Best Museum Evah

We got up early to catch a flight from Reykjavik to Akureyri and rented a car to drive to Husavik. Along the way we took a slight detour to see the legendary location where Iceland traded one set of false gods for the one true false god by tossing some idols into a waterfall. At least, I assume that's how it works since they later joined in the Protestant reformation. That change involved a few executions. Yay, progress?

The stop in Husavik I have so been looking forward to because that is the location of the Icelandic Phallological Museum. It would have been so disappointing to visit a country with an entire museum dedicated to penises and not make it there. I really want to add a picture here, but I'm not sure what Google's policy is. Surely this is fine:

Anyway, the Icelandic news feed I've been reading for the last 6 months or so let me know in the spring that they had finally acquired a human specimen, thus completing the goal of having a specimen from every type of mammal that lives here. They already had a few castings, including several members of the 2008 Olympic Handball team, but now they have an actual flesh and bone one in a jar next to the hamster samples. Also, I have the bestest new ornament for our Christmas tree.

We followed this with a visit to the Whale Museum. Whale watching is kind of the thing to do here (there are more than 30 whales represented in the Phallological Museum), but Bill does not do boats. I took this picture of killer whale bones for Alison.

Also, they had some windows filled with shattered glass bottles that were really cool.

After that, we checked in to the crazy expensive cottage we rented for the night and wandered around it's grounds for a bit.

Myvatn Lake, near the waterfall, Bill was on the fence about visiting. I flipped through the tour book and it suggested visiting Hverfell in the same region which was described as a 25 minute walk to the top of the crater. That sounded like a good idea right up until we got to the base of the thing.

We made it to the top and back again. Bill has far too much endurance for someone with a desk job who's recreational activities are video games and video games, and I had no hope of keeping up. So the ascent was mostly him making fun of me. We're probably both going to be in a lot of pain tomorrow. The view from the top was pretty spectacular.

Here it is from the far side of the lake. Bill is starting to get burnt out on gorgeous scenery and thinks this lake is just ok.

Back at the cabin, we watched the sun dip below the ocean a few minutes past 10, but even at 11:45, there's still a lot of light out. Tomorrow should be another exciting day of driving and flying and we don't even have to get up crazy early.