ATVing in Iceland

Who has two thumbs, no fear, and dominated the ATV ride in Iceland?! This girl! This was definitely my favorite activity on our Iceland trip - I have a little need for speed but still like to be in control, so quadding is definitely my idea of a good time. I can go very fast, but can also be sure that I will be able to stop when I want to, unlike horseback riding for example. :) 

We drove about twenty minutes outside of the city for our ride, and were right at the base of a bunch of mountains. The scenery while we were riding was unbelievable - we had snowy mountains where cars aren't able to travel, grassy mountains, lava fields, extremely rocky terrain, and normal roads where we could really kick it up a notch. It was raining or snowing for our entire ride, but somehow it didn't even matter, in fact I think that made it even more fun! We drove through water, snow, lava, dirt, and lots and lots of mud - theres just something so satisfying abut kicking up a huge spray of mud and water! The highlight of the trip for me was when we came to an area with fresh snow, and the guide tried to drive through and got stuck and had to reverse out, and then the other guy on the tour tried and had to reverse out, but when I tried I totally made it all the way through and forged the path for everyone else! As the only girl on the trip I felt pretty satisfied with myself (hehe). This was definitely the best ATV ride we've ever been on!

We also stopped at the Volcano House in the city center, which had two short films about two of the most recent and devastating volcano eruptions in Iceland. The first was the eruption of Heimaey in the Westman Islands in 1973, and it was really amazing to see how quickly the city was able to rebuild, especially since volunteers were the driving force behind almost all of the clean up and reconstruction efforts. They also mentioned that the U.S. troops stationed at the then-operational Air Force base near Reykjavik helped out with the recovery efforts; it's heartwarming to me to see good relations between the U.S. military and other countries. :) The second eruption that was covered in the video was the one we were more familiar with, the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, which is in southern Iceland. We remembered this volcano because its ash cloud was responsible for shutting down airports across Europe and stranding millions of travelers. However, the employee at the Volcano House told us that another volcano called Grimsvotn erupted in 2011, and it produced more erupted material than the eruption in 2010.  However, since the wind carried its ash in a different direction, and the ash fell out of the atmosphere more quickly than in the 2010 eruption,  it didn't have as much of a global impact and didn't even make mainstream media (that I know about at least). I just thought it was fascinating that such a huge natural disaster occurred, but most of the world probably wasn't even aware that it had happened. 

Me at the Volcano House with some lava rocks

On a lighter note, we capped off our volcano experience with a visit to the hot dog stand that Bill Clinton himself visited when he was in Reykjavik. We were assured that they were the best hot dogs in town, and the didn't disappoint. Lastly, we couldn't finish our day without a second visit to the ice cream/crepe store next to our apartment. I got a Nutella and Snickers crepe...ohmygoodness it was so delicious!

Yum!

Oh hey, Bill.

I like food...can you tell?! ;)