Partly cloudy, partly sunny. We’ll take it.

No waffle maker at the Northern Light Inn. This was the only strike against them though. We had to turn the car in to the airport at 3pm, so we set out early to drive the Reykjanes Peninsula.

We stopped at another pretty graveyard with more great gravestone typography.

We headed down another gravel road, this time out to the Reykjanesviti lighthouse and another stunning ocean overlook.

Having managed to conquered my fear of heights some years ago, I walked up to the top of one of the cliffs for a better vantage point. When in doubt in Iceland, go up to the top of the cliff. It always gets better.

A group of ATVers decided to have a look at the coast as well. They’d be the specks with wheels on the right. It was a really tall cliff.

There’s Eric and his tripod making their way down the adjacent cliff.

Our next stop was Miðlína, a brdige spanning the North American and Eurasian continental tectonic plates. The rift between these plates is known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and basically bisects Iceland.

Eric: a man between two continents.

We did this on Waimanalo beach in Hawai’i on our wedding day, so I thought it would be cool to recreate it here in the sand that belonged to both Europe and America.

Next stop: Stafnesviti, the lighthouse in Stafnes.

The boulders/lava flow that made up the seawall were pocked with these eerily perfect round holes.

Eric and the lighthouse matched with their little red caps.

Icelandic horses by the sea. Don’t call them ponies. These are full grown. If only I’d had a carrot or something. I so wanted to pet him.

We made our way around to Garðskagi, the lighthouses at the very tip of the Reykjanes Peninsula. The weather had turned spectacular.

We were close to leaving so I went to visit the ladies room at the restaurant/gift shop. Turns out it was also the Garður Folk Museum. Completely fascinating exhibit. We could have spent all day in there.

It was close to 3pm, so we tore ourselves away from the museum and drove to the car rental return at the airport, where we proceeded to wait for 30 minutes in an empty rental return office. We finally walked up to the booth inside the airport to return the key there and may have gotten someone in trouble (not on purpose, but it was his own fault for bailing on his job). Then we called the Northern Light Inn and had them pick us up.

We were instructed to wait here, at the Meeting Point. There a lit sign that says Meeting Point at this corner of the airport. I believe this should be implemented everywhere.

The driver (who, by her outfit, led us to believe she was also the chef) was British but identified as Icelandic and definitely as a traveler. She told us all about how she’d driven Route 66 and of her recent time in India. She also said that if we wanted to see the aurora, we needed to come back around New Years.

New Years Eve is HUGE in Iceland.

All of the proceeds of fireworks sales going toward funding the volunteer rescue crews around the country. The sun doesn’t get very far above the horizon, and not for more than about 6 hours a day, so it’s cold and snowy, but beautiful and very festive. As much as I’d love to return for the holidays, Eric gets to pick the next trip, so I’m pretty sure we’re headed to a warm beach. :-)

Once back at the hotel, we started to pack up, as this was our last night in Iceland. We had dinner in the restaurant, downloaded photos, and enjoyed the fact that the next day would be all about relaxing in the Blue Lagoon.