We spent the night at a farm (Brunnholl) that, like most places, was in the absolute middle of nowhere and got there the night before after it got dark so when we woke up (after the middle one threw up a minimum of 10 times in the middle of the night) we had some breakfast and then took a bit of time to look around. First thing we noticed outside was a border collie named Mila, who was carrying a stick and very obviously wanted me to play with her. The dudes and I exited through the side of the dining room and stumbled on to not only a very playful and determined dog but also a trampoline (partially frozen) and a sandbox full of black sand, which all combined to occupy us for at least 15 minutes before we discovered the other side of the farm, starting with the ATV:

which I’m pretty sure Reed would have figured out how to drive away if the key had been in the ignition. But better than the ATV were the frozen puddles, all of which had to be stomped on or hit with a stick and the Icelandic horses that they had in pasture, one of which I became very close friends with:

Pretty sure she wanted to get in the car with us to go on the rest of the trip, sadly we had no room for her. We ended up sticking around the farm and meeting the cows, hanging with the horses and generally having a relaxing farm morning until about 10:30 or 11am, much later than our normal departures.

This turned out to be a good thing because there wasn’t much to see or at least there wasn’t much that we stopped to see on Day 5. We ended up nabbing a geocache (always good to get out, stretch the legs, pee and get some little dude energy out) that was on a side road and then made it to have lunch at Kaffi Steinn in Djúpivogur, which is teensy little town right on the water.

Back in the saddle an hour later, we drove and drove… and then on a whim I pulled off at a black sand beach that turned out to have some good climbing and rock throwing facilities that gave everyone a breather from being the car:

and then we turned inland and drove through some beautiful mountain ranges:

although the entire country is a giant beautiful mountain range in some ways (would be a good bet by the way, I doubt you could be anywhere in Iceland on a clear day and not be able to see a giant mountain range somewhere).

We eventually made it to our final destination, which turned out to be a newly renovated hotel called Gistihúsið Egilsstöðum in Egilsstaðir which was VERY nice compared to where we had been staying. We dropped our stuff off and then immediately got back in the car to go and see a lake that supposedly had a monster in it, dropped off our first “trackable” geocache on the way to that:

and then drove over to see a waterfall that ended up being a hike that we couldn’t make before the sun went down. Dinner at Subway because it was cheap. Note: no meatball subs in Europe.
Stats:

• Ice puddles smashed: too many to count
• Icelandic horses that are my best friend: 1
• People vomiting at night: 1
• Geocaches: 2