We sure had a glitch in our start for the morning.  We were still having trouble with the heat so I called the camper van company again.  They said they would work on it.  But when we were ready to leave, we discovered that the battery was dead. This was a good news/bad news day.  I will try to summarize what happened.

• Good news was that somebody in the campground had jumper cables.
• Bad news was the window wipers stopped working
• Good news was that the company figured out that we had to have the battery disconnected so we drove to the next town and found the mechanic
• Good news was that I convinced the company that they had to bring us a different van
• Bad news was that I couldn’t read the text message because I received from Nova (data company)
• Bad news was that I had made so many calls that I ran out of credit to make any more phone calls
• Good news was that we found a gas station where I could top off
• Bad news was that when I tried to call the company to tell them where we were, the data had not come through.
• Good news was that the waitress in the restaurant was able to figure out how to get me connected via phone to the Nova.
• Good news was that the camper company met us out on the road with a different camper.
• Bad news was that the new camper is not quite as nice as the one we had.
• Bad news is that I am having major internet problems.
• Good news is that I have 2 cameras with me because one of them is giving me problems.
• Good news is that the rain that was forecasted did not really happen.
• Good news is that there is more good news than bad news.
• Good news is that Elaine and I are still having fun and laughing a lot.

Before we knew that the windshield wipers weren’t working, we stopped at the concrete church on the way out of Hellissandur.

The church was built in 1903 and is the oldest concrete church in Iceland, perhaps even the world. When it was built, it received a replica of the altarpiece of the Lutheran Cathedral of Reykjavik.  The lupins near it were beautiful.

 

I took a photo of our van through the lupins.

This cool bird was flying around our van and landed on the road in front of us.

We had a bit of a problem finding the mechanic.  After the mechanic named Olssfvik disconnected the battery and reconnected it,  we were off again.

We stopped  at a cafe where Elaine had coffee and I had hot chocolate.   This is where I used my new device on my phone to check my EEG because I felt a bit funny.  My BPM were jumping all over the place between 132 and up to 168 which is higher than I have ever seen it.  After about 10 minutes, everything calmed down.  I felt just fine so I decided that I would send the EEGs to the doctor when I got back to Portland.  So we went to the tourist center to get information and and then drove off for our day.

I took some photos of the mountain.  I believe that this may be Grundarfjörður which may be one of the most photographed mountains in Iceland.  It’s isolated position jutting out into the sea makes if a focal point for both tourists and seaman.  I think this may be the right one, but I am not sure.

We walked up and over Kirkjufellsfoss.

Kirjufell river has it source in the east part of the mountain ridge Helgrindur.  The river flows through a canyon past cliffs called Þrðskuldar.  The lowermost waterfall in the river is located juat above the highway.  A folktale preserved by oral tradition tells of a woman who lived on Kirkjufell farm.  She had two sons who both drowned in the waterfall while fishing.  The woman therefore cast a spell saying that no fish would ever be caught in the river and not one would drown there.  Neither has come to pass.

As we walked around the falls we saw this sign.

Actually after looking online, I think that this is actually Grundarfjörður.

It is midnight and I am going to tuck into my sleeping bag.  It sure gets cold here at night.