Day 176-hot and dry (all over)

June 28-We finally finished the laundry today.  Besides that, we put some thought into our remaining time in Iceland, the kids worked and played around the house, and we got some odd jobs taken care of.  Shan and Spencer stopped by Hraunborg to see his teachers and classmates one last time.  He brought along his shirt from York and his little replica of the Eiffel Tower to show everyone.  He mostly wanted to talk about going to the top of the Tower.

The kids play at the playground in front of Hraunborg at Bifröst.

  

Glanni is running very low.

   The weather has remained nice here, with a couple very short rain showers today, but mostly Sun and blue skies reigned.  So, Shan and the kids took a short hike down to Glanni.  We had hoped to see the salmon spawning upriver.  We saw some big ones in the river, but none of them were leaping up the waterfalls.  We will have to check again later.

This mother divebombed us to scare us away from her nest.

It is interesting to compare "hot and dry" in Iceland (above) and eastern Colorado (below).



Fire at the Blackwolf Creek in Colorado.



   Icelanders have said that this is hot, dry weather for them and it is the sunniest June on record.  However, it does not hold a candle to the weather our friends and family are dealing with in Colorado.  Shan’s folks reported that a fire burned a large part of his uncle’s pastureland down at the Blackwolf Creek and another fire on the eastern plains destroyed the town of Last Chance.  Of course, the fires getting all of the media attention are the ones in the foothills above Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, which have burnt hundreds of square miles of land and have destroyed hundreds of homes.  Gunnison is also very dry and all outdoor burning is now banned there.  We hope that nothing happens there while we are gone (or afterwards as well!)

Spencer and Shan finished the day by having a neighbor give them haircuts in the "Icelandic style."