ICELAND ADVENTURE - Day 0 – Getting there

Recap of trip to Iceland, August 2015 - one day at a time.

01 2015-08-09 Map Day 00

Left the house in California at 7:00 am. Arrived in Reykjavik Iceland at 7:30 am the next day (8 hr time difference). That's a long day. The long flight segment (Seattle to Reykjavik) went pretty far north over Canada and the long "sunrise" on the north side of the plane was spectacular (no photo - I was on the south side of the plane). Anyway the flight went well.

We arrived to a mostly cloudy early morning and went straight to the "Northern Lights" hotel. The entire 15 minute drive was through moss covered lava fields. This is jumbled lava field from 1226 that has developed a thick layer of moss over most of the surface area. The moss is between 6 and 12 inches thick and quite soft to walk on.

The hotel is near the Blue Lagoon. Well, actually it's next to where the Blue Lagoon used to be before they commandeered the site for a geothermal plant and moved the lagoon to the other side of the plant. So, now the hotel has a great view of the geothermal plant.

In Iceland they have several of these Geothermal plants. They tap the steam from underground and do 2 things with it. First they use it to generate electricity and second they condense it into hot water that they pipe to the cities where it goes into homes to provide, well, hot water and also provides radiant heat for rooms.

Moss covered lava with little pink flowers

Moss covered Lava with lettle pink flowers

Northern Lights Hotel, Grindavik Iceland

Northern Lights Inn

Moss covering lava field

Grey moss covered lava

Geothermal Plant between hotel and Blue Lagoon

Geothermal Plan outside Hotel

- My Photo web site (www.danhartfordphoto.com)

- All images from Iceland:
http://www.danhartfordphoto.com/iceland
http://www.danhartfordphoto.com/Iceland/slideshow

- Favorite images from Iceland:
http://www.danhartfordphoto.com/iceland-favs
http://www.danhartfordphoto.com/iceland-favs/slideshow

Thanks for reading -- Dan