Vicky, my wife, and I were in Iceland and Greenland near the end of summer, from about mid-August to early September, 2016. It won’t always be obvious that it was summer from the photos, especially in Greenland. (another blog)

This trip was full of activities including hiking through lots of volcanic areas, over, under, and around waterfalls, riding horses, arctic rafting, whale watching and fishing, rope swinging, glacier hiking, and lots more.

We also enjoyed lots of excellent food, sat in the Blue Lagoon hot springs, saw over 100 waterfalls, and spent enough time around icebergs to hear a couple of them split apart. This blog will miss the sounds of Iceland.

We traveled by plane, ferry, helicopter, super jeep, and busses of various sizes. We also did a fair bit of hiking, across all sorts of interesting terrain.

So get ready for an exciting adventure. Iceland is a unique country with more geothermal activity than anyplace else on earth. You might say it's a hotbed of activity and we saw as much as we could on our trip.

We took our regular number of photos but I’ve received photos from several people on our trip, most notably from Karen Gries who took really great photos including several things that we didn’t photograph, such as rafting and the northern lights.

I'm including some photos in this first post to give you a taste of what's to come on our trip to Iceland.

Puffins - which are the most iconic bird in Iceland.

This is Snaefellsjokull, a stratovolcano on the west end of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula where the Journey to the Center of the Earth started, according to Jules Verne.

We rode Icelandic horses through pastures and gorse, along fjords, and across rivers. Just be sure to never call them Icelandic "ponies". They are all horses.

Arctic rafting on the Hvita glacial river. We are sitting in the front right of the boat, looking at this photo.

Enjoying the Blue Lagoon and the silica mud. Our guide said that the only thing that is cheap in Iceland is hot water - but not at the Blue Lagoon.

Bill Bosworth