Given how tiring yesterday was and the late hour we got to sleep (after midnight), Meredith let us sleep in until 9:00. That was quite welcome. We had breakfast/lunch in a bookstore/cafe that was cute, and we were finally underway for touring around noon.

Mer warned me we would be doing some driving today, and that today was another somewhat “the journey is the destination” kind of day. We went south along the lake of the area, Lagarfljot (“River Lake” – it’s narrow), which also took us through Iceland’s national forest. Much of Iceland was deforested a long time ago, but in this region, Icelanders have regrown 280 square miles of forest. Combined with the lake and surrounding mountains, it was beautiful.

We crossed the lake at a narrow part on the southern edge, and we soon were driving up paved switchbacks to climb up to what I thought would be a pass. Instead, when we reached the top, we were greeted with a huge open plain with views of mountains in all directions. At some points we could even see a small part of Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajokull. This open space was not just a barren lava field, but instead was smooth spaces with some grasses growing.

We stopped for a very welcome bathroom stop at a surprise-to-us little hot spring and guesthouse place in the middle of this plain. We justified our use of the bathroom by buying some cake. I’m not sure who stays up there, but it sure felt remote.

We continued on the paved road, although I often hugged the middle line or crossed it a little, as the sides of the pavement were not always in great condition. That worked out okay, as we met only about one car every ten minutes.

Despite “the journey being the destination,” we really did have a destination, and one that once again shows that Meredith loves me. We came to a huge dam called Karahnjukar that came online in 2007. The dam runs a six-hundred-megawatt power plant, which is used to run the Alcoa smelting plant in Iceland. Energy is so cheap in Iceland that it makes fiscal sense to ship old aluminum to Iceland, melt it down, and ship it back to other countries. To make this dam, eighteen hundred people worked on it for five years, drilling and blasting over thirty miles of tunnels to route water around. We got to chat with an engineer who happened to be outside, and he said they have six turbines that run continuously to keep the Alcoa plant supplied. He said the national grid can back them up to the tune of two of the six generators if they need to take them offline. That is amazing; by comparison, he said the transmission lines that supply the entire north of Iceland supply one hundred megawatts. The entire national grid can’t back up the dam – the smelting plant uses that much power.

From the relative safety of the observation platform, we looked over the dam and surrounding mountains and crazy Swiss workers installing rock-catching fences on the opposite cliff. After ten days of hard hiking and treacherous footing, poor Meredith caught her foot on a normal step and fell hard, coming to within about one inch of hitting her teeth on a step. Never let your guard down in Iceland! We (and here I mean Meredith) had the option to walk along the pedestrian ledge of the dam all the way across. I walked “with” Meredith about ten feet below on the normal and safe sidewalk. We had great views of the canyon that is currently dry, but should have spillover water from the dam sometime next month as the glacier meltwaters fill the reservoir behind the dam. The pictures we saw made it look as if the waterfall from the spillway is something to see when running.

We spent about an hour at the dam, and then drove back the same way we had come. We could have kept going, making the journey a loop drive, and our Icelandic engineer said we would be fine, but the road that way becomes an “F road,” which in Iceland is an abbreviation for “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Those roads are rated for four-wheel-drive vehicles only, and are forbidden in a rental car. We played it paved and safe, and we saw several things on the way back that we had not seen on the way out, in the usual Iceland 360 sort of way we have seen all along.

We went back to the guesthouse to regroup. It was a little after 5:00, and we decide to go have supper in a cute little town on a fjord called Seydisfjordur. Apart from the waterfall in the Westfjords, this was one place in Iceland I really wanted to see.

We drove up the pass on a paved road through several switchbacks. It came out in a pretty place of pretty snowy mountains feeding pretty lakes. We eventually came to the descent, and went down several switchbacks, loomed over on two sides by pretty mountains with dozens and dozens of pretty waterfalls. The town came into view, down in the pretty valley area. It was nestled up against a pretty fjord, with a pretty river running into a pretty lagoon near the pretty harbor, towered over by pretty cliffs on either side.

I pretty much had forgotten my camera. It was back in the hotel room.

We had an excellent meal sitting outside, with grand views as dining companions. After supper, we took the recommended guidebook walk, which took us around the lagoon and past the ferry terminal that serves the ferry to Denmark, a two-to-three-day trip. We ended up climbing part-way up the double waterfall at the edge of town, which gave us great views of the harbor, town, and mountains all around. It was picture perfect.

We headed back to our room, with a brief stop at a gas station to use a free car wash for the second time on this vacation. Iceland is hard on car exteriors.

Tomorrow we start to head directly south, along the eastern coastline. It’s a four-hour drive, according to Google Maps, so I figure closer to five, which makes for a longer driving day. I’d better get another good night’s sleep, and try to remember the camera this time.