Every country seems to have its own unique kind of natural disasters to worry about. Whether it’s hurricanes, sandstorms, typhooons, tornadoes, whatever. In Iceland one of those things is glacial flooding. It happens fairly frequently when water builds up and suddenly explodes out of the glacier. This happened the day before we flew to Iceland, and it closed a section of the ring road. The ring road is a pretty important road around the island, and in fact in many cases the only way to get from point A to point B. For us this closure could have meant two days of our trip needed to be rescheduled. For others who were not so lucky, they needed to drive more than 14 or more hours out of their way to get to the airport or to get to their hotel! Yes, if you haven’t seen a map of Iceland, the middle part of the island has no roads. Our map from Hertz explicitly forbids us from driving anywhere near the middle of the island.

Thankfully the Icelandic people know how to deal with all of this, and quickly got the road opened, at least one lane, as you can see in the picture above. OK, all that sounds very dramatic for something that ended up barely impacting us. Once through the one lane stoppage we had smooth sailing, but along the way we saw many signs of past breaches of the road just like ours. It’s very interesting to note that eruptions and ice melt have actually increased the size of Iceland rather dramatically! The ice melt decreases the mass of the island and causes it to rise up out of the sea! The lava flows and glacial flooding have added more than 5km of distance to the coast in many places! Yep, visiting Iceland is a good geology lesson.

Our first big stop of the day was at Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon. This was such a beautiful hike up a river gorge, and several of us said it was one of our favorites of the trip so far.

After the hike we had a nice picnic around the back of our van! Turkey and pepperoni sandwiches, Pringles, weird Icelandic Doritos, and delicious Icelandic butter cookies with chocolate! It’s a hoot traveling with a 4 and 2 year old, as they love picnics! Eat pringles first, chocolate second, set the sandwich down on the gravel… Get upset when the tiniest crumb of Pringle falls on the ground and you are not allowed to eat it. Yes, parents, we have all been there! I’m just so happy to be the grandparent!

With Lunch behind us it was time to move on to the Fjallsarlon Glacier Lagoon, this was not a small commitment as it was another 1.5 hours drive away from our house through lots of flat land. Ocean on one side, sheer cliffs on the other but we were in the flat glacial runoff area. In the end it was a good stop for all! You just know that when you get to water the 4 year old grandson is going to end up with shoes off and pants wet!

It was just after 6 when we arrived back in Vik. So we stopped at the Black Crust pizzeria, the line was really long for getting a table, much less for 8 so we grabbed a to go menu and went back to the house and called. Jane and Josh dropped us off and then headed to the Brewery for some beers! Conveniently, the pizzeria and the gas station share a parking lot, so while one filled up the other picked up the pizzas. We were sitting at our kitchen table eating delicious pizza around seven. We had a black crust Langostine with truffle cream cheese and Rucola, a marinated duck pizza with orange syrup and nuts, and a pretty traditional salami and cheese! Each was the favorite of at least one person!

Everyone had strict instructions that we needed to be out the door by 8 or there would be no time for a coffee stop! So the after dinner activities were largely packing and getting organized to get out the door in the morning. Incentives do work!