At the dawn of day 2, I have solved a very important trip problem. I woke up on with inspiration for the rental car’s name: Cjardis. No relation to Cardi B, this is Dr Who-themed vehicle. Cjardis looks tiny on the outside, but the interior is weirdly roomy. And it’s in Iceland, so it needs a j somewhere. And somewhat like the Tardis, when we turn Cjardis off, it makes a weird sound for some reason none of us can discern. Cjardis is perfect.
We’ll be sure to park it somewhere and take glamour shots of it at some point.
Our very lovely hotel offered free breakfast at the delightfully Scandinavian chic cafe inside the museum next door. A conundrum for me, as I am a non-breakfast person but I also must obtain the value from the things I paid for. So….breakfast it was. I had a vegan platter with a chia porridge which was quite tasty and not the usual chia-tastes-like-grass-is-this-people-food flavor that chia can have.
So chic 
Will report back if I grow chia grass in lieu of hair
Just as we were making our way out of the cafe, fog and rain made its way into Reykjavik, rendering the church very spooky.
It’s off to Akureyri with us, with a detour to Erpsstaðir creamery for the most heavenly ice cream in Iceland. It was roughly an hour and a half north of Reykjavik.
They make all of their ice cream on-site and are famous for their Icelandic yogurt, Skyr. I made sure to get a tub of it this time, as well as cheeses and traditional rhubarb jam. We got to eat ice cream and lunch (ice cream being the obvious first course) while watching the dairy cows graze in their very scenic pasture.
The portion of the ring road we drove did not have any idiot bridges (one-way bridges that require drivers to take turns). It did, however, have a LOT more electric vehicles than I expected. Many gas stations had supercharging stations and there were quite a few Teslas on the road. The government has been subsidizing purchases and setting up fast charging stations. Kind of wish we’d been able to rent an EV.
But we have Cjardis, and our journey was way less windy this time and actually relatively warm. The sun came out as we got out of the fog around Reykjavik, making for lovely driving weather. We passed through a 5km underwater tunnel north of Reykjavik, plenty of lunar landscape, and finally up into some small forests and dramatic valleys.
Please enjoy these pictures I took from the car and their weird white balance.
Our midway stop was in a small town, Blönduós, that had a little island park with a small hiking circuit on the tiny island, with a glacial river running rapidly around the island. The city had taken care to restore the vegetation on the island to its natural state.
They had built a very narrow death bridge out to the island (presumably to weed out the weak). Miraculously, there were no fatalities.
This is his gram pose 
RIP
Our rental home in Akureyri is actually across the (river? fjord? bay? water?) fjord from the town itself. It is Greek inside (why?) with Japanese toilets (why but also yay) and is about 75% windows, with an amazing view of the town and surrounding valley.
Why is it so greek 
Sunrooooom 
Our kitchen has three cooking ranges 
We headed into Akureyri for a traditional Icelandic dinner of Indian curry and to wander around the streets as live music played. (Live music! It’s back!)
Tomorrow: we horse around.