Trip across North America and back
I can’t seem to add pictures to my blog at the moment. I hope to add them later. We woke early and walked in to Clifden, having breakfast at Walsh’s Cafe and then shopping for some groceries. At Walsh’s, we found a brochure for Kylemore Abbey in Connemara. It sounded interesting, so we went over Continue Reading
We arrived in Ireland Tuesday morning and were on our way in our rental Skoda (Czech subsidery of VW) Octavia from Thrifty rent-a-car. Very nice big car with five speeds and a Diesel engine. We are staying in Clifden, which is about 3.5 hours west of Dublin, so we headed out, keeping left. Very nice motorway Continue Reading
Big weekend leading up to setting off for Ireland. On Saturday, Geoff, Laura, Cyrus and Graham arrived for the start of summer. Sunday was a hectic day which involved getting Cyrus packed for Camp O-At-Ka. Ed arrived to help with the festivities and we had a lovely lunch, before they headed to Sebago. At camp, Continue Reading
We had a great trip and really want to get back there for a longer trip when we can do the ring road around the whole island and not get limited to day trips from Reykjavík.The scenery is fantastic. Finding an out of the way thermal pool to bathe in, as we did in Yellowstone Continue Reading
We got up in the morning, had breakfast, packed and cleaned up the apartment. We were out by 11. We went to the Icelandic Art Museum, a particularly weird place. One room had videos of a woman on a treadmill, coupled with piles of salt and other objects. Not sure what it meant. There was Continue Reading
Friday we stayed in Reykjavik. We started at the Settlement Exhibition which is an actual site of a ninth century house. It was a very interesting exhibit. We learned much about the early life and explorations. Senior discount made the cost zero; can’t beat that. After that we returned to some of the shops we Continue Reading
Today was the day to drive the “Golden Circle” to view tectonic and geothermal areas of the island. We tried to use the alarm to wake up earlier and it worked after three “snooze” on the iPhone. We left by 10 am and proceeded up towards our aurora spot but turned off and headed to Continue Reading
We slept in after the first Aurora experience. We did a lot of walking again, although not as much. We went to Sandholt bakery for quiche and soup lunch and then headed for the Volcano House, to see a fascinating pair of movies about the tectonic situation in Iceland. The North American and European plates Continue Reading
For the second time, we drove up to Kidafell, about a half hour drive north and east of Reykjavik and could already see the aurora out the windows. I backed the car off the road, across from a field and disturbed a herd of beautiful Icelandic ponies. The disappeared after the car lights went away Continue Reading
Another day of walking. About 4 miles in all. The weather was a light rain and around +4°C. We made it a museum day. We first went to the National Museum of Iceland which was very interesting. It had exhibits going from the 9th to 21st centuries. We had lunch while visiting. We then walked to Continue Reading