Lady's Birthday Adventure - Part 7

Today we are talking about water. Most will be in the form of waterfalls. If you don't like waterfalls, Iceland is not the place to visit. We saw hundreds of them.

Our drive along the road was littered with lots of this:

Up close at a spring run off:

Our favourite waterfall, Skogafoss was in the Vik area (south) of the island.

The mist was like being in a rain shower

Of course, there was some other really cool water in the south of the country, where the black beaches stretched out.

As we stood and watched the water batter the shores, I couldn't imagine what possessed Vikings to put their little boats in such places. 

Note the people on the rock - we saw many get soaked standing there. We didn't go that close as we didn't want to get wet or pushed in. 

One of our hikes was this gorge. It was a nice hike, but would have been nicer if we weren't walking up the hill into gail force winds!

Here are some more examples of the falls we saw:

Dettifoss, most powerful waterfall in Europe

Selfoss, near Dettifoss

Lady at the top of Selfoss

In the summer, Iceland could be called waterfall land.

Next week we will look at some of the cool rocks we saw.

See Beautiful

Even on the greyest days, if you look carefully enough you can find some blue sky. 

Happy Gotcha Day Zaphod

Today we celebrate 3 years of Zaphod!

It is Phod's 3rd Gotcha Day and we couldn't be happier to have him in our pack.

Recently, while cleaning out some papers in my office I came across the sheet where I took notes when speaking to Gloria at Catahoula Rescue before we met him. I had emailed and said we were looking for the opposite of Hailey and she said she may have one.

Here is a summary of what I wrote:
-Sweet
-Confident - good with other dogs
-Could use a little obedience training
-Bath went well but he didn't like the blow dryer - put his head in the bathers arms looking for comfort. He was afraid but didn't act out.
-Loves to have his head out the window when driving.
-Amazing with cats, walked past them.

-His vet loved him.
-He was about a year.
-Thin - 48 lbs - 10-15 lbs under weight - small side for Shepherds
-Play date can be set up in a week as he was recovering from surgery (this was his snip snip!)

With the exception of the car (he really hates it), everything has been true. We met him and I fell head over heals in love with my boy.  He is my special, special boy.

Happy Gotcha Day Zaphod!

8 Pictures of Happiness

We were excited to get tagged in the 8 pictures of happiness. The rules are simple:

• Thank your nominators and link to them. We were nominated by our friend Jan  at  Wag N' Woof Pets for thinking of us and giving us the "nod"
• Link to the creator, Ariel’s Little Corner of the Internet.
• Post your 8 photos of happiness: they can be anything that represents a moment, object, place, or feeling that makes you happy.
• Give a brief description of the photo, why you chose it, or let the photo do the talking!
• Spread the happiness and tag up to 10 other bloggers. Here is where we cheat. If you haven't done this, do it. Let's keep spreading the happiness!

Now on to 8 pictures of happiness from our digital collection (that only goes back about 5 years on this computer):

It makes me happy when Hailey is sleeping with a baby or two - it is very cute.

I love wildlife and nature and this picture makes me smile as I think of the monkeys in Bali

These are bears I saw near Whistler, BC. It makes me happy because it is wildlife, but also because it reminds me of the trips I have taken with a co-worker and friend (we added a couple days in Vancouver to a conference a few years ago)

This star fish is in Grand Cayman. When I think of that trip I think of not only the great time we had there, but of my friends who still live there. 

This picture doesn't need a caption does it?

This pictures is from our cruise in November for the Man's birthday. It was a trip of so many fun memories.
It also reminds me of all the adventures the Man and I have had in the 133 years we have been married! (It was our anniversary on Monday).

My niece Maggie (and of course my sister C too!)

My boy and his smiles! 

What made you happy today?

Tomorrow is a special day in our house, so drop by to celebrate with us!

