Adventure Day

Yesterday we went on our first big Iceland excursion! We woke up early to spend the day at þingvellir National Park. þingvellir (the first character is pronounced like a "th") is a very important part of Icelandic history, but it also is a wild, beautiful piece of nature unlike anywhere else in the world.

At þingvellir the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. You can see clearly the edges of the continental land masses! There is actually 15 km in between the plates, and they are constantly moving apart from each other, about 2 cm a year. þingvellir is mostly in the no-man's land in between the plates, with cracks and fissures in the earth visible everywhere.

On the right is the end of the North American tectonic plate

Of course, Levi wanted to scuba dive in the icy water between one of the biggest fissures between the continental plates. Who knew that was possible?? He had an amazing dive, though I don't know if he's ever been so cold!

Divers crossing, lol

Can you see how clear the water is?? The dive master told them to take a drink before diving, ha.

While Levi dove, the kids and I did a beautiful walking loop to see some of the park's best sites. I meant to take them in the stroller, but what I thought was a quick jaunt over a bridge and back instead connected to the main trail, so we did the loop sans stroller (and sans water, snack, and phone, oops). 

The kids did a great job though! I'm glad we did it without the stroller. Quintana walked the majority of it on her own, and Levi J hardly complained (until at the very end when I took us up the wrong path and we had to backtrack and try again).

Hug stop!

One of the first things we saw was a beautiful little church on the site of one of the first Christian churches in Iceland. The ducks (geese?) and their babies had us entranced (I ended up with with way too many pictures of ducks, haha).

We then walked up to the law rock and governing plains. The very first organization of tribes in Iceland happened in this very spot, and it continued to be a governing place for centuries. The edge of the North American continental plate is just behind the law rock (marked by an Icelandic flag now), which makes for an incredible backdrop.

Law rock has the flag, and parliamentary plains are below it. 

The views of the valley were spectacular. We also stopped to see the "Drowning Pool," sadly named that because women convicted of certain crimes were drowned here.

The drowning pool

The kids and I took our time on the walk, then met Levi and took him through the fast version. We couldn't let him miss it!

After þingvellir, we were all pretty worn out. So we spent the afternoon at some geothermal baths and pools! They had four different pools, each a different temperature, and several saunas. Everything is heated by the geothermal heat that comes up through the earth here. The water is pretty sulfuric, but they say it is very good for your skin. It was incredibly relaxing but also really fun for the kids. We didn't try out the lake but apparently the lake is also geothermally warm.

It was a little crowded, but not actually as crowded as it looks. We jumped in here to take a picture.

The drive to and from the park was pretty fantastic in and of itself. We saw some really unusual landscapes. My favorite was seeing the geothermal steam rising up from cracks in the hills. Oh, and the horses! Q said, "Hi neigh neigh!"

In the middle of the shot you can see whisps of white. That's hot steam coming up from the earth.

Lava rocks rolling down the hillside.

Such a fun adventure! This is really a unique land. So glad we got to spend a beautiful day here.