Day 91-on the road again

   April 4-As the night wore on, the room spun less when I dared to open my eyes.  By morning, I could get around on my own for the most part, so I told everyone to make their plans for the day without including a trip to the hospital and we would see how I handled the drive.  As it turned out, I handled it just fine, which was a huge relief.  I don't know what caused the bout of vertigo, but I am glad that it was so short-lived and did not impact the trip at all.

   After the stress of the chase yesterday, the hens had managed to only produce four eggs for us today.  Things were no better for them today, either, because the kids ran wildly after them this morning as we packed up and loaded the vehicles for another day on the road.

   While discussing the upcoming visit of my family with Emma a few weeks ago, she mentioned that her aunt had built a couple guest cottages on her family's farm in southern Iceland.  When we found out that her aunt also has horses and that we could ride them, the family jumped on the opportunity, since Icelandic horse rides were on the top of all of my nieces' to-do lists.  Tonight would be our first night at the farm, so the group decided to take a circuitous, "scenic" route in Þjósárdalur, so we could fit in some sights on the way.  We visited Hjálparfoss to view the picturesque waterfall and the interesting rock formations around it.

   Nearby we came to Þjóðveldisbærinn, which is a reconstruction of a Viking longhouse that was excavated nearby at Stöng.  This longhouse was much more elaborate than the one we saw previously at Eiriksstaðir.  We all noticed the rocks placed at the edge of the roof to keep the turf from blowing off: further evidence that Icelandic winds are not for the timid!

Misty, Sally, Joslyn, and Alex near the longhouse's sitting room annex.

Alex and Norm in back of the longhouse between the lavatory and storeroom annexes.

A rjúpa, or ptarmigan.  We have seen many
these birds around Bifröst this winter.  This
one at the Hekla Center is beginning to
change from its winter to summer plumage. 

   Continuing on up the valley on route 32, we got to see the bleak landscape that has resulted from recurrent eruptions of nearby Mt. Hekla.  In the summer, people with suitable 4WD vehicles can continue on this route on across the highlands of eastern Iceland.  We only continued as far as there was pavement, but I think that everyone at
least got a notion of the kind of landscape that makes up the interior highlands of Iceland.  We made our way back down the eastern side of the valley, bringing us as close as we could to the infamous Mt. Hekla.  We stopped along its flanks at a farm that houses the Hekla Center.  A man saw us drive in and came over from his house to unlock the exhibit and let us in.  The displays mostly dealt with the historical eruptions of the volcano.  Footage from the multiple 20th century eruptions was very striking visually, but the contemporary accounts from the more destructive, earlier eruptions struck an even deeper chord.  Hekla's demeanor affected Iceland, but also captivated Christian Europe as well.  Early in Iceland's settlement, Hekla became known as the second gateway to hell (along with Sicily's Mt. Aetna.)  It was claimed that you could hear the screams and wails of the damned from Hekla's vents.  Maybe the departing trolls shut the gate, though, because no one has claimed to hear that racket recently.

   We continued on down the valley, returning to relatively productive agricultural lands and finally the Ring Road, where we got some food at a bakery.  We left the highway again, this time to go inland to the farm, Keldur, which dates back to the Saga Era and contains many reconstructed farm buildings from the previous few centuries.  As the only visitors, we had a very nice time wandering around site and looking at the buildings.

   Driving south on the Ring Road again, we found our options to take circuitous routes dwindle as the mountains pressed closer to the sea.  We stopped to view and tour Seljalandfoss waterfall.  We all followed the hiking path around and behind the waterfall.  The spray from the waterfall swirled around and drenched us, but we enjoyed this rare opportunity to view a waterfall from a whole different perspective.

The whole group poses in front of Seljalandfoss before we get drenched.

The view from the inside, looking out.

Heading back to the vehicles to dry out and warm up.

   A short distance further down the road we followed roadside signs to a restaurant on the flanks of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted and disrupted air travel over Europe for multiple days in 2010.  The owner came out from his house and told us that he would be able to find something for us to eat.  Since we were entering a fairly sparsely populated region of Iceland, we decided to take him up on the offer and went on in.  He suggested that we all have some Arctic char, since it was fresh and since he could make many servings at once and thus feed us in a timely manner.  While we waited for the food, we toured the exhibits
that were on display.  It turns out that the restaurant was located on the farm, which was the childhood home of a woman named Anna.  She was a prolific writer, defender of the rural values and people, and a relatively well-traveled Icelander for her time, who made multiple trips to Europe in the '50s and '60s and one trip to the U.S. in 1964. 
   After we ate a superb meal and some of us had dessert, we got back on the road and continued on to Suðurhvoll.  All farms have names in Iceland, and Suðurhvoll is the name of the the farm that has been in Emma's family for the past few generations.  "Suður" means south and just to the north of the farm is its neighbor, Norðurhvoll.  Since Emma's aunt built the cottages on their land between the farmsteads, they decided to be cute by naming them Miðhvoll.  The cottages were definitely cozier than the places we had stayed the previous few nights, but we managed to fit us and all of our stuff into them just fine.