Mischief Monday - Emma Edition

First, the biggest mischief award goes to the Lady. She has us soooooooo behind on visiting all our pals for 2 reasons. The first one is she has been fighting a migraine for 5 days and has been trying to limit her screen time for it (as if that is a reason not to blog or read blogs). The second is we have had a lot of company the past few days. It is a long weekend in much of Canada (not in the province we live in, but both Lady and Man have the day off). When you live at the lake during a long weekend in Canada, you tend to get visitors.

Now for other mischief:

Our first visitors were Uncle Chris and Emma. It was so great to see them, even if Emma causes some mischief!

Here she is being a toy thief!

Emma: "Phod I don't care that there are 50 toys out, I need this one."

"If I just reach a little further I can get it."

"There is one, now time for another."

This pattern continued until most of the toys were on the floor. She made a big mess!

A Story About Gemini

Yesterday was 4 years since my angel Gemini died as a result of a head injury. This accident left me with PTSD and I remember the summer of 2010 being the darkest and heaviest of my life.

4 years later, I can sometimes even smile when I think about her and the 6 great years we had together.

Today, instead of feeling sad, I will share a funny, happy, Gemini story. It is one of my favourites.

I got the bright idea that we should put Gemini in agility as Hailey enjoyed it.  Gemini, who truly was a little princess, wasn't so sure. She definitely didn't like to over exert herself. She would do it, she was obedient enough. However, she was in no hurry to do it. She moved in slow motion while doing it. It cracked us all up! I remember our trainer saying she had never seen a dog go so slowly through agility. We all referred to it as "Gemini speed." For someone like me who is so uncoordinated agility is hard as a handler, Gemi was the perfect dog to work with. I had time to remember what was coming next.

Here are a few pictures of our angel trying it out.

She may have moved slow but she could jump

I think her face here shows how thrilled she was about being there

She was excellent at the table, it was definitely her speed, although she would have preferred it with a pillow!

Lady's Birthday Adventure - Part 6

We will begin by answering some questions posted on last weeks part 5.

Easy asked if all that volcanic activity smelled. The answer is some of it did. In one of the places we stayed the water had a slightly sulphur smell and taste. The place that looked like Mars was by the far the stinkiest place. It really smelled like rotten eggs. We didn't find the hot spring smelt very much.

The Daily Pip asked about the temperature. The temperature, as in the weather, was between 5-15C/41-51F (perhaps a bit warmer a couple afternoons in the sun). The temperature of the water in the places that it bubbled up at the side of the road were reported to be 80-100C/179-212F, so dangerously hot. The temperature of the bathing hot springs is apparently 37-39C/99-102F.

Now on to part 6 - Snow and Ice

You would think that as a Canadian who just survived the coldest winter on record I would have selected a trip to somewhere that was warmer. Truth be told, I like cooler temperatures. I don't mind visiting snow or having it around for a few days. Surprising for a place called Iceland, there is less snow than you would think during the summer.

In earlier post I have shared a few pictures with snow, my favourite picture, a favourite road, so here are some new ones.

Going up the Myrdalsjokull -(a glacier)

This was the view going up in a super jeep

The next picture is me near the glacier. We didn't stop on the edge of the glacier due to time. The drive up that big hill in the last picture took some time. The glacier is receding about 50 feet a year. Several years ago where I am standing would have been glacier.

This next set of pictures are from one of our favourite stops. This lagoon is where icebergs calf. It has been featured in a number of movies including Laura Croft Tomb Raider, Batman Begins, and Die Another Day.

This was the one spot where I spent a lot of time reflecting on the issues of climate change and global warming. If the glaciers are receding so quickly, what is the future of a beautiful place like this? Will my niece ever get the chance to see this, or will it be gone by the time she is old enough to travel? It was truly one of the coolest (literally and figuratively) natural wonders I have seen and imagining a world without it is a little sad.

Even a seal lived in the lagoon!

The bluer the ice, the older it is. The more water is compressed the bluer it gets

There was of course some snow and ice still in the mountains

This was at the top of the scary road!

That is a sample of some of the ice and snow we saw.

Next week, we will look at waterfalls. We saw more of them then snow!  I am also happy to answer any questions you have about the country.