Iceland Jeep Tour

On our second full day in Iceland, we went on a private jeep tour that took us through a couple of the country's national parks. The vehicle was this really tall 4x4 with no running boards, so I had to grab onto the interior bar and haul myself up into the passenger seat. But at least it afforded us a great view of the countryside.

Our guide was an older gentleman with snowy white hair that had worked in the airline industry until he retired. He was well traveled and I enjoyed chatting with him. Our first stop for the day was a lookout over a large frozen lake. The wind was whipping and the air temp was in the teens, so we hustled out for a look-see and then bundled back into the jeep.

Our next stop was an area with geysers. This was really interesting to me since I've never seen any before. I especially liked the largest one that erupted several times while we were there, Old Faithful's smaller Icelandic cousin.

The one below was actually bubbling like a hot tub, but according to the temp reading it was more appropriate for cooking pasta rather than a nice relaxing soak after a day's hike in the cold.

We crept to within spitting distance of the glacier, but it was camouflaged thanks to the snow. By that point I was tired of the bouncing and jouncing in the jeep since we were on a road that isn't plowed in the winter. It was obvious why we needed a jacked up 4x4 jeep to power through the snow on this excursion. Soon we doubled back to the highway and enjoyed smooth sailing once again. However, on the ride back into town our guide stopped for us to see a couple different waterfalls along the river.