Brianstorming Sessions: The Videos (E7)

So I didn't include a video of the proposal in my last post because I wanted to group it as a part of this one. I wanted to further convey how lucky we actually were to see the aurora. I mean it seemed like every 30-60 minutes the weather would change. It would be sunny with clear skies, then snowy with crazy winds which meant that it hurt to get hit with that snow. Over the mountains, we would often get hit with blizzard winds and have 0 visibility. A couple of times, we had to slow to a crawl just to be able to see the reflective posts 5 feet in front of us to make sure we were heading in the right direction. And sometimes, it felt like we were driving in the clouds.

Driving in the clouds...

Going down a hill on a gravel road

Stumbling across an old dwelling in the rain at the bottom of that hill.

Sledding in Isafjordur (while it was snowing)

More sledding (Edward looks like he almost went over the edge 0_0)

Even the day of the proposal, we drove through very windy and snowy conditions. When we started hiking to see a waterfall, it was still very snowy and windy.

April dancing on the way to Svartifoss

It wasn't until we started hiking to the glacier some 2 hours later that it started to clear up.

On the way to Skaftafellsjökull (Skaftafell Glacier)

By the time we got back to the car, the skies were 70% clear. And by the time we got back to the cabin, it almost looked like we were in California (emphasis on "looked." It didn't feel like we were in California). When we drove out to a darker spot away from the town to have a better view of the aurora, I really couldn't believe how clear the skies were. It really felt like a sign.

Thanks for taking video Edward!

We didn't have another night with clear skies on the trip. In fact, on that particular night every other part of Iceland was covered in clouds. If you looked at the aurora forecast, only the southeastern tip (where we were) was clear.

Here's what April had to say:

Focus on how clear that night was. Andrew took some amazing pictures of the aurora. A couple of days (and a few miles) later, here's what it looked like when we went on a guided glacier tour:

Lastly, I just wanted to share this cool ladder that allowed you to get up close and personal with this particular waterfall. A little background on getting to this ladder: We basically had to rockclimb/hike for 10 minutes to even each this point. There were chains that you could hold on to, but a couple of the bolts on them were rusted and one wasn't even anchored.