Hiking, Rocks, and Icebergs - Iceland

One of the best things to do when you're driving a car through wilderness is to pull over to stretch your legs and explore on foot. You'll see photos from a few such hikes in this post. Any direction you look, you see beauty, even looking down at your feet. We stopped to have a rock collecting contest and within the first few minutes I had more rocks than I could carry, all different colors and textures, making me wonder what had happened to the earth here. Many rocks were cracked into a dozen pieces, but still sitting there like someone tried putting it back together. Opening up a cracked rock to see the brilliant inside was like opening a present. Let's just say I felt like a kid again... or a rock-loving hippy. I briefly considered becoming a geologist so I could come back to Iceland to study the rocks.

I had been anxious to see glaciers in Iceland, and when we realized we might not make it before dark, we were even more on edge. When we finally made it to Jökulsárlón just before it got dark, I was ecstatic. Standing above a blue lagoon and watching enormous icebergs slowly drifting to sea was one of the most out-of-this-world sights. I felt like crying at the beauty, and then I felt like crying that nature was making me want to cry. It was incredible to hear crashing sounds when icebergs collided and then see a chunk break off and dive into the water.  It's hard to tell how big the icebergs really are, and the photos don't do them justice. God is a beautiful creator. It's definitely a must-see in Iceland.

- Julia

Svartifoss (Black Waterfall)

Yuriy and I had a rock collecting contest during one of our hikes. I was really bummed that I couldn't take all these pretty rocks home with me. 

We finally made it to Jökulsárlón, a beautiful lagoon full of icebergs that flows from the glacier in the mountains to the ocean.