Iceland Day 2
Had a great sleep last night. slept over 10 hours. It was very chilly in the morning. Must have been in the 30s by morning. We only turned the furnace for an hour before we went to bed and the camper was very toasty. By morning, it was very cold. I was able to reach the heater and turn it on and the camper warmed up quickly. Yay! Had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs,cleaned up and headed out to the airport to get Wendell.
The airport was busy, but it was pretty easy to pick up Wendell. There is free 15 min parking in the arrival area. We parked just outside and waited for him to text us, then we entered, picked him up and left.
Traffic was good driving through Reykjavik, we drove up to Grabrok Crater for a short hike to the top and around the main crater. There are three craters here, one has collapsed due to mining, but the other two look great. Pearl and I hiked it. Wendell was exhausted from the flights and slept in the RV while we hiked.
Now we are off to the Shark Museum in the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The museum was a little off the main roads. We needed to drive a one lane road to get to it. We did not meet any cars on the way there, but had to pull over once on the way back. There is not a lot of room when you are driving an RV! This was our first introduction to non-paved roads which was certainly a learning curve, gravel, manual stick shift, and potholes galore.
The Shark Museum included a display, a presentation on the history of shark hunting, including the origins of fermented shark meat and a sample of the fermented shark meat. The museum display was unusual. It simply featured many old items (sewing machines, etc…) as well as some shark hunting artifacts. The presentation was interesting as they covered the history of the family that hunted the sharks in this area until it was illegal to hunt. Apparently they were very easy to hunt because they were very lazy, they would swim slowly and eat dead food to converserve energy in the deep cold water. So putting any food on the hook would guarantee you a catch. It was mainly hunted for the oil in its liver that was used for lightning. The meat is toxic because these sharks are bottom feeders and live deep in the ocean. Once electricity came around, it was not needed and the industry died off. Now they only process sharks “incidentally” caught in nets into fermented meat as a delicacy. I tried the fermented shark. I would not consider it a delicacy, but I was able to stomach it. (Editor’s Note: Pearl thought it was fine, Wendell was a baby about it). We were allowed to walk the grounds and check out the drying racks where the shark meat was hung to dry. We were told not to walk under it as the oil will leak and get in our clothes and the smell is hard to wash out.
We found a campsite in Budardalur that had good ratings. It had electricity, hot showers, a kitchen and cleaning area. We were the second campers to pull in, but most of the camping sites were closed due to wet conditions. We were instructed to park on the gravel road that lead to the closed sites, close to the power. Eventually more campers arrived and things were chaotic as there was no place for all the campers. Eventually the manager showed up and was able to organize the campers. We had to have another RV park in front of us. So we were parked in for the night. They were very gracious and promised to move as soon as we wanted to move. There was a grocery and gas right across the street. This was very convenient. The showers were hot and clean. As well as the kitchen and laundry rooms. A successful first night of hamburger helper.
