Besides the Settlement Center, I had found another highly rated museum - the Saga Center in Hvolsvöllur. Their website said to make an appointment during the winter, so I emailed back and forth and got us in at 10am on Friday. The hour drive (plus extra time for snow and using the single bathroom as we were leaving) meant we were up before the sun rose - which is really no different than any other day. Except for New Year's Day, we were always up before 10.
There was a touch of snow, so we arrived right on time. A sword in a stone greeted us in the parking lot, then we tromped in to the foyer, where costumes were hanging on the back wall. Mark and Tommy got into their cloaks and helmets before we even started around the exhibit - they got into character.
The first couple panels were on early settler life in Iceland, to give context to the saga that played out over the next twenty panels. Njal's saga has a sage, a feud, a vengeful wife, a vengeful son, and a final reconciliation, but not without a lot of bloodshed. Two great quotes: "the tally of dead men was three... things seemed to be getting a bit out of hand. The course of events of killings of the servants was as follows: Kolur killed Svartur, Atli killed Kolur, Brynjólfur rostí killed Atli, Þórður Leysingjason killed Brynjólfur rostí, Sigmurdur and Skjöldur killed Þórður Leysingjason, and, finally, the sons of Njáll killed Sigmurdur and Skjöldur."
The other great quote? "In spite of Gunnar's frequent killings, he always managed to settle things in court and pay compensation, mostly due to the intervention of Njáll of Bergþórshvoll who advised Gunnar not to kill more people of the same family." Yeah, spread it around, Gunnar!
We all dressed up in Viking garb while Kamila took a picture (her cold was starting to wear her down). The Saga Hall was still under construction, so the wooden bar area was closed.
Past it, though, was a tapestry center, where volunteers could come in and help sew the story of Njal's saga. A final room with a bunch of old storefronts (all in Icelandic) finished off the museum, so we thanked our host profusely (there were a couple other people in the museum, so not positive if we had to make reservations or not) and continued down the road. We were going to be outside exploring the rest of the day!
The first waterfall was Gluggafoss, meaning window, because the water had carved far enough into the chasm that the upper falls could only be seen through "windows" of rock. We pulled up right as a car was leaving, so it was our own personal falls for the half hour we scampered around. The light dusting of snow and the sunrise made it sparkle.
We had driven off the Ring Road - Highway 1 that circles Iceland - so we cut back via a gravel road. We bumped along a few miles of extremely flat now-farmland. A few farmhouses were sprinkled around the view, but it was so desolate feeling as well.
Even from that far, we could make out what I guessed was our next stop, a tall, single stream waterfall cascading off the top of a table mountain. It was Seljalandsfoss! ("Foss" means waterfall, if you haven't figured it out.)
There was a pull off with signs talking about the national park we were entering, then a few hundred more yards to the parking lot. We could see the spray from the waterfall from the lot, so we added what rain layers we had.
It wasn't enough. It was super cool that we could walk up close and then behind the waterfall, but our left sides were wet with the mist that was being kicked up. It was above freezing, barely, but the puddles and mud weren't solid behind the falls. The cave was dazzling, but the constant wet didn't lend itself to a good place to linger.
Going up and over the opposite side, we encountered the slipperiest wooden steps leading down. None of us fell, though the butt-scooting by the kids behind us might have ultimately been a better strategy.
We saw two more cascades down the hillside, with hoses leading from them to the farms on the plain. A final sign pointed 400m up the path. There lay the Gljúfrabúi waterfall.
This fall was tucked behind a giant boulder hill, so big that a few fairy caves dotted it. Looking up from the outgoing stream, we could see the falls between the cliff and the boulder.
There was a path up the boulder, so Mark and I began climbing until the muddy-safety trade-off (the "if I climb higher, I'll need to get dirtier to stay safe" conundrum) stopped us halfway (maybe 30 feet) up. We didn't see the falls from the top - at least, not this trip!
We walked back to the car, with an ice sheet covering the path and a footbridge to the parking lot. I definitely videoed everyone going down, but then I was the only one that fell!
Don't worry, that wasn't our last waterfall of the day - Skógafoss was right around the corner.
We were at the edge of the radio signals (probably from Reykjavik), so we got our final doses of Justin Timberlake and our new favorite song "Fröken Reykjavik" (Miss Reykjavik) before circling the plateau that Seljalandsfoss was on to Skógafoss.
This one was towering again, single stream, with a bed of rounded black rocks where the water collected back into a stream. Along the hillside was a lot of stairs. Mark, Rachel, and I didn't check the sign board until we got back, but 527 steps sounds right.
About halfway up, we walked onto a ledge to see the falls from there (and to take a breather). We stopped our lingering when a bit of moisture started falling. I didn't want to risk it getting any slipperier.
