[dropcap custom_class=”whb”]Today, when we got up the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day. We set out for Stöὁvarfjörὁur. In this small town is Petra’s Stone Collection. A longtime resident, Petra Sveinsdὁttir started collecting rocks as a child. She collected them for over 70 years and now it is one of the largest collections in the world. Most of the rocks were collected in Iceland. In addition to the rocks, she also collected pencils, cup coasters, matches and napkins from all over the world. Her children now run the museum. There are rocks all over the house and the gardens. It is truly impressive. Jay was not impressed though. He thinks rocks are boring and just sat on the bench while I looked at all of the rocks.
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Next we headed to Lagarfljὁt. Iceland’s largest forest is next to the lake. Scientist are planting different types of trees to see which ones do best in Iceland’s climate. They have planted over 40 different species of trees from around the world.
There is a legend that a monster lives in the Lagarfljὁt lake. the monster is supposed to be similar to the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. The oldest recorded sighting was was in 1345. The “wyrm” as it is called, sometimes resembles large islands, but neither its head nor its tail is visible. There were also sightings in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. In 2012, a video of the wyrm was made by a farmer . This video is available on YouTube.
We are spending the night at a guesthouse near Egilsstaöir. The guesthouse is down a dirt/gravel road. We almost missed it. Jay spotted the sign. We got checked in and the first thing Jay noticed was that there was no TV. That doesn’t bother me, because we don’t speak the language anyway. One thing I have noticed about the hotels and guesthouses in Iceland is that they have plenty of electrical outlets, including an electrical outlet next to the bed. That is really convenient when you have a lot items like we do that need to be plugged in. I wish American hotels would take notice of this. the plugs they have next to the bed are usually taken up with clocks and lamps so you have to unplug something if you have to sleep with a C-pap machine and need to plug it in. And more and more people nowadays are traveling with C-pap machines. So listen up hotel architects, put in more electrical outlets especially one next to the bed.
