Iceland Day 3 & 4

Iceland Day 3 & 4

On Wednesday we decided to do the Golden Circle. This is a route that offers lots of different things like a crater, geysers, a waterfall, and a national park. Because of how exciting the previous day had been we were a little underwhelmed at first on the GC. To be fair, it was pouring rain, so we couldn’t truly SEE what we were driving by most of the time.

When we saw the Geyser, were were all “…that’s cool”, but then we realized that if you stand on a certain side of it you get soaked. We sent Crystal in to try it with the GoPro, and it was hilarious. So we all did it. We were already soaked, so WHY NOT. This is what started turning the day around for us all.

After the geyser, we headed to the Pvingeler National Park, and drove around. The wind was REALLY picking up at this point. We had made a list before we went of things we wanted to accomplish on the trip. This included to stand on a grass roof, and roll down a hill. We did both of these things in the park. Again, we were already soaked so, down the hill we went.

From there we headed toward our next stop for trying to find the Northern Lights. We grabbed Subway on the way (so American of us) because it was all we could see and now were not only soaked, but some of us were a bit HANGRY.

We found a forecast for the Northern Lights and headed out. With the constant rain, I doubted we would find a place that had cleared up, but what else do you do at night in Iceland, but search for the lights?

We drove further and further from our host city, not a care in the world. NOTHING could keep us down! Until we turned onto a road and hit a massive pothole, which tore up one tire and flattened one. In our rental car. In the middle of nowhere. Where the very kind people spoke very little English.

Mark called the rental car company who told us that they would not come get us, and that we could leave the car on the side of the road, and walk to a hostile or hotel. In the 27mph winds. LOL. No. We did not do this. We saw a police car a little ways down the road, and Mark walked down to talk to them. In the mean time, we stayed in the car and Snapchatted the events, while Beverly called insurance and credit card companies.

A woman came up to our car after a bit and told us to come with her, and Mark would be close behind…so off we went. She seemed nice enough.

I mean, a lady with 2 car seats in her back seat isn’t out to murder stranded motorists, right?

We found out she was the tow truck drivers wife. I was in the front seat, and being very good with human people like I am, I immediately asked her a long question right after she said she spoke very little English. I am awkward.

She drove us to the tire place, and eventually Mark and the police showed up with our rental in tow. The after hours guy kindly fixed the car, and sent us on our way.

3 things:

1. We didn’t have to pay anything, because the police had complained about that very pothole already to the city. Someone had called the police when they saw us stranded and the cop had actually come out to guard the pothole while they waited for the city to come fix it. This worked in our favor, FOR SURE.

2. We were told that the roads we had been driving had shut down earlier because the wind and rain was so bad. Our bad.

3. The police called the car rental company for us, because it’s actually illegal to leave ones car on the side of the road. Thank you, Iceland police.

Day 4
I had big ideas about using our last morning there to go see Reykjavik, or our city a bit. Our bodies ideas were more along the lines of, “let’s have breakfast at the coffee shop and take our sweet time because we are so so tired”.

After our breakfast at the adorable shop, we headed back to the Blue Lagoon to grab some photos, then dropped off the rental car and headed home.