Day 195-driving the inland route to Þingvellir

   July 17-Sally and Shan felt that it was glorious to sleep in their own beds again.  We got up refreshed and invigorated.  Spencer and the Easleys slowly got up and going as well.  We sat around eating breakfast and finally made a plan for the day.  Sally called Alex, who was just waking up after staying awake until 2:30 with her friends.  Alex decided to stay at Bifröst with her friends, while the rest of us took off for Borgarnes.  Sally and Shan went to Arion Banki and closed out their accounts: one of our first truly concrete steps in ending this chapter of our life in Iceland.  We went grocery shopping and then had dinner at Geira Bakarí.
   Then, we set off on our adventure for the day.  We drove up the coast on the southwest side of Borgarfjörður and headed up the Ludarreykjadalur on road 52.  This route was closed in the winter, so we could not explore it for most of the time we lived in Iceland.  It leads into one of the few places where highlands can be accessed by a regular passenger car.  We came out of the top of the valley with Skjaldbreiður laid out in front of us.  This name translates into English as “shield volcano” and all volcanoes of its type are consequently labeled geologically as shield volcanoes.  We continued on the graveled, but rather rough, road 52 as it turned south and ultimately ended up in Þingvellir.  This was the first place we took Bill and Jean when they came into Iceland eight days previously, so it was fun to take them there again via a completely different direction.  We stopped at the northern visitor’s center, which we had never visited before, mostly so everyone could get some ice cream.  Then, we took paved roads back to Mossfellbær and out highway 1 on the usual route we use to come to Bifröst from Reykjavík.

Langjökull.

Skjaldbreiður.

When we arrived back at the apartment, Alex was in the apartment with Ástrós, Sigurlaug, and Brynja. They had watched the final Harry Potter movie and were sitting around relaxing.

Since we had so much laundry yet to do, Shan took the rest of it over to the laundry room so we would not have to work our way through it over the course of the next few days.



Until we got the washing machine in the apartment, Shan used these dryers on a regular basis.



Glanni keeps a careful eye on the trampoline.

   Meanwhile, Joslyn enjoyed a busy day at Óspakseyri.  Five families came through the farm today, most of whom had kids.  Needless to say, the trampoline got plenty of use!  Joslyn enjoyed having the extra kids around and even knew some of them, because they had attended Varmaland with her.  For instance the family of Alex’s friend, Imba came through today.  Joslyn and Ágústa went with Gaui to visit fishermen who were staying at a cabin on the family farm of Einfætingsgil.  The fishermen had leased the rights to fish on the Krossá, which runs by the farm, and were also renting out the cabin during their stay.  Gaui let each of the kids take turns driving his SUV on dirt road up to the farm, which they thought was fantastic.

The view from Magga's desk is magnificent.

   When they came back the last of the visiting families left and Gaui went out to work on roof of the old community center building that is on his farm. Magga complained that she had not seen the girls all day, so they sat down and played card games for a while.  Then they all went out to help Gaui with the roof, before coming in to eat a raclette supper. After supper they all went back out to help nail on the roof shingles.  The prior two nights, Ágústa had ended up moving to her folks’ bedroom during the night, so tonight, Joslyn slept in Ágústa’s bed in Gaui and Magga’s room as well, so Ágústa would not leave her!