the tourist rampant Golden Circle and is easy to get to from Reykjavik. I'm just glad we weren't there in the summer when it is really crowded - there was almost no one there when we were. We checked in and found our room which was actually a small cabin we had to ourselves.
We rested a bit and then drove over to Gullfoss which is a famous waterfall about 5 minutes away. It was pretty big and there was still snow all around the water. On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at a historical old church - most churches in Iceland look alike - basic and small, with one steeple and a few small windows. We also stopped to pet some horses on the way. The horses look "Emo" with hair over their eyes and they are really sweet and nuzzle you to get pet.
We ate dinner at the hotel and then walked over to the geothermal field where all the geysers were. The biggest geyser - called Geysir - after which all other geysers are named does not go off any longer due to people messing with it, but we got to see Strokkur go off many times. This one goes off about every 10 minutes and it was really cool to watch. We also walked all around and saw hot pots, other "dead" geysers, and some hot springs. At about midnight we took a walk out to the geyser field which was interesting because it was still sort of light out.
