Alarms and tunnels

We started off this morning with Les doing his breakfast duties, with one new wrinkle.  While cooking the bacon, the smoke alarm was triggered.  We opened windows, and fanned the detector, but it kept blaring.  And, not just in our apartment - the entire building was screeching alarm sounds.  The owner showed up, and disarmed it.  She asked me if we, by chance, had been cooking bacon.  Apparently, this was not the first occurrence.  She said that since the building was wood-framed, regulations required the alarm setup this way - no fast disarm.  After the commotion had subsided, we had one of his consistently great breakfasts, though he stated this would be his last (after too vigorous of harassment by the women of the group).We packed up, and headed out.  This was a great apartment, and we could have stayed there longer.  First on the agenda, was the Godafoss waterfalls.  It was easy to hike to, and apart from a German tourist asking me to take her picture, and handing me a powered-down camera not set how she wants it, and expecting me to follow her 100 feet away closer to the waterfall, it was uneventful.  Well, uneventful except for the hoarde of flies that hovered all around - getting in hair, eyes, noses, mouths, etc...  EWW!We continued on, and drove across the mountain range of this peninsula to a great historical site - the old farmhouse Laufas.  These are turf-lined houses assembled to create a half-in-ground complex of buildings.  It was occupied by the area priest and his family.  It was great seeing what life was like in isolated Iceland in the 1800s.  I was amazed at the lack of fireplaces or other heat sources.  The guide said that with the turf-insulation, it held heat well, and the open fire in the kitchen would help to provide heat, though they all probably wore lots of wool, and kept together for warmth.  There was also an awesome old church adjacent.We drove on, stopping at a Christmas village.  It was little more than a well-decorated tourist trap.  One of the stores did have a lot of samples of their food items, so we grazed a bit.  We drove through Akureyri, and decided on the coastal road around the tip of the peninsula.  I think Carrie regretted this decision.  We have now broken our previous long-tunnel record with a 7 kilometer tunnel. And, that's not all!  "Tell them what else they've won". "Well, Chuck, They get to go through 4 tunnels in all today!  Two of them being one lane tunnels!"  How, you ask?  Just because they are one lane doesn't mean that cars only go one direction.  No, not in Iceland!  There are frequent turn-outs, where if you see headlights approaching, you pull over to the side and let them pass.  I think, 3 hours later, that Carrie has finally stopped shaking.We drove on to Hofsos, close to where we are staying tonight.  We are in a farmhouse apartment that is awesome.  It reminds me of an Icelandic grandma's house.  It is nice to not have people above or below us, as I think we are going to play some games tonight, and it is hard to keep quiet with the competitive people in this group.  We had a great (and surprisingly cheap) dinner in town, then back to the apartment to catch up on the blog and have some fun.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table as I type, and I can see across the bay to another finger of Iceland. The sun is still shining, and sea-birds are chasing each other.  I have a coffee next to me, and I'm in my comfy clothes - not driving.  Perfection.