Hofn and Eastfjords

Petra There is a lot of downhill driving down to the Eastfjords area of

The midges in Myvatn

Iceland.  It’s beautiful, but we head straight to our next place to check in and find a lovely balcony off our room and a playground where Oscar gets to swing.  We rest for a while in the room and decide on a local brewery and pizzeria for dinner that is Askur and are not

disappointed with the results.  John gets a flight of beer which makes him happy and we get some seriously good pizza.  I can’t say that we did any justice to the Eastfjords part of Iceland.  We can see things as we’re driving the ring road, like a French tribute to soldiers who

died here, a British tribute to soldiers who died here, but really don’t stop much in places.  There’s a lake right by us that is supposed to have a huge worm shackled to the bottom of the lake, but we don’t look at it.  We hit some rock sites because Oscar and I are into rocks right now

and Iceland is a geology dream obviously.  One stop is a local collector’s rock collection.  Yes, a stop for our trip is a local person’s rock collection, but it’s like Theo Van Gogh’s collection of art….I mean, I don’t know how this woman found all these

awesome specimens.  Of course, Oscar believes that we need to do something like this at home and I’m trying to explain that we need a hell of a lot more rocks and can’t charge admission in Canadian Lakes, but it would be awesome.  There are rocks

from all over Iceland and then her collection of rocks from abroad, her matchbook collection and her keychain collection.  Oscar is stoked to see that he has one of the same keychains himself.  It’s a really great little stop and I would encourage

     anyone who is interested in rocks like we are to go see AskurPetra's’s rock collection.  We also stop to see cliffs that are a pretty blue, green and a Teigerhorn Natural Monument to the mining of rhyolite in the area.  We head on because we’re planning a nice 

swim in Hofn at the municipal pool.  Unlike the tourist baths that we’ve been doing, this is a city’s pool that every town with over 300 people in Iceland has in it.  It’s part of the schooling in Iceland that you have to be taught to swim

and the warm pools and waters in each city is a focal point for people getting together and most likely making it possible to handle winter where the sun is only up for about 4 hours a day.  Hofn’s pool has

slides, 4 different pools with different temperatures, a huge sauna, and Oscar doesn’t want to leave.  Ever.  John and I do a hydrotherapy kind of mix of things where we sweat in the sauna, rinse, hit the hot tubs, and the cold plunge and watch Oscar get more and more confident in doing the slides himself.  It’s a wonderful stop and only costs about $18 for all of us to spend several hours here having fun.  It’s like a water park in Michigan and you would never think that it’s just a city’s pool for everyone to

gather at.  That’s one thing about coming to do pools in Iceland too.  The books I read and even Rick Steves makes it clear that you have to do things the Icelandic way in order to not make people mad about going in their pools.  So, you strip down and put everything in
    your locker, shower thoroughly without clothes on in a shower room and then put on your suit to get into the pools.  They have all the soaps, shampoo and conditioner available, a swimsuit spinner which is awesome and then you get dressed again.  This is the cleanest we’ve ever been and the dirtiest our clothes have ever been on any trip that we’ve taken.