Diamond Beach

The plan was to visit Diamond Beach and Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon the same day as our glacier cave tour.  Unfortunately we ran out of light and didn't have time.  We tried to find accommodations closer to the lagoon so we wouldn't have to drive so far in the morning but were unsuccessful.  So we drove all the way to Hofn for the night before turning around and driving back the same way we came.  Every trip needs some kind of disaster to keep the stories interesting right?  Well, this was ours.  We were filling up with gas before heading out on the road.  As we pulled away from the pump Jeremy hit the curb and we immediately got a flat tire.  We pulled over to change it.  Thankfully we had a spare in the car and all of the tools to change it.  One look at the original tire told us that we needed to replace this tire.  It was the morning of New Years Eve and nowhere was open.  We managed to drive back into Hofn and find a tire repair place.  We learned on our trip that Icelanders don't care too much about updating their hours online or about being open the week between Christmas and New Years.  The tire shop was closed.  We found a gas station that let us borrow their phone to call the number on the door, and we managed to get ahold of the owner.  He happened to be on a run so we had to wait for him to get back.  He was the nicest guy to interrupt his run, come in on a holiday, and replace our tire.  It was the first time I've ever elected for the platinum insurance for a rental car and thank heavens.  This quick stop would have cost just as much as the entire week's rental!

Just hanging out at the tire shop.

When we finally got back on the road we were hours later than we wanted to be.  But remember what I said about the sun?  You get golden hour lighting the entire day so we still had beautiful light when we hit the beach.  Sometimes there are fewer chunks of ice on the beach than others.  I was really grateful we had a pretty good showing.  .

It was so much fun trying to capture the magic of the ice, water, and sun all together on film. 

The boys climbed on this larger piece of ice and I just gave up trying to keep them out of the water.  Hopefully their gear is still nice and waterproof.  We weren't originally worried about them climbing on the water until we noticed the tide coming in and that huge ice chunk started moving with the waves.  Nope, I don't want any boys floating away to Sweden today. 

You may have noticed a lot of photos of McKenzie.  She doesn't even have a social media account, but definitely wanted some fabulous photos to send home to her friends.

Family pictures everywhere!

Diamond Beach Memories

Jeremy: One of the most majestic and peaceful places I’ve been. I wish we had more time just to sit there on the ice and watch the waves.

McKenzie: That was really cool.  It was really cold though which made it hard to get photos.  The pictures we did get looked great because of the light and the sunset.  I liked the ice on the black sand. 

Cambrie: We took our family picture too many times.

Kelton: Me and Daxton played pirate ship on some ice.  Daxton was the captain, and I got ot ride in front because he didn’t’ want to risk his life.  Every time a giant wave was coming, we tried to get back to shore in time.  We pretended to attack other ships in the distance and had weird cannons.  

Daxton: It was fun being the captain.