Freakin’ gale force winds and sideways rain.

That’s what greets us in the dining room for breakfast, along with another waffle maker and this time REAL MAPLE SYRUP! I’m still all about the boiled eggs and cheese on toast.

Not deterred by the hurricane outside, we get ready, put a new memory card in my camera, and head out. The forecast says it’s going to get better around noon, so we leave and start driving west toward Jökulsárlón, the famous glacial lake.

We spent the first half hour at the lake like this, waiting for the rain to stop. But once it did, we were treated to this:

That’s Eric down there. I’m up on the hill. It really is breathtaking.

The icebergs drift down the lake, under the bridge and out to the ocean, but very slowly, as these are all mostly grounded on the bottom.

The clouds eventually lifted enough for us to see the terminus of Breiðamerkurjökull, the glacier responsible for this lake and these icebergs.

We decided to drive up the road to a farm where we’d considered staying: Skalafell. It was about 40km from Jökulsárlón and truly in the middle of nowhere.

This pretty lady greeted us as we parked on the gravel road. So did this:

It was a memorial to Jón Eiríksson, who was born in the town of Skálafell. A giant viking rune is a pretty kick-ass memorial, if you ask me.

They have their own waterfall (who doesn’t out there?), sheep, horses and Icelandic sheep dogs. There are hiking trails into the mountains from the back of the farm. Looks pretty idyllic. We’d love to come back and stay here in the summer.

We’d considered driving around to Höfn, but the weather was not cooperating, so we drove back to Jökulsárlón and this time explored the beach. Specifically, the icebergs on the beach.

This is the second time I’ve eaten a chunk off of a thousands-of-years-old iceberg, and it was just as incredible as that first time in New Zealand. The taste is completely different from any water you’ve ever had. Amazing. Eric took a bite too. Glacier ice is the best.

There were some super cool rocks on the beach, filled with odd mineral deposits. All three of these examples were bigger than your head.

On our way back to Skaftafell National Park, the mist lifted off the Skaftafellsjökull glacier so we stopped to take a picture beside a gravel road.

After consulting the map, we drove down that gravel road because it was going to take us right up to the edge of Svinafellsjökull.

There’s really no way to describe what it’s like standing next to an ancient glacier, except to say WOW. Again, serious problem with scale here, but that little trickle of white down the mountain in the background is about a 10-story tall waterfall.

Eric’s first glacier experience. That smile means glaciers > crap weather.

This is Svinafellsjökull’s lake, complete with icebergs. This is also when the sun decided to make an appearance and the sky began to clear up just a bit.

When the sun hits the glacier it has the effect of turning the ice white and giving us a hint of a rainbow. We were giddy at this development.

The trail to the glacier is surrounded by the typical Icelandic ground cover: gorgeous deep green moss and all kinds of rocks, many of which were laced with mineral deposits.

Doesn’t get much cooler than finding a geode in the wild, so to speak.

After our incredible glacier encounter we continued on to Skaftafell National Park.

We decided to climb up to another waterfall, Svartifoss (1.4km up this trail), before it got dark.

This isn’t Svartifoss. We’re still downstream. But it sure was gorgeous. There were all sorts of rocky outcroppings to step out onto and shoot.

This is the view from the top of that waterfall.

And this is a look upstream from the bridge. We crossed the bridge and found another sign that said we still had .7km to go. The light was starting to fade, so we turned around and walked back down the trail which still afforded us beautiful views.

At our vantage point from where we parked the car (which was again an ad waiting to happen), we could see the mist had again lifted off even more of the glacier to our right, Skaftafellsjökull.

This was the view to my left. Absolutely adorable.

We stopped at the gas station for some snacks on the way back to the hotel. I ended up buying a couple of things for an impromptu photo shoot.

Behold, the mythical Coke Tall Boy, .5L of pure sugar goodness. Also, in the background, Cool Ranch Doritos. But wait, those say Cool American. That’s right. This is evidence that in the rest of the world, Ranch Dressing is synonymous with America. (We totally brought that bag home.)