Quist World Tour

In the last few days we have hiked along cliffs, seen so many waterfalls that sometimes we just drive on by, and seen the youngest island in the world, formed from 1963-1967 by underwater volcanic eruptions. Just to update, everyone but myself has now tried fermented, rotten shark, also known as Hákarl. We stopped at a farm that is the largest producer of fermented, rotten shark in the country (and likely the world). They no longer fish for shark, but get the Greenland’s sharks that are accidentally caught by commercial fishing boats. They process about 70 huge sharks a year. and by the way, they no longer bury it in dirt for 3 months—they just lay it in a piled up crate. Then hang it in an open shed-like structure, and voila! A unique and protein-packed treat that gets fed to kindergarteners at the schools. I wonder if they have a kindergarten dropout problem. Yesterday we toured the Golden Circle, which is a sampler plate of many of the things Iceland has to offer. It also includ...

Water, water everywhere. After spending a bit over a week with our youth group at Rehoboth Christian School near Gallup, New Mexico, where June is hot and dry, and where our group went through 15 gallons of drinking water a day, Iceland is an abrupt change and a shock to the senses. Yesterday we arrived at the international airport near Reykjavik, greeted by rain and 50 degree temps. We picked up our rental car and drove around the Reykjanes peninsula. We stopped in at Viking World, a small museum that has a replica of a Viking ship. That very replica ship sailed to North America in 2000. Through fog and mist we toured the coast, seeing a million arctic terns circling above us, wildflowers everywhere, and a moonscape of lava rock covered in lichen and moss. We walked on a bridge that spans the edges of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. We visited a hot spring in a geothermal field venting steam in a tall spray. And after we checked into our guesthouse in Grindavik...