We headed up to Þingvellir (pronounced Thing’vettlir, which means Valley of the Parliament) and stopped just after we passed into the rift between the North American and European tectonic plates. All of the pictures here were taken by my dad. 
After we stopped flirting with the moss, we went on to the waterfall at Öxará which I’d gone to on my horseback-riding trip. It’s hard to get a sense of how big this waterfall is. It might help to think about it pouring over the edge of North America.
From there we went to the traditional site of the AlÞing (Allthing). The wind and rain was fairly intense, so we did not stay long. This church was built in 1859.
Then things got a little crazy. We drove from the AlÞhing to Geysir, the mother of all geysirs, or at least the one that all the others are named after. The road there started out fine, but being Iceland, we quickly hit an extended stretch without pavement. Like so–
At least the view was nice.
And we got to see some ‘wildlife’
It was almost dark when we finally got to Geysir. Geysir itself no longer erupts, but Strokkur, the geysir next to it, goes off every three to five minutes and is the size of Old Faithful. This is not fog around Mom and me; it’s steam.
That was plenty of activity for the day and we headed by to Reykjavik.
