Day 2

Day 2

Had a nice breakfast at our hotel this morning. it was a typical European style food.  Went to pick up the rental car around 8:00 and we were really excited when they told us the car was brand new and had never been driven even though it was a tiny Hyundai Aleio.  Not quite the Lamborghini I dove a few weeks ago.  The funny thing was the rental car agent went to move it from where it was parked and backed it right into a pole.  I could see it was going to happen but there was nothing I could do.  Luckily it only bent the license plate a little.  So back to the hotel to load up our bags on off we went.  

We thought we knew the way out of town but we decided to set the GPS for our first destination anyway.  Well after driving what seemed liked the wrong direction for 20 minutes we decided to pull over and check the map.  Once we figured out where we were and which way was north, we realized we were on the correct road and going the right direction.

First Stop the Hellishedi Geothermal power plant.  The generate all of the electricity for the capital city of Reykjavik from steam turbines from the naturally generated steam from all of the volcanic underground activity.  The also pipe the hot water to Reykjavik at @900 degrees for heating and water heating.  99% of the city get it heat from this plant, the also use the hot water to heat the streets and sidewalks to melt snow and ice.  The average monthly utility bill for a house is only @$65/month.  Thats really low considering everything else here is about double what things cost in the US.  Anyway the tour of the plant was cool.

We continued Southeast along highway 1, saw a lot of cool waterfalls and climbed to the top of one of them.  The weather was sunny in the morning but got cloudy and a little chilly in the afternoon.  Also went to an early family settlement from the 1700's.   Stopped at the Myrdalsjokull glacier and took a short hike to get a close up look.  This is one of the smallest glaciers in Iceland. The last stop of the day was along the coast to see some really cool cliffs and the black sandy beaches.  All of the beaches we have been to so far have been very fine black sand.  Drove just past the town on Vik to our hotel which was out in the country but it was very nice.  We had a good dinner and then sat in the hot tub for a while and then crashed.  It was a long day, left at 8:30 AM and arrived at the hotel around 8:30 PM.