The metal steps were grippy and grated, so the final push up wasn't slick. The viewing platform was actually made of that same grating, so I could follow the view of the waterfall from the cliff edge down to below my feet - like, through the floor below my feet.
We waved to Alisa, so many yards away, then made our way down. We needed to find "tinklefoss", as Rachel had dubbed it - the bathroom. There was a handy one in the souvenir shop nearby.
I had a few more pins in my map, and the closest was the black sand beach at Sólheimasandur, where a US Navy plane crash landed. The fuselage is still on the beach, and it serves up some haunting photos.
The first turnoff was a little too far down the road, but a handy sign told us to backtrack 2km. We found the parking lot just off the road at the crest of a hill and headed toward the ocean. It was about 3:30.
At about 4:15, with the sun pretty much below the horizon, we arrived at the plane. I didn't know it was going to be a 4km walk! Everyone was a really, really good sport about it, despite blisters, sweating, and shivering.
It was a small fuselage, so the dozen or two people around made it seem swarmed. Another 100m in the distance was the beach itself and the waves.
We were climbing around, peeking our heads through holes and egging on someone who was trying to climb on top of it when Mark told me that Tommy and Kamila were headed toward the beach.
Now, while we were waiting at the airport a few days ago, Tommy let Mark in on a little secret. And Mark slipped the secret to me. So we let them get a head start.
We had finished exploring and ready to check out the beach ourselves. The light was getting pretty low, and the long walk back meant that this was the closest we were going to see of the Dyrhólaey Arch in the distance. I could see Tommy and Kamila's silhouettes further down the beach, and I paused right as he bent down and... picked something up from the beach.
Rachel, Alisa, Mark, and I watched some tourists racing the waves. That'd be a pretty sad battle to lose, with that long walk between the beach and any sort of warmth. I found a patch of sand to write 2017 in, and Kamila and Tommy walked back over.
"Um, guys, so, this just happened." Kamila stretched out her bedecked left hand. She said yes to Tommy's proposal!
Apparently he had bent down to pick up some sand to save, though Kamila couldn't figure out why until after he popped the question. We got their relationship story during the walk back to the car. The long walk back. The walk where I mentioned people should grab headlamps and none of us actually brought headlamps along.
We made it. It was fully dark when we got back to the lot, and everyone was hunger and ready to celebrate.
What seemed like good news was that the first restaurant we stopped at (which had great reviews and a good menu) was open! I put in our table request for six and was told it "shouldn't be too long", the next big table leaving would be ours.
We sat in the foyer, with people entering and exiting from doors on either side. Rachel channeled her inner Santa Lad and became the "door slammer" - neither door closed itself, so she'd make sure they were closed when unwitting tourists didn't shut it behind them.
We were amused for a bit. Then tired. Then frustrated. It was at about the hour mark when Rachel ran back upstairs and was told our table was finally ready.
We were walking up the stairs to the dining room when the overhead lights turned off. I was convinced someone (Kamila, since her phone was plugged in near a switch) had accidentally turned them off - except that upstairs was the same thing. Only the lights under the serving station/bar were on.
We were seated with water jugs when even those lights flickered off. The restaurant had lost power.
I was still thinking that the kitchens could cook with gas (or thermal energy, right? Boil water via a hot spring?), but the chef wandered out front after ten minutes and didn't sound positive. We finally flagged down a waiter after another five minutes, and she said they weren't taking orders.
Mark took control (thankfully - I was tired of being asked questions I didn't know the answer to, like when we would get a table or where other restaurants were), and he found another restaurant in Vik. We abandoned the table, hopped back into cars, and drove to a deserted shopfront. Then past another restaurant that was closed.
Berg, the restaurant in the Icelandair Hotel in Vik, was open and had seats ready for us. We plopped into the seats, and immediately ordered a bottle of sparkling wine. It was time to celebrate - finally!
A starter of smoked salmon showed up with the cava; no one complained! Mark and I split the lamb stew and the artic char - both good, but the creamy rice with the char was excellent. The table got desserts, and we settled back, finally fat and happy after walking for hours.
Our hotel for the night was another two hours east. Tomorrow was the ice cave tour, and they had warned to stay nearby in case of bad weather - there are apparently some passes that are harder to cross.
Tommy and Kamila followed our car as the snow and rain came down. It had built up a little by the time we came to the hotel at Hörgsland. Tommy and Kamila got their own room while the rest of us had a pretty spacious room right by the common area. The newly engaged couple came over for some refreshments while the hostel-like atmosphere outside abated. Mark drank wine out of the horn he acquired at the Settlement Center that morning until we passed out from exhaustion. I
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